Happy Birthday to Rae

Day 11 Well, a couple days early...

In case we didn't mention, we did conclude last evening with the exciting fire-dancers. They had to move indoors from the beach because of the wind outside, but we were still impressed by their throwing lit torches up and about. Two of them had actually been to North Carolina as part of an exhibition at universities on world dance.




BTW- the word has obviously spread amongst the beasts as to my ability to unleash the fury: as we were relaxing last evening we heard a thump on the floor. One of the lizards had either gotten tired or drunk, as he fell from the ceiling of the living room onto the floor. I walked out to the room, and scared the bejesus out of the lizard with my thundering roar. He scampered this way and that, and safely made it out of the way of my pounding feet.

Today we enjoyed a somewhat abbreviated bike ride on the island. We utilized the map to head through town, which lasted approximately 90 seconds. We also noticed that some of the lines on the map were dirt versus asphalt. What we didn't anticipate is that those dirt trails would eventually go from pseudo-roads, to two dirt trails, to a single dirt trail. With ominous clouds behind us, and unsure what lay ahead, we instead turned around after getting around the south end of the island (about 1/3 of the way around) arriving at PRA just in time for a late lunch. The weather brightened considerably in the afternoon in time for some sun at the pool. Increasingly brave, we've shed the sunscreen increasingly over the past few days. That also led to a purchase of Aloe Vera, which we have used copiously in the last 24 hours.

After some lazying around, Rae and I dressed for dinner. I had slipped a hint that we might have a special occasion upcoming. After a brief happy hour shared with a few friends we met (apparenently there ARE professional cricket coaches), we were escorted down to the beach to our 4-post suite with candles aplenty. We are a couple days early, but given our upcoming travel schedule, I wanted to make sure Rae had a very special birthday! We sat in our bean bag seats with pillows a la Aladdin and took in the view of the ocean and lagoon with a soft breeze in our faces. We talked about how certain moments seem so amazing as to just be surreal. This was one of them. After being served some bubbly, we enjoyed a wonderful feast of seafood, including the best tuna sashimi we've ever had (sorry Mikuni). The feast kept coming, with calamari, oysters, mussels, shrimp, and fresh crab. We finished off the meal with a plate of wonderfully decadent desserts, made up of cheesecake, chocolate cake, and raspberry ice cream. Delicious. We had amazing timing, as not more than 10 minutes after we finished dessert and champagne did the rain start. The resorts hosts were very kind in running through the rain to bring us an umbrella to make our way back to hour room.

Tomorrow, we venture on a half-day cruise of the lagoon with TeKing. Camera charging now so we have plenty to show manana.