Colonization: Nothing New for an American and a Brit

3/19/2010

I got up late, lazily and happily and was hanging out around the hostel and starting talking to Matt, the cute British guy I was dancing with last night.  I mentioned that I planned to swim out to the nearest island and he said he'd go with me so after some time we headed off.  After all that heavy sleeping last night we obviously needed to rest before swimming to an island so we went to the beach, tested the waters and chatted for a bit.  He was rather interesting; psych major (and all that comes with that), funny, lazy, very friendly, and a bit arrogant and superficial, though not in any way stupid.  He'd had an easy life by his own admission, and while I think most of that is simply a reflection of who people are, it was also difficult in a way to compare.  But, as I said, he was interesting and for me, that quality alone will almost always override any negatives, and as there weren't many this time it certainly did.  Plus he smelled like blueberries.

After chatting for a bit, we went out to lunch.  I had a dish with some sauce and prawns, I mean shrimp, and rice.  It was fantastic, until I bit into a green bean.  It was not a green bean.  It was one of the spiciest chiles I've ever tasted in my entire life.  I had to spit it out and could still feel it in my ears for several minutes afterwards.  Once the burning sensation went away, we headed out for an adventure.

We left our shirts with some locals at a table on the beach.  They did a double take when we told them our plan and said they thought it was probably 800 meters.  Google maps says it's closer to a mile, so I'm going with that, especially since it sounds so much more hardcore.  We went very slowly, and though Matt had some trouble initially he calmed down as we went along and we played the movie game, which he sucked at, then we played the "Make Laura Say As Many Football Teams/ Players As She Knows" game, which I sucked at.

After about 20 minutes, I said we were halfway there.  After about 30 minutes, I said we were almost there.  After 35 minutes, I said we were almost there.  After 40 minutes, I said we were really almost there.  After about 45 minutes, we were there.

Honestly, the beach itself wasn't really particularly impressive: the ocean floor was rocky and the sand was rougher and shellier than the beach we'd left, but still it was OUR island and with the effort we'd made to get there, it felt like a real accomplishment.  Here's my poem about it:

A single crab King brandishes his claw,
Upset with his usurption by nature's law.
Its island invaded and now he's a slave,
He threatens but knows he must behave.

Oh how we lorded it over that crab,
As we had no other islands to grab.
Colonizers with nothing else to snag,
And sadly we didn't even have a flag.

You know you enjoyed that.  Don't even try to deny it.

We stayed there for a while and then hitched a ride back with a group of people who we'd allowed to go parasailing on our island.  Thus ended our lovely island day- one of my favorites so far.

*Sadly, no pictures, as I swam out to an island and didn't want to drown my camera.