That was my view walking out of the main house this morning. Incredible.
For a few days I am "work-free" so yesterday I went with a few of the other people staying here to the local beach. It was clothing optional so that was a new experience (the group I was with didn't partake). I admit, it was a bit awkward at first, but then sort of refreshing that people were just so comfortable. It reminded me of the video for "Gobbledigook" by Sigur Rós which is pretty beautiful.
We kept going back all day while making trips to other locales. First we went to the market to get food. It was essentially a super-expensive Trader Joe's. I guess since it's an island, things here are pricey. Nevertheless the prepared food they serve is really good an a nice lunch to bring to the beach. We went back to the beach then this guy who has been here for 3 weeks, Darcy, tried to take us to this other beach that was past a lava field. We couldn't get in because the lava field was closed.
When we asked if there was another way to get to the beach this kind of obnoxious park ranger lady told us it was private and we should leave it alone. Darcy responded, with his Australian accent in his kind of blunt way, "It's a beach." And she responded abruptly, "Well, yes life is a bitch. You just have to get used to it." We corrected her and I think at that point she felt like a "beach."
Instead, Darcy showed us this other privately owned place (I don't know exactly how he knows all of these places) that has these steam vents that you can like sit in as if it were a sauna. He took us to this little hole in the side of a hill that led into this little cave with wooden seats.
It was unreal. We stayed there for a bit and found ourselves back on the beach after.
Today, we went to this green sanded beach at the southern part of the big island. It was about a 1 1/2 hour drive and a 45 minute hike...
But boy was it worth it. Sure, it's not necessarily green. More of a greenish tint. Still very cool. I really enjoyed the waves there. I was bouncing around and swimming into the waves screaming like a little boy. The winds were intense around there though, especially in the cove the beach was in.
On the way back, this random dude asked if we wanted to hitch in his pick up to our car. We gladly accepted since we definitely not in the mood for that hike. This was the first time I hitched, but people say it's really common here. Christine, the assistant manager here, told me she hitched to work for 6 months until she got a car. I am still a bit nervous to do it alone, I mean I barely even know where I am most of the time.
All of this though leads me to here, finally finishing my first blog entry in Hedonisia.
I am going to leave it at that for now, but I have yet to touch on the people I have met here. From the moment I got picked up by, Lee, the co-owner of Hedonisia, I found people with such interesting things to share and sharing them with such interest in what they were saying. The other volunteers that are staying are really incredible and all have their unique personalities. From the first night, with some, we spoke as if we had known eachother for some time. Anyways, I will leave it at that and get back to you quite soon.
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