The archer was at it again for two hours this morning. We have never seen Robin so engaged in something before.... I can't explain it. She destroyed the first target she was using, so the hotel had to go make her another one.
We decided to hang out longer there today as the setting, food and activities were working well. We made the most out of the pool too.
After lunch, we packed up and headed off in a minivan arranged by our hotel manager. The drive to the southern tourist town of Mirissa was pretty straight forward - just over two hours on relatively straight, flat roads. It was great when we finally saw the coast as we got towards the end of the drive. The ocean air always reminds me of Barbados.
Our hotel is a little bigger than most of the family run places we've been at, but has the same, friendly effecient service we've come to expect. It is actually owned by a pair of Sri Lankan brothers that grew up in France and recently moved back with one of the owner's daughters to build and run this 16 room hotel.
We checked in and got the lay of the land, and were quickly off, walking to the little main strip of the town. There are a ton of hotels, guest houses and hostels here - even more packed than Ella was. But there is no charm in the main strip - in fact the strip is on the main, busy road. The real center is in the huge arc of a beach. We cut down a side street and made our way to the beach.
Whale watching is a major activity here - specifically watching for the biggest mammal on the planet - the blue whale. We'd done quite a bit of research on the excursion - it takes anywhere from 2 to 8 hours in very rough seas (the monsoon swells in the Indian Ocean can be pretty extreme) to catch a glimpse of the whales. Although you can spot them all year round, it's not the high season in the south right now. We'd heard many stories from people who had never been motion sick that they'd spent the day throwing up (even after taking gravol and wearing a special anti nausea bracelet). The girls and I decided we would pass, and though Beth considered going by herself, the risk/reward calculation just didn't add up.
We walked the beach, up and down. The sky here is so cool - so many cool clouds that get tossed and turned in the Indian Ocean jet stream.
There's a little rock island you can walk over to for a view when the tide is low. We were content to just chill at one end of the beach, watching the quiet activity around us.
We went to a beach bar for some drinks and cards. When the sun started going down, we all turned our chairs and just sat together, quietly watching the changing sky. It was a really great "trip moment".
Eventually we lost most of our light and we took to the road, grabbed a Tuk Tuk and made our way back to Esprit D'Ici.
We decided to eat at the hotel after reading some poor reviews about the beach side places. I love when people review a bar and restaurant on trip advisor and write "4 out of 5, they had good drinks". That's a really useless comment! The food we've seen most on menus are the "devilled" main courses. All I could think of was devilled eggs (that is one disgusting invention!) but Beth insisted it was a spicy stir fried southern Sri Lankan creation. We ordered devilled fish and it was amazing (so amazing I think we will be eating here every meal).
This place has tons of games, so before we retired to our room, we played this matching game that the girls found. Good, old school fun!
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