Natalie Vartanian's Blog

Montezuma how I love thee

It’s only been two days in to our weekend but so much has happened in that short amount of time that I felt a blog post was needed. We’ve found that time slows down here, strange phenomenon I know, but on so many occasions we feel like we’ve had a full day and one or the other reminds that “It’s only 7pm” or “It’s only 6pm”. Weirdest thing, but it’s true and trust me I am not complaining!

Friday (which is the official first day of our weekend) we decided to go to the main waterfall in Montezuma with our upstairs neighbors, Daisy and Orlando. A little background on them: Daisy is from Orange County, Orlando from Florida, they met while working on a cruise ship that stopped at various islands in Hawaii. Super chill and cool couple. They had offered to take us to the main waterfall so we took them up on it finally. Grabbed a cab to town (Montezuma) and were dropped off at the main entrance. It was a short and fairly easy hike. You pass the first waterfall which is pretty small. The second one which is where we ended up is a 60 foot fall. Orlando informed us that it was a pretty rigorous hike up to the third one which is an 80 foot fall and the fourth one, which is highest up, is another small one at 10 feet. Swimming in the little pool at the base of the waterfall was wonderful. I did not get out of that cool clear water once as soon as I went in, except to leave of course! At one point, I was literally swimming with the fishies. Well it was either swim with them or let them bite at my feet thinking I’m lunch.

After a while of lounging around the “pool” and swimming multiple times to the waterfall so I could have my head under the rushing water (breathtaking experience literally), the four of us decided to head in to town, grab a six pack and sit on the beach. Randomly ran in to Krista on the beach, someone I met at coach training. She had mentioned she was in town doing a workshop and we had been trying to coordinate meeting up to no avail … so what better way than not planning it at all. Love when that kind of stuff happens … right place, right time, check! We got caught up and she hung out for a while until it started raining. It was fine at first, welcomed actually since it’s been so damn hot and humid. We actually sat there for a while until the down pour happened. At this point, laughing and running like little kids, we made it to shelter which coincidentally and serendipitously was the local bar we’ve been frequenting: Chico’s. Okay, so there was some planning involved as we were running, but it was not in the general plans of the day. We stayed there for a couple of beers, did some dancing near our table and decided to call it a night a little less soaking wet than when we first got there.

Yesterday we went back to Montezuma to lay out and do some swimming at the beach. We decided to walk to town and see how long it would take. An hour later, which didn’t feel like an hour because Sally and I can obviously talk, we were back near the ocean. There are some gnarly hills on the way there, but it’s all downhill, no biggie. We decided we’d figure out the return trip part when we crossed that bridge. We swam and laid out on the beach for an hour or two, which felt great. I feel like I gain such perspective and release so much of my stress when my body touches the sand. There just is nothing like it in the world. Being near the water so much makes me remember how much I want to live closer to the ocean. Not too long after we were wondering if our neighbor Marvin was still around, we saw him coming back from a tour with two of his horses. We went to say hi and he asked if we wanted a ride back, a horseback ride that is. And guess who I got to ride again … YUP, Romeo! It’s fate people, I’m telling you. Ha ha. Both Sally and I got to ride the same horses from our first horseback ride. The timing was awesome and the fact that he had exactly two horses with him was perfect. We rode to the ranch where the horsies live, helped him cool the horses down, give them some water, play with the colt who is there while his mom is on vacation, put the saddles away, then drove back home with him. (We’ve been calling this home since we first got here, but almost two weeks later and there is no denying that this IS home … waking up to monkeys in the trees in our backyard and everything).

We were ready to call it a day after our awesome beach morning and horseback ride; as in finish off what little wine we had, split a can of beer, eat some veggie tacos I made and stay in for the night. Orlando came down and asked if we wanted to go in to town since it was Daisy’s birthday. We quickly made the decision that we were ready for some more adventures and got ready to go. We were scheming to grab a bottle of wine, sit on the beach and possibly skinny dip. All three happened! While Orlando and Daisy were having birthday dinner, we drank our wine hiding from the rain. When it cleared up we went to the water, passing our bottle back and forth, listening to the waves crashing, looking up at the stars proudly on display and contemplating how amazing this all is, our lives, how everything led to that moment and how quickly it all happened.

When our friends were done with dinner, we headed to Chico’s and thankfully got our dance on, like for reals. By dancing I mean, salsa, cumbia … and it was freaking wonderful!! I haven’t danced like that in YEARS! I was proud of myself for still remembering most of the moves. We danced, drank, walked to the beach again, skinny dipped, danced some more. I can’t describe how refreshing it felt being in the warm ocean water on a beautiful night … feeling like we were being naughty yet barely anyone was around and we were having the best time! Another first by the way. I am seriously checking shit off my bucket list. Sometimes it is not even a conscious thing, a thought comes up of something we should do and maybe because I’m in this state of being of fiercely living my dreams that it’s so natural to say “YES, LET’S DO IT!” No real questioning, just going for it! Don’t know what was the highlight of the last two days, but the theme was definitely the ocean and all its magic. Today we are going in to Cobano (feels like a town, but they call it the city here) to have a beer or two at this one bar/restaurant that has a pool, go swimming, grocery shop and head back. Tonight we are having a bon fire on our property with our neighbors. We feel like we lucked out hard core … then again, we are becoming masters of creating our luck wherever we go! Much more empowering perspective don’t you think?

posted by Natalie Vartanian @ 11:54 AM