Pah Pah Paradise

Other than having to deal with one particularly pushy hotel owner, my week on Providence was wonderful. The island is tiny and populated with people who speak a very strange mix of Spanish and Jamacain style English. It is surrounded by coral reefs and the warm, calm water of the Caribbean. The buildings are brightly painted wooden structures covered with hammocks and disgarded nets and floats once used by fishermen. Some of the trees are covered with old anchor markers and styrofoam floaties which look like giant nautical christmas tree balls (one could envision the Dr. Seuss fish gathering around a christmas tree of this sort). There are mangrove swamps and lime trees abound. You catch giant land crabs at night which look disapprovingly at you with raised purple claws when you shine your flashlight at them. You can climb the mountain in the middle of the island, which is gaurded by hundreds of lizards, and when you sit on the top, looking out over the island and the sea, you feel like the Swiss Family Robinson in the scene where the family is sitting on their mountain lookout, quietly surveying the pirates invading their island, right before they start chucking coconut explosives everywhere. There are horse races on the beach on the weekends, and rope swings tied to coconut trees that dangle temptingly over the waves.
So yeah, it was pretty fucking fantastic. I spent my time getting my dive licence, zipping around the island on a moped, fending off men (detraction from general experience), working on my tan, watching alot of HBO at night, and eating as much fresh fish as possible. I saw manta rays, eels, giant lobsters, and tiny crabs with gangly legs that looked like spiders or like those weird wire head massagers. It was a great week.

Oh ps!! I´ve decided that the next time I want to freak out and run away, I am going to go adventure diving off of Malpelo island, another UNESCO world heritage site whose waters are home to schools of over 500 hammerhead sharks. Anyone want to get their dive licence and come with???