weekend

friday night has us arriving at forty thieves where chaos unleashes once more.. we meet some nice locals and spend the evening wallowing barefoot on the shoreline, swapping stories, embarrassingly dancing on the small dance-floor until the room is swimming and we spin, spin, spin on the beach and all falls down. time for an adventure! i'm scared but brave and the world is lifted and mellow once more.. music giggles in waves..home is sand and breeze that kisses salt upon your lips. welcome to the jungle by the beach where sea sounds gorgeous..

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saturday.. hot, humid day with grey cloud cover. the divers are diving and everyone there is sick because the tiny boat moves uppp downnn upppp downnn on the choppy water. tom gets hypothermia, miranda cries, half of them throw up. meanwhile at thieves it's not sunny enough for sun-baking and not warm enough for a swim. brief drizzle coming and going without much drive.. sam, jasmine and i go for a walk up 'mugger's highway' just because and find a hidden clearing to crawl into. we can see the road, the road can't see us. we're hidden animals in the bushes. we giggle. it's pretty funny. back to the beach, back to the bushes.. fairly undecided and not fussed.. time is killed.. we head back to camp.

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we're going out to a nice restaurant for dinner. peering into the girl's bathroom you can see a row of us leaning into the tiny mirrors attempting to put on makeup whilst strategically angling our head torches for light (totally my idea haha).. i borrow jane's dress - it's blue-green (which looks nice against a tan), very backless and a good mix of elegant and beach-casual.. finally a dress i feel ok wearing (: it's nice seeing everyone looking so pretty and the boys scrubbed up.. 'the cave' is an incredible place - an underground cave, as its name suggests, carved out of the rocky ground. the walls are un-smoothed stone surfaces, there are very elegant tables set up and candles everywhere, light glowing upon the rock faces and reflected off the dishes.

the menu is unfortunately very expensive and sam and i order an octopus and shrimp salad to share. we wait. a long time. then the meal finally arrives and we literally each have two shrimps and 4 pieces of octopus each.. very disappointing.. but at least every bite is delicious (: we then wait again for those wanting desserts to order and eat.. then most people want to head home instead of staying out so that's what we do.

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sunday morning and we're back at forty thieves. this time there's patches of sun on and off. i sun-bake on the floating platform for a while.. go back to shore, get an unbelievable cheese and bacon beef burger.. nothing much happens today but it's nice being out of muhaka and by the sea regardless (: i crack and head for the internet cafe again and it's the first proper conversation i have with anouk and twix without simultaneously trying to upload photos (: it really made my day.. the scuba divers return after completing their open water PADI and order the famous forty thieves' giant pizza.. it was literally the size of the table, pretty impressive!!

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after dinner we meet up with our local friends again at forty thieves. i just can't get enough of the sandy floor in the place - ordering drinks with sand between your toes is brilliant. our mate gwili tells us he can catch crabs and we all run hysterically to the beach - within a minute or two he's got one. someone puts a durry in the crab's claw and he refuses to let go of it, it's apparently the funniest thing we've ever seen in our lives.. i get pulled to the nonexistent dance floor and we whip our hair back and forth as though the club were at full capacity and crazy-wild.

we head out for a spin and the night is a blur of flashes and snippets cut out and pasted haphazardly upon the inside of my skull.. i'm whooping out the sunroof with my hair whipped behind me, speed and adrenaline. jane tries to climb the rugby posts, slips, falls, laughs. jasmine tackles ellie, pulling off clothes and rolling on the wet sand. everyone is smiling. skinny dippers run in and out again. i'm laughing like a crazy person, spin like a tornado with arms outstretched until dizzy wins and i fall.. and all tumble into the taxi. bed.