Last day at Las Palmeras

Today is our last day here so we are taking it easy. We went to the beach in the morning and we decided to give the vendors a souvenir as they were often trying to give us one. So, we gave them each a fancy pen that we had gotten at a tech conference. They were a hit and suddenly we found ourselves trading pens for bracelets. Next we found ourselves giving all the guys pencils for their children. The word quickly spread among the vendors that we were giving out pencils and everyone hit us up for pencils for their ninos. They all seemed to have 3 or 4 kids, which may or may not have been true.

Vendors with earrings, Caesar on right

Lobsters for sale, $50,000- $75,000

We then went and sat down on the beach. Jane got the idea that maybe she could trade school supplies for a pearl necklace. Jane went back to the cabana and got what school supplies we had left. In the mean time Charlie had to ward off the vendors until Jane returned.

On Jane's return the "Man", named Ceasar, came over with his pearls and other jewelry to sell us. We told him we wanted to trade the school supplies for a long, pearl necklace. (about 15 pencils, a 24 box Crayola crayons, set of 12 colored pencils, 1 note pad, 6 cap erasers, 1 small flash light, couple of pens, 2 protractors, & the nylon bag everything was in). He wanted $60,000 plus the supplies for a string of long pearls. The bargaining continued and Jane asked him to include a set of pearl earrings. The price went up but we said we would only pay $20,000. He said, "no, they were worth more." He left all his stuff in front of us and walked off to talk to Christian. Christain was the man who took us snorkeling. Ceasar returned and negotiations began again. We settled on a price of $24,000. We are not sure why he sold us the necklace and earring at that price. It was a lot of fun and we figure that the next time we travel we will bring school supplies and baseball caps to trade. Hats were a hot item. Several people wanted Jane's orange ball cap.

Ceasar was the person in charge of the vendors at this beach. They deferred to him when making sales if they were not sure about selling something at a certain price. No other vendor came near us when we were bargaining for the pearls.

We returned to our cabana and Robinson showed up. So, our final advice for him was to design a business card to help advertise his canoe business. Charlie went over how to make the card and what to put on it. He was so happy with this idea and very grateful. He is a very nice and ambitious 19 year old.

Ana Rosa had left for Cartagena yesterday and returned when we were working with Robinson. She had bought two rocking chairs and brought them over to us to use. She was so excited about showing us the chairs and saying she wanted to get rid of the plastic chairs we had been using.

Ana's new chairs

Ana in her new chair

Tonight being our last night on an island in the Caribbean we were rewarded by it being a full moon night. We got to watch the full moon rise over the palm trees. What a great way to end a week on an island.