Dewey

Georgia with Chocolate on her face and a lizard in her hand. She was consumed with interest in the lizards that skittered around the trees and porch. The first day she cried because she could not catch one. They darted away each time she lunged. Rob helped her catch this one and after that she was unstoppable, walking around with one held in her fingers half of the time. She was quite gentle, but she did pull the tail off of one, which horrified her enough we got a small reprieve from Lizard hunting, but not for long.

A playground nearby, with really slippery slides.

We settled into the world of Culebra, going to bed really early and waking early with the chickens. We spent the day walking to town, taking a taxi to a beach and hanging out at home.

It was lovely to have no to-do list!!


These are flowers growing in an empty lot on our way to Dewey. The purple is bougainvillea, which I love, and have seen in Florida and India but the yellow? So beautiful! They were plentiful.
It was interesting how much I wanted to know its name.
I wanted Google. I wanted to have a book of plants of Puerto Rico.
Finally, now, I find it in Wikipedia:

Allamanda, also known as Yellow Bell, Golden Trumpet or Buttercup Flower, is a genus of tropical shrubs or vines belonging to the dogbane family. Allamanda cathartica is also notable for its medicinal properties: all parts of the plant contain allamandin, a toxic iridoid lactone. The leaves, roots and flowers may be used in the preparation of a powerful cathartic (hence the name); the milky sap is also known to possess antibacterial and possibly anticancer properties. Gardeners exposed to the sap will develop rashes, itch, and blisters.

So satisfying for me to have a name and even medicinal properties.

It was a really lovely color of yellow.

Some Merfolk on our 10 minute walk to Dewey (the capital and only town on this 7x3 mile island we were on, which is 17 miles away from Puerto Rico.)

Culebra_National_Wildlife_Refuge_Map.JPG‎

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.

We promised the girls ice cream from this amazing inexpensive restaurant with milk shakes and sundaes we read about in Let's Go online, which did not date any of its entries but I think they were a few years old. The shop was no longer there so we ended up at a pizza place on the dock and two sleepy girls.



Relaxed and happy me!






See Georgia's pig tails in the shadow?