I was invited by my friends L&N to attend a tournament of “Crap!” on the beach today with a bunch of other people. Thankfully, I was able to shuffle my schedule around so I could go. It was a great four hours on Chivos Beach, Isla’s best kept secret. It is that because the bay there  is super tranquil for swimming and there’s almost never anyone there. The weather was perfect to be sitting under the sun for the afternoon, just hot enough with a cool breeze. The bright blue water was chilly, though!

My place in relation to Palapa Mirador on Chivos.

What is “Crap!” you may ask? Well, having attended and played, I’m pretty sure the best description is that it’s a beach sport that is rather a cross of curling, darts, shuffleboard, pockets, and the entertainment of watching a jousting tournament. A large target is drawn in the sand and you have to hit it with stones from a certain distance, with the rings of the target determining how many points you get. First one to get to 21 points without going over wins the round.

There was about a dozen of us and N had everything organised very well. Pairs of players would go and the winner would go on to the next round, then repeat that until there were only two champions. I did really well in my first round, but choked on my last turn and lost by a point! So I was just a spectator after.

There is a nice restaurant at Chivos Beach called Palapa Mirador so we had tables with food and beverage service. The server there is a Canadian and she has done a nice write up about the restaurant and the beach, so go to her blog for the pictures I neglected to take. 🙂 I have to laugh at her comment about the bathrooms having real doors when the toilets have no seats!

I had four Pacifico Lights and the coconut shrimp over the course of the afternoon. The meal was excellent although the shrimp were not as coconutty as those at the restaurants on this side (but also much less expensive) and didn’t have a dipping sauce. I wound up making tacos out of my meal and loading on the Valentina “hot” sauce, which isn’t hot at all.

What a great afternoon for just $200, plus a very generous tip for our hardworking server! A Monday afternoon on the beach is pretty normal, but a Wednesday is a luxurious treat that reminds me of just how lucky I am to have so much freedom — and how smart I am to be here in paradise instead of freezing my butt off in Saskatchewan!