Zanzibar, day 6: #beachlife

Today we barely moved -- apart from shifting from pool lounger to beach lounger to patio lounger to Jungalow -- but I did read a lot.

Woke up this morning with the sunrise streaming into the room, so I sat up and watched it as monkeys (and their babies!) played in the trees, silhouetted in the morning glow.

In the night the loudmouthed men -- who had been at the pool yesterday afternoon, playing crappy music through a tinny bluetooth speaker while trying to hit on some of the women and being rebuffed -- returned to the guesthouse. One angrily mouthing off about money, and arguing with his friend was seemed to be trying to placate him -- "Don't tell me I don't know how things work ... I've been here for DAYS ... I know how it is." There were lots of shushes, and eventually someone told them to be quiet... then peace. Turns out that they had gone to another hotel for dinner and drinks, gotten sent away from there in the wee hours, and then argued with a taxi driver about payment. This morning we learned that Michael had suggested that they move along to another village -- like Paje, with more of a party vibe -- and they had disappeared before we went to breakfast. Michael actually apologized to us for the noise, but I said how much I like hearing the other guests shushing them!

After we did get up and go to breakfast, we first relaxed on the big patio, and then decided if was pool time. We have clearly entered the real vacation from the vacation -- with nothing much to do, we did nothing much. And it was GREAT.

We splashed in the pool, giggling at the young Germans who, living up to their stereotypes, had gotten up early and put their towels on 2 of the 6 sun lounges before having breakfast, checking email on the terrace, and then coming to the pool.

Came back to the terrace to have a beer an a bit of lunch, and watched a crow steal BUTTER off a table on the patio. As we admired the crow's cheekiness, we ended up talking to Natalie and Richard, a Canadian couple from near Kelowna who are here on a diving holiday. We talked about diving, safari, and climbing Kili -- it was fun to meet such a warm and vital couple.

They went off to a grab lunch, so we shifted over to the couches, had another round, and got an order of chips since neither of us really wanted a proper lunch -- nice to have put the 3x/daily buffets behind us!

I started reading  a battered copy of "A Thousand Shining Suns" and was instantly sucked in -- the language is beautiful, the characters compelling, the stories heartbreaking. I'm now 300 pages in and I want to stop writing so I can READ MORE.

Then a nap -- always essential on holiday -- and then we went for a long walk on the beach in the late afternoon, accompanied by the house dogs Lola and Rex who -- we learned later -- love to walk on the beach and will walk and walk with guests. Eventually, after a couple of standoffs with other dogs, they headed back while I fretted that they would somehow get hurt or lost. (Of course they didn't.)

I had hoped to walk to see The Rock -- but after an hour with still no sightings we turned back. Turns out The Rock is actually 6 miles up the beach from us, so no wonder there's a $20 round-trip taxi fare!

Then back to the guesthouse for MORE READING and we went to dinner at 8:15, timing things perfectly this time. We sat down, ordered hummus and two vegetable curries, and were served before anyone else got a starter. Woot!

I'm just going to note that we did a Very Good Job of relaxing today. This is exactly what we needed!

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