Justin got up at 06:00 with plantar fasciitis in his left heel. Once more, a planned “relaxation day” came with an ailment. This has been an ongoing problem on our trips for 10 years now. Whilst Crystal was still sleeping, Justin went out on the front porch and checked the news. The news out of Buffalo was disgusting, and he was incensed; not surprised (in the slightest), but incensed. His reaction was:
Five years ago, when we told people we were visiting Iran and the Stans, people told us we were crazy, that it was dangerous “over there”; the day we arrived in Uzbekistan from Turkmenistan we were asked about the Las Vegas shooting, which had just happened, and was news to us.
This year, when we told people we were visiting Yemen, people told us we were crazy, that it is dangerous “over there”; I told them about five years ago, and that odds were there’d be a mass shooting in the US whilst we were gone. Being gone three weeks, it was almost a guarantee. I awoke this morning to this news.
Hey white people, people of color are not the danger. Muslims are not the danger. Immigrants are not the danger. “Woke liberals” are not the danger. Racist white people are the danger. Radicalized “Christians” are the danger. People who spend all day watching Fox News are the danger (and also complicit in this).
The country isn’t going back to the 1950s. It’s either moving forward like a civilized Western democracy, or it’s moving “forward” into a fascist autocracy and likely civil war in the next two decades. Right now I’d put my money on the latter. As long as people continue to be happily brainwashed by Fox and others that the root of all their problems are “others” from “over there,” people will never look in the mirror to see what the actual problems are, and who and what is exacerbating those problems.
I have nothing but love and admiration for my American friends trying to drag the 40% into the 21st Century. I just feel awful that it doesn’t seem to be working.
He quickly tried to forget about the news and focus on us enjoying the day. We went to breakfast around 08:00. After wrapping breakfast, we found two shady lounge chair spots, between coconut palms, about 10 meters from the beach, basically right in front of our room, but closer. That was our morning plan. We alternated between our books, our phones, and staring out at the ocean. At 11:00, Crystal had a Hungarian class and went back to the room. At 11:30, Justin finished his book and went back to the room as well. We tried to figure out how to “loan” the second book in the series, which Crystal had on her Kindle but Justin did not, but to no avail. We figured we could just “loan” the physical Kindle when we weren’t using it.
|
|
|
|
For lunch, we headed west down the beach, taking stock of various bars and restaurants. We had a couple written down, but we wanted to be on the lookout for others. We got to a local restaurant, La Goulue, a little before 13:00. Crystal ordered a beef burger and a gin and tonic. Justin ordered chicken curry and a rum and coke. As we were sitting at the restaurant, looking out at the beach and the coastal road, we saw Elvis drive past. It was hot outside, but comfortable when the breeze was blowing. The beach and ocean looked like a fake backdrop behind the coastal road and the trees next to the road.
 |
 |
One memorable thing from lunch is that there was a dude yelling, walking around with a machete, angry at something or someone. We made sure not to make any eye contact. Lunch was good, and certainly less expensive than pretty much anything else we’d had in the Seychelles. To help us finish our tonic water and our coke we went through two gins and three rums. We left around 14:30 and headed east on the beach. We stopped at Starfish Bar at the Acajou resort to get a drink. Acajou was one of the hotels we’d considered, and it was a bit less expensive and more centralized than L’Archipel. We could tell the rooms were smaller and much closer to each other, however.
 |
 |
 |
 |
The bar was nice, but we couldn’t see the beach (just the ocean), as a hedge blocked the view. We guessed this was for safety or security or something. Instead of the beach we checked out the birds that kept landing nearby, including another of the small birds with the orange chests - male birds trying to impress females. Crystal ordered a rose and Justin got a rum punch. Since we thought this afternoon might turn into a “pub crawl” we tried to think back to some of our favorite pub crawls. We remembered one with Heidi through Oakland and San Francisco maybe 12-14 years ago, the one we took on our first afternoon in Istanbul, and that there were probably several in San Diego, but they were too difficult and too numerous to differentiate from one another.
 |
 |
Our next stop was the bar at the Cote D’Or Resort. As we were walking in we could hear “Open Arms” by Journey playing on the stereo, and we took that as a good - no, great - sign. The bar was empty, and we sat at the easternmost table closest to the water. By the time we got our first round, we had heard Blondie (Call Me) and Foreigner (I’ve Been Waiting For A Girl Like You) in addition to Journey. Justin mentioned “we may need to have more than one here.” We toasted the 1980s on our first round. We ordered several rounds (we lost count), and during our time in the afternoon we heard the following songs on the stereo:
 |
 |
 |
 |
Then, all of a sudden, a switch flipped and the music was some sort of instrumental, piano lounge crap came on. Literally no one else was in the restaurant at the time, so we don’t know what happened. Were we having too good a time? Taking it as a sign, we paid and took the short walk back to the hotel. The sunset once again was very nice, and there was another local party at the small beach just before our hotel. We were full from lunch, so we didn’t grab dinner. Instead we read and played games (Tetris for Justin, Best Fiends for Crystal), each of us falling asleep around 21:00.
| Previous Entry |