Rogue suitcase captured, everything intact

Our suitcase, with the ketchup and peanut butter, finally arrived in Bahia yesterday. Apparently, the airline or transportation people had to do the equivalent of handcuffs (or maybe a straitjacket?) to keep it from escaping again. Although the suitcase itself was a little bit crushed, everything I packed was still in it, including the ketchup.
I wish I had packed a jar of horseradish, though, to make the cocktail sauce for the shrimp. We can’t find that in the stores. The Spanish dictionary said the word was rabano, but that is apparently the word for radish, not horseradish. I asked for rabano at the vegetable market, and people tried to sell me red radishes. Even rabano mas picante (radish more hot) didn’t work. I figured if I found the horseradish root, I’d grind it myself, but no luck. I’ll probably just substitute hot sauce for the horseradish. And we do have shrimp! Our first purchases at the market included shrimp (with the heads still on, a Walmart sack full), a chunk of fresh tuna the size of a chuck roast, the sweetest papaya (over 4 pounds for one dollar) I’ve ever tasted, a ripe pineapple, and limes. We cleaned the shrimp as soon as we got back to the condo. Phillip pinched the heads off and peeled it and I deveined it. That was our lunch today. We did find real butter and fresh garlic…. We actually didn't need the cocktail sauce for this round of shrimp!
Yesterday, we ate lunch at a restaurant since we were out walking at lunchtime (still looking for the butter and horseradish then). The Ecuadorians can do wonderful things with chicken… Phillip’s lunch was fried chicken, the two sides of a chicken breast, seasoned but not really breaded or battered, and fried. It was tender, moist, and delicious. Me? cerviche. I went for the fish cerviche because I knew I had shrimp and lime juice at the condo and could make shrimp cerviche later. For $3.50, I got a soup bowl full of tangy, delicious fish cerviche, with the side of fried plantain chips. And yes, that is a bottle of cerveza grande next to my bowl.
When we first arrived at the condo on Thursday, it didn’t have a working air conditioner, the cable TV wasn’t hooked up, there was no internet service, and my suitcase was missing. All of those things have been fixed or found now, so we are all set to enjoy ourselves! Regarding the A/C, the living room/kitchen doesn’t need it, as the breeze blows thru that area from the window to the patio. However, the bedroom, which is where the window A/C unit is, was more comfortable last night with the unit going. The A/C also apparently drowned out the noise of the neighborhood dog who barked at 12:30 am each of the previous nights. A couple of the views from our patio, which is where you will find us when we are not walking the town. Kids frequently swim from off the dock, and every morning, people are in boats in the bay, catching fish. We think they are using nets.
We walked around the peninsula again this afternoon and found families enjoying their Sunday at the beach. The beach area widens just a bit farther out the peninsula from our condo, the side we can't see from our balcony. A quiet Sunday afternoon for us, washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, and just chilling out, drinking mocha frappiccinos and banana bebida con leches. I start Spanish school tomorrow afternoon, so Phillip will have free time to wander loose in the streets of Bahia.