Tomorrow We Leave Paradise

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Tomorrow we leave paradise but today we crammed as much in as possible. We started with our usual routine... sister went and got us premier seating on the beach and I ordered room service. After we finished room service we got dressed and went down for b'fast #2... at our usual beautiful spot in the dining room.
From here we never rested. We went jet skiing twice, on the banana boat - twice, took a boat over to Turtle Island and got some great pictures with the turtles, went on the catamaran and then para-sailing. In between we had to have another beautiful ocean front lunch and some beverages - of course. After we had finished all the activities we had to lay down on our beach chair have more beverages and then a little nap.. oh yes, we had a "WOW" which is a frozen ice cream wrapped in a crepe with chocolate sauce... oh my goodness!
Then we heard about the Fisherman's dinner tonight and it was getting late so we quickly got another beverage and took it with us to go get our massage. The gals that have been giving us our massages gave Monika and I a gift - it was VERY touching... they have so little and here they were giving US gifts... we have met some amazing people.
One young man in the dining room is working in the hotel and will go back to university. Once he can get a better job he will help his brother. His parents and the rest of his family live on the tiny island of Penita and struggle to make ends meet - which is a common story unfortunately in this island paradise. $10.00 to us can mean a huge difference to them. I have decided that I am going to leave a little money here... and I know that all you as my friends would support me in this... it is not going to be a lot, again by our standards, and I know I can't change the world; but if I can make some small difference in one person's life here then I am bound to do that. By a lot of money I mean $50.00. so if you think $10.00 is a lot you can imagine what $50.00 will do. I remember my beautiful friend and mother-in-law had a friend Manuel in Mexico and she helped him a little on occasion. I don't think any of you could leave and not help someone - in just such a small way.
I can't say enough wonderful things about this place AND our hotel and the people who work here and how great we have been treated... I wish I could bring my whole family here...
The down side is I have managed to erase mostly all my pictures from my camera - of course!!! shit!!! so Joan hopefully will send me all hers by disk and perhaps Cheryl and Lori I could download yours onto a memory stick because I want to create an album and maybe even a powerpoint that I will share with all of you that have been here.
We are leaving a day early as our flight on China Airlines was cancelled; I had problems retrieving my passport from Indonesian Immigration after having to have my visa extended but considering all of this everything is fine and all is arranged so we will be leaving here tomorrow afternoon. We will stay in Vancouver and take our original connection because it would have been far too much work for us to do otherwise. I will call my family from Vancouver.. until then my friends... as Monika has said.. if I died tomorrow I would have at least experienced paradise on earth.
till I see you again....take care.

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