Other than eating (yum), I participated in two major activities. The first was a tough bike ride. This place is flat (no hills whatsoever), so that’s saying something. Turns out that riding a bike that’s maybe five or ten years old, and that’s never been lubricated and has stayed near the ocean…turns out that means you’re likely to enjoy decaying bearings and substantial persistence.
None of the bikes we used would coast farther than 30 feet (not exaggerating)…and my pedal bearing(s) started going maybe two miles before we got back to our mansion. I was red faced from the sun-heat, humidity, and effort by the time we got back to our temporary home base.
But I made it!
We explored this beach then headed back, so it was at approximately the half-way point. It was quite an expedition.
Our second expedition was much easier on my knees and hips. However, taking an old school bus on a tour of the same environment does not mean things are easy. We bounced a lot. There’s been too much rain for them to fix the road, so we had lots of deep puddles to crawl through, and lumpy soft sand to negotiate*.
The kicker is that all of us that had Fitbits concurred—we got thousands of steps for bouncing several miles in the old school bus (one escape hatch in the roof was covered in pieces of lumber…).
The photo is of surviving tabby ruins at Chocolate plantation. Hundreds of slaves lived and worked here. It must have been miserable. We had an easy time of it—no biting insects; we could resort to the shade, and we had plenty of cold water, and, most important, were tourists and not enslaved workers.
* The worst was when we passed the not-too-long-dead cow. Pee-eeuw. And we had to pass the vulture-bait twice. We are tough ladies and survived.