Blogging in Paradise
I was exhausted from the events from Thursday so I will cover them today. But first, I will paint you a picture of my current situation. I am stretched out in my own little thatched roof hut with someone bringing me endless coca cola. Yes, this IS paradise!
I have stories to tell today. First is one that I failed to mention on the first day. As as the winners gathered on the bus we sat next to a pair of Asian twins who attend Berkley. They were so excited that they were about to self combust. It was adorable. We started talking about entering the contest and they went into great detail about wanting this so badly that they chose to eat only Honey Bunches of Oats cereal until they got a winning code. Apparently there were boxes everywhere in their tiny apartment. When they did enter a winning code they were so stunned that they didn't know what to do. They took a picture of the screen with their camera, printed out a picture from their computer and then saved the screen shot. It makes me grin every time I see them, picturing these two struggling students buried in cereal boxes desperately trying to escape for a few days from the stress of college life.
The rest of our first day was spent exploring the resort property, having dinner and checking out the events of the evening. I was bone tired and not much even seemed fun through the exhaustion but there were neat activities. We went to the buffet and there were offerings from around the world. Neal tried lots of new stuff. I hunted for familiar foods. I have found that unfortunately I am not the international foodie that my darling niece, Heather, is. She embraces the new foods and textures with such zest. I find that in a new and strange environment, I need something very familiar. Not just kind of, VERY familiar. I want a hamburger, grilled cheese, french fries. Something that says everything in my life isn't different. So, I went for some nachos and a hot dog. This frustrates Neal to no end, who also dives into new food with gusto, but I think it may be a coping mechanism for me,
When it was dark, there was a beach party. There were merangie lessons, and dancing into the night. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight... There was a beach bonfire and the smells and music of the night were just like I had imagined it when I was a teenager watching "Gidget Goes Hawaiian."
Walking back to our room we saw that they had a big screen showing Avatar on a patio on the beach. I would have loved to see that if I wasn't so bone tired.
Yesterday started out early with a breakfast with the Honey Bunches of Oats family. It was kind of a "drop by" event, and we were the first to arrive. I was very excited that the people from POST foods were there, not just their event planners. As I was trying to tell them how grateful we were for this experience, especially on our 30th anniversary, I got all choked up and I'm sure they thought I was nuts or had recently had way to much sun, but I hoped they could see what this means to me.
Neal has been excited about snorkeling ever since we heard we were going to be able to come here. We investigated the free snorkeling here at the resort and found out that there really isn't much to see. So he signed up for an excursion to Catalina Island (not the one in CA of course) and we met our bus in the lobby at 7:45. At first I felt badly because we were crashing an excursion that was mainly full of a wedding party – but after asking around, we found others who weren't with them and didn't feel so weird. It was the only excursion for the week, so we had to take it and the experience may be the best we have had while we are here.
The 1 ½ hour bus ride was the ride from heck. I need to write a long thank you letter to the makers of Dramamine for their product because I didn't have any motion sickness problems. I wish I could say the same for the others in the bus. We had three adorable kids, all who threw up repeatedly as well as three or four adults. The smell of fresh vomit waifing through the bus would normally be enough to set me off, but my trusty little pills did the trick.
All along the dusty, hot, bumpy ride were sights that made me wish my eyes were cameras that could send images to a printer so I could remember them forever. I didn't expect the poverty that I saw and how people lived. The homes were tiny. Mostly little box shaped houses with no glass in their windows. Some have little wooden doors on the window cut outs others just have the holes. The front doors on many of the homes were more like barn doors, but it appeared that they did the job. The lucky ones have homes made from cinder blocks, and the houses are not much bigger than my living room. Others have houses, or even lean to's made from corrugated tin or metal of some sort. All of the homes are painted bright cheery colors, oranges, greens, and lots of pink. The shops have raw meat hanging from the awnings ready for sale. That was pretty gross, especially the ones that were definitely the carcasses of dogs. People would walk up and they would hack off a chunk for them to take home and cook. I saw no way of knowing how long the stuff was hanging out in the blistering heat, but I guess if people died from it, they would quit doing that, so it obviously works for them.
I love seeing the countryside and how people survive. The people here are cattle ranchers and many of them have fields of bananas. Some of them do both, with cows grazing beneath the shade of the banana trees. The cows are adorable. I have never seen anything like them before. They have long floppy ears, kind of between a rabbit and a basset hound. I felt completely delighted every time I saw one. The ranchers are strong and have defined muscles, not from hours at Gold's Gym but from a lifetime of working so hard to survive. Their bright colored clothes are a sharp contrast to their glistening dark skin and it is quite something for a girl from America's wild west, whose own grandfather was a rancher, to be able to see such a different kind of cowboy on the other side of the world.
As we passed through one of the towns there was a woman, with a long flowing brightly colored skirt walking through the city streets with a metal washtub filled with bananas balanced on her head. It was, for some reason, a strikingly beautiful sight. It was like a National Geographic photo come to life. I tried to snap a photo through the dingy bus windows but we were past it before I could.
Next we came to acres and acres of sugar cane. I felt very lucky to be here during harvest time. Great, strong men were cutting down the cane with sickles. No kidding, sickles! They picked up big armloads of the cane and tossed it into big wooden or metal wagons that were pulled by long horned oxen. It was like something from a movie from the 1950's. No roaring motor of a gas powered hedge trimmer or something, just the swing of a giant knife and the muscles of men who have worked the land for generations. These men had cleared acres of cane with hundreds more to go.
As I looked at these people, who live so simply, and work so hard, I wondered if I am the one who has life all wrong. These people are HAPPY. Joyfully, delightfully happy. Everyone is always smiling and jovial and their laughter is so deep, robust and genuine that it penetrates to your very soul, releasing something in you that makes you feel like nothing is really all that bad.
We arrive at the dock and board the boat to where Neal will be snorkeling. Half the boat is filled with scuba divers, half with snorkelers and we stop halfway between the shore we left and the shore of an island we are soon to discover. Neal said the snorkeling was amazing with schools of fish parting like the red sea as they swum around you. He said there were long tubes of coral that looked like organ pipes and bright colored fish so numerous you couldn't take them all in. He must have snorkeled for two hours, and his sunburned back will testify to that.
There is a DJ on the boat and a girl that reminds me a lot of Brooke, always posing for pictures. The music is another reason I think the people here are always happy. ALL the music is party music. The waiters, busboys, etc., break out into song and dance just randomly. It is a very fun environment. Our boat blared party music, and it was definitely a party boat. The girl and the Dj would grab people and start dancing with them and soon there was dancing everywhere with Neal and I cowering in the corner hoping they would leave us alone. The party girl did end up snuggling up to Neal and I got a great blackmail picture of her on his lap. I am envious of how confident people are with themselves here. They embrace their bodies whatever height, shape or weight they are and just let it all hang out and enjoy life. I wish I were more that way, not always wondering what people were thinking or worried I'd look dumb doing something. I have learned, sadly, when it comes to skin anyway, whatever I do let "hang-out" gets either burned or bitten...
When the snorkelers were done, they took us to the island for lunch. It looked completely deserted, except for a few grass huts where we were to eat and chairs to enjoy the beach in. It was covered in large palm trees and the whitest sand imaginable. I thought the beach at the resort was white, but not like this. This was stunningly white next to the clear blue water. It looked so unreal that it felt that it must be a movie set. Surely nothing in this world was this perfect! There was no one there except the inhabitants of a few scooba/snorkeling tours so it really seemed like you had paradise all to yourselves. I sat under a cluster of great palm trees and let the sounds of the ocean and the salt air breeze seduce me into some sort of indulgent peace. Neal donned his snorkel and went out to discover the reef.
Lunchtime came filled with island delicacies and I longed for a nice burger. I settled for a roll and a plateful of fresh pineapple. I noticed Neal wasn't feeling as adventurous as usual, taking the chicken, but not touching it. It looked positively dangerous.
Sadly, our time in this deserted island, which had seemed very intimite and personal came to an end. When we boarded the boat, things became more intimate and personal than we may have liked. With the diving over, it was safe to take advantage of the free flow of alcohol and the party music was cranked up to a new high. It was festive, fun and outrageous for those of us observing rather than participating. Our island DJ and babe introduced us to a whole new level of dirty dancing never before achieved... It was intensely uncomfortable to watch, and yet you had to put a little effort into looking away. It was loud, proud and certainly an experience I won't forget.
The bus ride back was again by the fields of sugar cane, with employees working long into the evening getting the harvest in. We passed by men with wheelbarrows of fresh exotic fruit and children in crisp kakaii and blue uniforms walking home from their small two or three room adobe school with no glass in their windows and no playgrounds for them to create imaginary adventures. The girls neatly corn rowed hair was adorned by bright colored beads and their smiles were quick and genuine as they waved when we passed. People have little tables set up scattered along the side of the road, selling their wares, mostly for the locals, not the tourists. I think that is because very few tourists venture out of their luxury cocoon that is our resort. Several of the little tables had nothing but bottles of motor oil. Just driving down the road it was obvious the need for this life necessity... The cars are decades old and smoke like chimneys... And although there aren't many rules of the road, or so it seems, there aren't any accidents. I got to where I didn't look out of the front of the bus because often there were people coming right at us, in the wrong lane, making it seem like we were in the perpetual state of impending head on collisions. It seemed that we got back to the resort way too soon and I hated leaving the little glimpses of life and culture behind as I entered the totally pampered lifestyle that is available here at the resort.
Speaking of pampered. A waitress just brought me , here in my little hut, another ice cold coke, just feet from the surf.
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