Sylvie's Travels Home

March 2 and 3, 2024

Pogo went to pickleball and I caught up with Max. We had a long talk then we exchanged a lot of texts. It was great to finally really catching up.

We had a late breakfast at La Isla. Then Pogo took a long nap while I did some laundry. We went to Playa Royale at 4:45pm to have dinner with Jacques, a pickleball friend of Pogo, and his wife Danielle. They were both staying there for the season. We went to their beach restaurant for happy hours then we ordered dinner. We watched the sunset then went to their condo for dessert. They were really nice to get to know. They have traveled a lot, lived 2 years in Shanghai for his work, have 3 kids and 4 grandchildren, he has a maple syrup business as a hobby, they live in Vaudreuil and both love to play pickleball. It was a really fun evening.

Shaun and Sarah spent the day with Tommy and Lauren at the waterpark in Jay Peak and he sent me a funny picture of him and Tommy holding baby Tommy. He said they looked like the gay couple that just moved in next door. Haha! To me, it looks like baby Tommy is admiring Shaun’s haircut :).

Sunday morning, breakfast was a new place for us: Ama on Nuevo Nayarit Boulevard. We both had a fruit platter thinking it was a fruit bowl, the way it was explained on the menu, on top of having an avocado toast for me and an egg sandwich for Pogo. We brought most of the fruits back. It was also a beautiful restaurant. The only negative was that the orange juice was from a box and not freshly squeezed which we have become accustomed to here.

Before breakfast, we had stopped at Yves and Régine’s condo to wish Jean-François happy birthday and to give him the t-shirt we had bought for him but it was too big so we went to Paradise Village to exchange it. They didn’t have the same exact design but he was still very grateful when we gave it to him by the pool later on. We hung out at the pool for awhile. It was really windy to the delight of kitesurfers and saiboats but after a few hours, we came back upstairs. There were so many birds! When the wind calmed down, we brought margaritas to the pool to share with Josée and Mario. Jean-François joined us and stayed glued to Mario who he really loves. Pogo picked up pizza at Tarantella for dinner and we watched the last episode of Griselda and the first episode of the second season of The Tourist.

Maxime’s Travels Update:

She has changed her plans a few times, based on the amount of work she has had to do and on having a hard time recuperating from all the intense travels of the last 6 weeks. While still in Moalboal, she missed a tour in the morning because she was not feeling great and an hour later the hotel owner and the tour guide came knocking at her door to deliver a noodle soup and Tylenol. The same guide that had made her a pizza before. How nice is that? She is currently in a nice hotel in Cebu City. Halfway through her bus ride from Moalboal to Cebu City, the bus stopped for a toilet break and she saw cock fights and she didn’t like that at all. Also on the bus, they squeezed as many people as they could so at some point, she had a woman and 2 toddlers sitting beside her, 4 people sharing the two seats. In Cebu, she went to the night market. She said it was the biggest market she had ever been to. So busy in fact that she couldn’t find a place to sit down to eat. She will decide on Monday where her next destination will be.