We were greeted by smiling faces and more English than we might have expected. Even though we are a week early for the Rally festivities here scheduled for October 5-12, we were met by two men acting as rally liaisons. Both had decent English and were quick to offer us rides to town 25k away for shopping and sightseeing.
The locals grin and laugh readily, often as if they can't help themselves. Some of it is eager enthusiasm, some of it nervousness. One of the liaison fellows had the habit of hiding his grin with his hand. They are very fired up at the thought of all the yachts coming. I felt like such a heel having to tell them we were leaving in the morning. If we could do this again, we would go a lot slower. this could be a nice place to hang.
When we'd arrived midday there were two cruising boats in the anchorage. By evening there were five. We met up for a beer with the other crews at the palapa on the west end of the string, recommended as the best by a boat that had been here a week. But there were five businesses in the string, all in brand new buildings, so we decided to spread the business around and take our dinner in the middle one whose owners had come to the beach to greet us.
We were not sorry with our choice! We had terrific calamari even as the squid boats were heeding out for the night. Could it get any fresher? A slight misunderstanding delivered three orders of it, plus we had nasi goreng, the ubiquitous Indonesian fried rice dish and Cha Kah Kuhn, stir fried water spinach. Way too much, but all that for five people with drinks came to a total of about $20, and everything was delicious! Does life get any better?
Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad
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