Not being able to find butter is an annoyance, but we found out how truly frightening the Island's beaurocracy can be when we visited our local favorite restaurant, the Ocean View. It is a five minute walk to our favorite restaurant from the Arbiru where we live. It is a huge open air pavillion on the beach, with excellent food and drinks and a good chance to run into someone we know. It sometimes has live entertainment or we may find ourselves invited to a private fundction there. In the dark with no street lights, we usually wind our way through the herds of goats lying on the pavement of the road, the baby pigs running around, and the locals sitting on the road peering into the shack that has a local soap opera playing on the cable TV inside.
One day we walked down to the restaurant for lunch as usual. As we were sitting there eating, we noticed that an entire side of the building was missing! Actually, it wasn't just missing - it was completely demolished as if a cyclone had hit it. We later found out that the government had come in and completely demolished it becuase the owner had not had all of the paperwork approved correctly. Yikes!
The owner was trying to add a kitchen and bathrooms to the pavillion. To add insult to injury he was also told that he would have to tear down the entire retaurant in 10 days. When we left, negotiations were looking good and we are hoping that our favorite restaurant will be there when we return.
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