Since we arrived under the cover of darkness on Sunday night, we didn't do much besides explore Mantis and Moon (our backpackers). But there was no shortage of nooks and crannies to explore. Such a cool spot! Like wooden cabins and treehouses (yep. stayed in one of those...childhood fantasy fulfilled!!) built into the jumgle so that you can't see any other civilization from your cabin. Everything was rustic and wooden in a super hippy kind of way, with an outdoor bar, teepee, these rickety uneven wooden slat pathways, hot tub, pool, fabric-covered gazebo, rooftop deck, and tons of neon lights lighting everything up. DUH! Amaze-balls. Only downside was that there was only about 9 people there, in total. It turned out pretty well though cuz we just wanted to chill and hot tub and get a little drunkity and wake up bright and early the next day. There was Raymund the bartender who unfortunately was sick from the big party they'd had the night before. With his bleach-blonde dreds, we could definitely tell he would've been a good time. He was sad too. But he poured us a bunch of drinks and tucked himself into bed. Omri, an Israeli traveller on an exploration before joining the army for 5 years joined us. Calvin, a new staff member, joined us also. Pretty chill night but perfectly wonderful once the hot tub heated up beyond lukewarm.
Next morning, we woke up bright and early knowing already the Gorge awaited us. We headed to the beach for a quick stroll before our ride was picking us up. It was my first true Indian Ocean beach experience. We were walking along on the amazing dark tan sand gazing out at the gorgeous waves crashing all over the rocks. Too tempting!!
We had to get in...Naked! Well, suits would've worked too but we didn't have those and we couldn't pass up a dip. There were a few old white couples walking up and down the beach and several life guards chillin about 150 yds away. That may have deterred me if I was alone. But I didn't have to be the moving party on this one! THANK GOODNESS FOR KAYLA :))
For serious. She just doesn't care at all. Its amazing. She waits about 200ms for a couple to pass by and once their backs are to us (like actually 10 feet away) she starts stripping down. Well, once the stripping starts you can't stop it--its just like pringles! So we got nakey as quickly as possible and ran in. So warm Mmmmm. But it definitely was only about a foot deep for the first 200 feet. Only slightly awkward: skinny dipping in broad daylight on a populated beach with only your ankles covered. Teehee
It took about 20 minutes for one of the lifeguards to start waving us in. Honestly, I think it was more awkward for him than it was for us. We played the dumb tourists and skipped our way back to Mantis and Moon. Oh and PS we passed a praying mantis on the road on our way. For realsies!
Next adventure on the agenda: Oribi Gorge. A local, Ryan, who the backpackers hooked us up with was gonna show us around for the day. We thought we were just getting a bus driver. But No! We got a friend (Awwwwww). Haha. He was awesome.
Omri decided to tag along with us. And Lisa, a lovely German volunteer working in the area and dating Ryan, joined us as well. We headed out (with Sofie the cutest little sausage dog) and stopped for some food along the way. Got Nando's chicken, which apparently is taking the world over by storm. Well everywhere but the US. We learned the whole history from the owner and he was so excited to share. Making friends with everyone everywhere was one of the main goals of our trip.
Ryan briefed us on the area as we drove through and when we got to the Oribi Gorge Nature Reserve and we hopped out to walk around the first part to get views from every angle. It was a huge limestone and sandstone U-shaped canyon. Gorgeous. It had a flowing river at the bottom, like the Grand Canyon, but unlike the GC it was a jungle down at the bottom. Just green and gorgeous foliage everywhere you looked. Really breathtaking (or breath-giving, think on that). As we hiked around we saw this beautiful waterfall off the top of the canyon, falling 170m to the bottom. That's about 55 stories. And that's what we were going to jump off of :)
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