Day 11 - Orlando - Panama City Beach

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The next destination was destination Panama City Beach, which meant another long drive, in fact the longest of the trip to date. We mostly slept, but when we stopped at Lake Manatee State Park for lunch we had a swim in the natural spring. It was a small area where a spring just appears from below, bellowing water up to the surface and then leading into the nearby Lake Manatee itself. As it’s a natural spring, the water was quite cold, but refreshing, and the stones are unaltered under foot. You can feel all the algae and slime on the top of the rocks, as we all struggled to balance on them. Jess ends up jumping on my back and 'riding' me as she’s too scared of the nearby gators, even though they couldn’t get into the section we are in. Either way I don’t mind!
Graham started a game of chicken, where who have two teams, with one person on their partners shoulders, fighting each other until one team falls down in the water. If I wasn't so scared of going underwater for more than a micro second, and if the arena wasn't a natural spring with dodgy footing, I would have considered taking part, instead I had mo fun watching, Graham, Mark, Jess and Todd battle it out in hilarious circumstances.

When we finally touched the next base, and after dinner, most people went out to catch the rest of 6th finals game, or go clubbing at the ‘largest club in the USA’ – La Vela. I decided to stay behind with Sarah, Jess, Sumi and one or two others and just catch up on my writing.
Sumi wanted to go on a walk, but we weren't allowed to go off on our own, so the others volunteered me to accompany her. And so we embarked on a very interesting walk together. Our campsite was right on the main stretch into Panama City Beach, but we turned left and headed back towards the outskirts.
We passed the nearby carnival and further, as we started talking. It was the first time the two of us had spoken to each other on the trip, and even though she barely spoke any English, we didn’t seem to have any problems talking to each other. Sumi asked me some questions and then I asked her some, and we carried on like this.
We talked about our families, our jobs, plans for the future, our reasons for doing Trek and our local cultures. Although Sumi had only really started speaking English, and thought she wasn’t that good, she actually really was. I was quite impressed at how well she speaks, after only a few months of learning. I offered mine and anyone else’s help if she wanted to practice anytime.
In the end it was a rather well spent evening.

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