V is for Vacation Mouse

"So, Friend Mouse," you say, "just where were you that you couldn't possibly get last week's Heroes and Lost recaps up on time*?" Well, I'll tell you: I went on a family vacation to a tiny, unspoiled, gorgeous Caribbean island. And by "tiny" I mean "has only 1.5 towns and two grocery stores," by "unspoiled" I mean "there are no golf courses and the dogs, roosters and horses roam freely in the streets of the 1.5 towns," by "gorgeous" I mean "gorgeous" and by "Caribbean" I mean "you take a regular-sized plane to Puerto Rico and then you take the smallest plane you've ever been on to another island."

So let me tell you how my week broke down.

Books. I read five books: The Alienist by Caleb Carr (which I'd read before but just love-love-love so I read it again); Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton; The Brethren by John Grisham (pretty light-weight even for a Grisham book, frankly); Welcome to the World, Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg; and Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra (now I have got to see the movie again - what a story).

Bug Bites. Between the mosquitos and the sand fleas I lost count at 50+. But after I commandeered the mosquito bed net from the Mouse parents (and they weren't getting mosquito-bit, so don't get all elder-abuse on me - jeesh), and stopped walking on the neighborhood beach at dusk, I was new-bite-free for the remainder of the trip. Good news: the island mosquitos don't itch. Bad news: the sand fleas do.

Booze. We put away a case of beer (Medalia Medalla Light, yo!) and a bottle of rum a day, plus an additional six bottles of wine and a pitcher of sangria. Not bad consumption for the six of us, although one adult would only take a sip of beer and then hand off the can to someone else, and the 2 1/2 year old had hardly any at all.

Beaches. There is absolutely nothing to do on this island except go to the beach and snorkel, go to the beach and read or go to the beach and swim in the turquoise waters. La Lanchita was the local beach for Sunday; Caracas and Playuela on Monday; Sombe, Media Luna and Navio Tuesday; Blue Beach and Playa Plata on Wednesday; Green (great shelling) and Mosquito Pier (good snorkeling) on Thursday; and back to Caracas on Friday.

I am not joking - this was a definite stress-detoxification vacation. I mean, this place is mellow. The locals are friendly but interested in doing their own things; the ex-patriate population is in the 50-70 year age range; there is one t-shirt shop. It was fantastic - so much so that some in our group are seriously considering buying some property there.

But no, I'm not going to come out and tell you what island it was: in the event that real estate does get bought, I want to be able to mooch off my relatives without having this little paradise spoiled if the unwashed masses have discovered it. (If you really, really want to know, send me an email and I'll reply with links and everything).

And to the taxi driver who told us that alcapurrias were so delicious ... you were right. Thank you!

* You will note, however, that I busted my tail and got completely caught up before this week's Heroes ep. So, kudos to me.