March 11, 2010

What the heck is BURGOA??

Yesterday after 10 hours of sailing and being sea sick (or possibly hungover from Margie's bday celebrations) we arrived at Isla Grande. The guide book says that Isla Grande is a holiday island for Pandamainians with hotels, restaurants and mini supermarkets. NOT! We found the mini market. It was just a lady behind a dusty counter with a few items on the shelf behind her that you needed to point at to receive. There was nothing super about it. We found THE restaurant on a dock and we were the only customers. When we came in we passed this very old women. She moved very slowly and only nodded when we passed and all chimed "Hola". There were two fellows wearing only shorts who fished right next to our table. We ordered from the Spanish menu. Graham and Amelia stuck to what they knew...pollo (chicken). Alex went with fillet of something....had to be fish and I spotted BURGOA on the menu. Omg. After a couple of weeks without meat a burger sounded delicious!

I watched as the waitress approached the old woman with our carefully written menu items....and then I realized, this was the cook. The woman took the sheet to kitchen and got her glasses out. Once she had read the items over thoroughly she got out a book? Not sure what happened after that but 30 minutes later we had 4 really disgusting meals in front of us! LOL.

The chicken was chicken, just not that tasty. The fillet of fish could of been used as a puck and my burger was not a burger! We are thinking maybe burgoa means octopus but if anyone finds the answer let us know. I am really hoping it wasn't turtle.

This morning we woke up and took the dinghy over to the most amazing sand beach on Isla Grande. The water was clear and deep up to the shore, so we all had wonderful sea baths. There was one other lady on the beach with her 3 yr old daughter Luna. She was a backpacker from Germany staying in a hostel nearby. It was funny because she watched as we left Artemo and pulled our dinghy to shore, it was like we had just landed in a UFO. She said she just couldn't imagine our life. Too funny. We were so impressed with her backpacking with her child. What a cool way to travel.

We arrived in Portobello today. We will be meeting Jeremy and Chris here tomorrow. We went to town to see if we could get some groceries and you won't believe what we saw walking down the road??? Amelia's earrings. LOL. One of the cruisers (Wendy) that she had swam up to in one of the bays in San Blas was walking down the street and wearing the earrings that Amelia had made. This made Amelia very happy. We all had a good visit in a shady bar and then made our way over to the grocery store (again I use that word loosely).

Well tomorrow will be exciting. I told Chris and Jeremy to take a bus to Portobello and walk to the dinghy dock and jump up and down and yell for us. Chris said that they would be the 2 guys waving enormous Canada Flags on the dock. We have no idea what time they will be getting in and we are hoping it all goes well. We can't wait to see them.

3 comments:

  1. We should have given you our Spanish for Cruisers before you left. Might not have helped but sounds like any stab at understanding might have been better!!!
    L
    Dad/Grampa Griff and Cheyl/Nana Cheryl

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  2. Met your Mom Donna at gym in Lacombe. We are meeting Astreaus (skippered by Bill & Dtoi Sax) Mar 29 in Panama to sail to Tahiti. Your adventure sounds wonderful!! Astreaus began canal transit Mar 13. Perhaps we will cross paths along the way!
    Linda and Dennis Ethier, Lacombe AB

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  3. You are very descriptive when telling about the old lady and the meal. You were very brave to try it. I tried googling the Burgoa and got no where. I wonder what it was? What did it taste like? Maybe that is why you felt sick.
    Cant wait to hear your blogg on whether Chris and Jeremy made it safe and sound. Also what is the panama canal like?

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