Dominical

Buenos,

Just a quick update since the internet is phantasmagorically expensive here and I can feel my money being drained away. A few thanks, first - to Simon and Sandra for explaining the F1 thing a bit better - I don't think of myself as a conspiracy theorist but the FIA's favouritism/bias seems outrageously blatant, I can't believe they're getting away with it and sorely hope that someone will do something soon. I s'pose it's true what they say -- the 'F' in FIA really does stand for Ferrari...
Thanks also for the comments and emails - I have read all of them but don't have the time to reply individually at the moment, will do so once we get to San Jose (Monday). For Ricky - we get back to Heathrow at about 9am on Thursday morning (that's a week today). Our plans for the next week are as follows... Stay in Dominical for another night and leave tomorrow for Uvita, which is a little bit further south down the Pacific coast (find it on a map marked as Bahia Ballena), and then early on Monday morning leave for San Jose, aiming to arrive around lunchtime, which means a depressingly early start, and then spend the last couple of days shopping, relaxing and bracing ourselves for our even more depressing return flight schedule.
Dominical is lovely - the waves are really, really big (I think 6ft or more is about standard) and we're staying in a lovely cabina, which is very much getting back to nature, since the walls only go about 2/3 of the way up, and the rest is sort of netting. This means that we can hear all of the animal chirrupping, waves crashing (we're 30 seconds from the beach) and Gringos Gringo-ing. For some reason, although one cicada was the worst possible thing imaginable, a carpet of cicadas is fine and actually very relaxing. We also have a kitchen here, so have been knocking up cheapish, imaginative food, since we're a bit restricted on what we can buy. Today, for breakfast we had pancakes with banana, pineapple and coconut cream! However, when we got here we were the only ones here, and the owners were really friendly. The first night we played poker and drank beer with some bona-fide surfer guys from L.A., who were surprisingly really really nice and interesting (they were also ALL science/engineering students), but then they left and have been replaced by - frankly, a group of morons. And the owners aren't very nice at all now, so we're a bit disillusioned with the place -- add to this the fact that while the surf is good, it's also impossibly strong and choppy which means that I can't really learn to surf (although I did try yesterday and caught a wave! Maybe next time I will stand up..) and Ben, although he can surf quite well, can't swim out beyond a certain point because the tide's too strong.. so we're going to try Uvita to see if it's any nicer there.
On a side-note, mum and dad - I can't open or save the attachment you sent, and I'm aware that they want it in by the end of the week (which I assume is tomorrow), and I probably won't be able to get on a computer then -- I don't know how one registers an interest but if at all possible could you do it for me please? I am quite interested so if not then I could just explain when I get back my extenuating circumstances - or maybe Sue could pass my name forward anyway?
I've been learning how to play chess - Ben reckons I could now beat most people, so think of this as a challenge!! Ben's reading Dubliners and is really enjoying it, while I'm re-reading A Picture of Dorian Gray, which is actually better than ever.
Lots of love,

Lou and Ben xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx