Beauty and Claustrophobia in Paradise
As you might have gathered from previous posts, it’s beautiful here. Really, actually, completely stunning. There’s everything you could want from a beach-side resort, plenty of activities, laid-back and friendly people. No wonder so many travellers rock on up and decide to stay for a bit longer (like we have). Or, in some cases, decide to stay for good.
It was a thought that certainly crossed my mind when we got here. Wouldn’t it just be great to stay here forever? To give up carrying around the heavy rucksack and surviving on biscuit crumbs on buses, being hassled by people, no idea where you’re going. After all, if I do find my ideal place why shouldn’t I stay around? Maybe not forever, but skip the rest of Africa and hang out here for a bit.
It took less than a day for me to become completely dissuaded of this view. Yes, there’s a large expat community here (mainly from London, it would seem). No, I could not stand to be a part of it. You only have to watch them for a few hours to realise that beneath the happy smiling surface churn turmoils of emotional strife. The main problem seems to be that there are only two men for all the women here, and that they have taken full advantage of this to make life as complicated as possible.
And yes, there are quite a few of them. But nowhere near enough to create anything like a comfortable environment. All too soon, this peaceful idyll showed its true colours; a claustrophobic trap, in which the prettiness of the area juxtaposes so bitterly with the horror of life here.
Here, there are plenty of rocks by the sea. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve all had a girl crying on them at some point in time. It certainly beats the stairs at a party for view.
March 15, 2009 11:51 am 1 Comment
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Subscribe
By mum, March 16, 2009 @ 6:08 am
sarah frankland !!!
where did your cynicism come from ???
i love it !!!
lol
xxx