On Sunday morning (November 6), we were not in a good mood when we woke up. As we’d mentioned in yesterday’s post, the motion in the anchorage was uncomfortable, and the discomfort lasted all night. None of us slept well. 

The wind picked up again fairly early in the morning, this time coming from the south, where we had good protection from the swells. By mid-morning, the anchorage was calm enough that our moods improved.

The last few days we’d headed to the sand bar instead of the village because the sand bar was protected from the swell and safe to land at, while the village was exposed to the swell and dangerous to land at. With the swells gone, it was safe to go to the village again.

Our first stop was the restaurant at the end of the beach. It was owned by a husband and wife. The wife did all the cooking while the husband chatted with us. Thanks to our broken Spanish, we missed a lot of what he said, which was probably interesting and useful. Several people came and went. We sensed they were family members stopping by for a Sunday visit.

We’d asked the owner about buying goat cheese from the farmer. When we were done eating, he escorted us up the road that was next to his restaurant and around a corner. We passed by several small buildings before getting to a teal bungalow. Since it looked like a regular house, not a goat farm, we probably would not have found this place had he not escorted us. He led us onto the patio, where several people were sitting in the shade, chatting to one another.

The restauranteur told one of the men that we wanted to buy some goat cheese. The man said that he had one that was ready to go. He picked up a rock on a nearby table. Underneath was a flat bundle wrapped in cloth. He removed the cloth, exposing a wide, thin block of cheese. We paid for the cheese, then headed on to the market.

As we walked to the market, we noticed that there were a lot of people were out today, especially children. The last time, the village had been quiet. The atmosphere was very different on Sundays than Wednesdays! We noticed a goat had been tied up to a bush on the path, clearly being utilized as a hedge trimmer.

We mentioned in the islet hiking post that the flowers were in bloom, and the flowers were loaded with pollinating creatures. In addition to the usual bees and wasps, there were big red insects. We’d failed to get a picture on that hike, but we got one today. Does anyone know what these are?

At the market, we picked up a few perishable items. While we’d been waiting for our food, we noticed that another boat had arrived. We recognized it as Temptress, a boat that we’d been friendly with in Puerto Escondido and Ballandra Cove. On our way back to Kosmos, we stopped by their boat and visited with them for a while. Here is the sunset. The moon was particularly red. In this picture the moon looks like the sun!

Back at Kosmos, we sampled the cheese. It had a mild flavor, with no gaminess. It didn’t melt at all. We are fairly certain it is the type of cheese was in the potato cheese soup at El Muelle. It took us a few minutes to realize that this was halloumi cheese, the cheese used to make one of our favorite foods, saganaki. In the US, halloumi cheese was outrageously expensive, and we were excited to score a big block of it for only $4 US. It may be our best value yet. Buying direct from the farmer has its advantages! We wish he had more on hand so we could go back and stock up.

The moon was so bright that it illuminated the hills after the sun was set.