Patillas kept us interested for far longer than we expected, with green jagged hills and thin beaches, plenty of birds and a little bit of water wildlife. We were into letting the propulsion battery charge and not rushing out to the next port, but mostly? We liked it there. We were a couple-few days in when we realized we were running out of some basics. The town beach was about a half mile east-southeast, but the only convenience store was much closer to the north. It would save us both rowing and walking if we could just… James spied something that looked a lot like a concrete staircase up the hill on the north side and, sure enough, we were able to beach the boat and get up to the two-lane highway that serves the area. Yeah, this is fucking awesome. The walk was not long but it was nerve-wracking as highways without edges tend to be. We picked up some groceries and I (Dena) tried to charm the guy running the place with my Spanish. The shopping was more successful than the charming. A tree ripening a thousand mangoes had let some go in the wind and we picked the least damaged up to bring back to the boat with us. Unfortunately, the convenience store was a real one-stop-shop and had more space dedicated to plumbing parts than pills and James can’t do without his old-man-prazole. We dedicated ourselves a few days later to stretching our legs again, this time heading into Patillas proper for some drug store and supermarket action. It was three and a half miles into the green hills TOTALLY AWESOME SHOPPING COMPLEX and I am so glad that we remembered to bring water. Once we got past the winding coast road to the straightaway that[…]
Read more