On the way to the beach, La Mancha, two weekends ago, June 29, my guides--four fellow English teachers at the Centro de Idiomas--and I stopped at a restaurant in Rinconada for brunch.

In the photo above, Gregorio, José Miguel, Luís, and I are posing while Janeth takes the picture. Just behind our table, women are working over a large comal to make fresh garnachas--which we ate with gusto.

Then we piled back into Gregorio's VW and headed for the beach. The ocean water felt cool when we first inched into it, but it soon began to feel just right. The sky was overcast for the most part, so it wasn't too hot--but I found out that night that it didn't prevent me from getting a bad sunburn. (Yes, I did put on sunscreen, but I should have reapplied it periodically.)

After three hours or so, we gathered up our stuff and headed toward La Antigua for something to eat and to visit the first chapel built in America. Here we are in a riverside restaurant where a tropical band was playing when we first arrived.

Then we went to see the first chapel in America, built by Spaniards in 1523. It is a small building, still in use, well maintained. To test the acoustics, José Miguel sang some Gregorian chant, remembered from his childhood, that filled the whole chapel.

Read about La Antigua on this blog (scroll down about one-fourth of the way) to learn more about this chapel and see better photos than mine here.