There was a party here last night.
By the looks of it, many nights before too.
The table is half burnt but if it still stands, it’s good enough for me; it’s hard to write while squatting like the Indians do.
And so, while also forgetting my hat on the plane, I left my shoes in my room. IIt’s early in the morning I thought. I won’t need them, I told myself. The ground won’t be that hot this early.
I’m about to pay the price for my ignorance.
Sitting here on the last remnants of shade, the sun keeps eating away at its carcass.
I look in the distance at the scorching hot sands and I know;
I’ll have to walk that valley of death pretty soon.
The dogs out here are pretty friendly, the hippies are being hippies, mosquitoes aren’t too bad and I’m good friends with a cat.
I like this place.
As I watch a dog taking a shit further down the beach, I make a mental note of its location. And then I’m reminded of a story.
Ok. Get this.
There’s this beach with black sands all over. The sand is magnetic. If you run a magnet through it, the ground moves and you’re amazed at the simplicity of life.
As my friend tells me the story, she says that a local pointed it to her while also asking, half jokingly: ‘’don’t tell the white people’’
Have you ever been to a place that you could undoubtedly call paradise? Only to go there years later to find its spirit mangled by tourist development and gentrification?
I have.
Even though I’ve never travelled very far yet, I’ve seen it.
Now, to be fair, I’m happy the people of this place can make businesses and thrive, although I have a hunch most of the hostels belong to ‘’foreigners’’.
But in truth, I don’t know.
That’s a complicated matter for complicated minds.
I leave it to wiser people to unravel
As far as I’m concerned, I prefer to tread gently wherever I go, give thanks often, mingle with the culture and most of all, never to take a proverbial shit on the beach.
