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Hola Hermana,
Thought I would try my hand at sharing my adventures with you, as I suspect you will be the only one reading, which is just fine by me. In any event, we made it, and I am writing to you under a spectaculary bright moon from Mt. Vernon. I don't know if the moon seems closer because we are closer to the equator, but whatever the reason it seems that if you had a very big ladder you could climb your way to it in just a few hours.
The clouds roll by in the evening and most of them are thin and wispy and the light diffuses through the clould much like the light through a chinese paper lantern. The wind has blown non-stop since we arrived, and it is the nice pleasent breeze, not to much, and not to little.
The room is startingly as beautiful as advertised. I am on the outside deck in the lounge chair, and Lisa has passed out next to me. She is almost always the first to go in the evening but usually the first to rise as well. We both woke at around 5:30 to the sound
of some roosters crowing over on the other side of the mountain. The wind carried their morning chatter to meet our ears bright and early, but it was a nice sound from whatever distance it came. Their was also the sound of the local birds. I have not seen any of them yet as they hide in the trees very well.
We sat in our chairs for some time on the deck and looked at ourselves I think with some disbelief as to our good luck in finding Sol E Luna. It truly is a little slice of paradise, and I suspect in the States you would pay five times as much for similar accomodations. But finding it in the dead of night yesterday eveing was quite the adventure.
We arrived at the airport around 8:30 local time and went to the rental car counter and spoke with a man that we could barely understand. It was the heavy withh what sounds to my ears like French with a Jamcian accent. The only thing I understood was through the doors and to the left. We found our shuttle and he took us to get our car. The counter man called Sol E Luna and there was no answer on the phone so he gave us directions in the French Jamacian accent and off we went not sure of anything. He encouraged us to stay at a local Hotel for the evening but we decided it was an island, how hard can it be right?
Lisa played navigator with a map and flashlight, and I played crazy New York cab driver. We had read about St. Maartin traffic and all the travel writers are right on that score. So we had to try and decipher streets without street signs, and narrow unlighted roads with random speed bumps thrown in with absolutely no logical rime or reason. Lisa says the roads remind her of a James Bond movie, and that is a good description. An unlighted Vespa whizzed past us in the opposite direction as we were doing 40 mph and scared the hell out of both of us.
In our drive we passed through some very unpleasent scenery though. We were terribly shocked at the amount of poverty and genuine ugliness and dirtiness of the streets. At some parts we felt like the coouple in the horror movie who doesnt have enough sense to turn around while everyone watching the picture knows the stupid couple is about to get slaughtered by some ax weilding maniac. But we decided to laugh off our paranoia and charge on. After much trepedation and searching though some narrow streets we found Sol E Luna. It looked well manicured from the outside but the doors were locked.
I walked up the back stairs and heard some people talking and shouted a hello. A man quickly came down and introduced himself as Francois, and then his wife of girlfriend soon followed and her name was Charlotte. Charlotte explained that her parents owned the Inn but they were away, and she was watching it for them. Being off season, the place is deserted and we are the only couple in any of the rooms, which for us is fantastic. Charlotte and Francois were fantastic and showed us about the place. They have yet to even ask for a credit card or drivers license. Could you imaging doing that in the states! She told us we would settle up when her parents get back.
It is remarkebly laid back here. Even the animals seem to have developed the island vibe. We have seen cats hanging out on Jeep roofs, a dog sprawled out in the foyer of a nice restaurant this evening. Cats seems to mill about with ease. At lunch today a young French boy was petting a cat, which the waiter did not seem to care for, so he called it a Spanish cat which we found funny.
It seems while I'm writing a very vocal, and not unshy woman is being made love to in the next villa. Apparently he must be good, or she can accomplish the task quickly...ah yes, back to the vibe. {or shold I say viberator??}
A perfectly natural seguay in to "naturalism" as they call it here. We went to Orient beach for our first day, which according to Fodyers travel guide is a spectacular beach and world renown. As we were only five mintues from that beach, we made it our first beach trip, and will try to get and see as many as we can in a comfortable pace. The water is both postcard blue and bathwater warm with beautiful white fine sand. Also at the beach were plenty of interesting characters. The far end of the beach is reserved for nudism, and the other end nudism is restricted, but apparetnly toplessness is not, but I wish it were. Why is it the people who decide to do the naked thing are among the least attractive of the species? But the comic relief was great fun.
We had a man who was at least forty or so pounds overweight wearing a blue g-string grape nut smuggler with the dental floss growing right up the crack. Did not seem to have a care in the world. Then we had several man wearing sarongs, which I call dresses. We also had several other male g-string wearers whose grape nuts look like they were about to burst. Then we had some lady who insisted on walking around topless with her precious dog pressed up against her bosoms. The dog seemed to be pleading with us as she stolled by. He didn't seem to understand it either.
You can rent chairs and umbrellas on the beach anywhere from five to twenty dollars. You get two chairs, an umbrella and some cold beer depending on your choice. The less you pay the closer you are to your neighbors, the more you pay, the more space you get. We settled on the fifteen dollar chairs, well worth the money. I was irritated at first with having to spend the money, but I didn't think about the sun cooking us all day without an umbrella. We were under the umbrella and still got cooked pretty good.
Each beach section also has its own bar or restaurant, and so we went to our French restuarant for lunch. We had a spectacular salad with endives, apple walnuts and goat cheese for an appitizer, and then a four cheese pizza for lunch. The pizza was out of this world. A very light thin crust with perfectly melted goat, mozzerlla, parmesan and some other I forget at the moment. Then back to the beach chair to pass out for our afternoon siesta.
I fill you in on more as I go along. Hope all is well in Portlandia.
Ciao
Kurt
Sorry if the spelling and grammer is missing some letters and coherence. Writing under the moonlight and it is late!
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