Wednesday, July 14th: A Typical Day in Paradise, Moso Style

Morning
It's early by our standards, 8AM, but the sun's been doing its thing for hours and the large body of water just metres outside of our hut is gently lapping me into consciousness. I sit up in the bed with  a first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life kind of feeling. Something's different, I can sense it, but I don't know what it is. Did I dream all those animal sounds I heard earlier, or is that how the jungle celebrates the rebirth of the sun? We'll know for sure tomorrow morning.  Then it hits me, I'm on a paradise island, just like Robinson Crusoe. Scratch that, I'm on a paradise island, but with my honey next to me and all the meals for the rest of our stay on Moso catered for. Now that's what I call living!

After the all-you-can-drink breakfast coffee, fresh juice, and toast with scrambled eggs, spiced up with some Garth humour a la "Did you get any yesterday? Did you slap it to her good? ", questions I don't bother answering, we get into our swimwear and leisurely make our way to the Congoola. A few day-tourists get on the boat with us, then we're off to a nice diving and snorkeling spot, the island is surrounded by them. It's a tad windy, we're happy to have brought our towels along. Then, before we realise it, it's time to check out the local marine life. Fantastic! Coral in all colours and shapes is the playground for a plethora of tropical fish who are curious to meet us. I can't get enough of it, and Blandine keeps excitedly pointing out things at me. At this point I could go into detail about all the fish we've seen, but the pictures we took say it better than I ever could.


Lunch
Lunch is a freshly grilled marinated steak sandwich with a side of coleslaw, potato salad, and these meter-long local green beans, served in the dining room. I eat my heart's content, and Blandine's not shy of a nicely grilled tender piece of meat with a royal serving of vegetables either. Tusker, the local beer, keeps my sandwich company. 

Afternoon
In the afternoon we catch up on a bit of reading, me from the hammock by our porch. My sweetheart, a book, some shade and a gentle sea, what more could I want? Cookies! I head back inside the bungalow, and take a pack of butterscotch cookies out of the plastic food container. Ants like cookies too here, so all sweet stuff needs to be put in a box. The cookies turn out to be a bit humid, but the nearest store is several hours away, so I make do with what I have and laze out on our private beach. Sounds great, no? Trust me, it is!


Evening
Dinner's delicious. Garth makes more jokes, his wife is rather embarrassed again, yet not too fussy about it. I think she's used to it by now. He's interested in a big spider, sat in the corner, high up in the roof, but can't get to it. Blandine's happy about that, her encounter with the spiders in our Eco-bathroom this morning was hair-raising enough. Honestly, the spiders are bigger than in Belgium, but equally scared of human beings, 100 times their size. That kind of logic just doesn't work on Blandine, who tasks me to remove/chase away critters that she doesn't like. Women.

After dinner Blandine and I build a camp fire in our fire pit outside the bungalow. OK, we cheat a bit, using the oil in the storm light to start the fire. Soon the fire is blazing and we have to move our chairs back a bit to prevent our knees from melting. Life is grand!