…Continued

In this excursion my phone, despite being sealed in a plastic bag for safety, dies a watery death destroying my photos, so you will have to use your imagination~

We manage to board The Magic Carpet (as we’ve dubbed it) and using Havianas for paddles we steer our craft out to sea.

The waves are powerful and they try to take us into the jagged, barnacle covered rocks which could be detrimental to our inflated boat. We paddle intensely and as we approach the island, Orien jumps out onto the narrow rock next to the staircase. He guides our boat in and I jump out taking care not to slice my feet. We partially deflate the magic carpet for mobility and carry it up the steep, dilapidated stair. We are excited to find the monastery.

But to our surprise we arrive at the top of the staircase and see that at the top, it just stops short and gives way to a cliff, where far below is another beach. It doesn’t connect to the top. We try to hike up the side and find that it just gets steeper and steeper and more and more dangerous. One mistep cold lead you tumbling off the precipice. Getting up would be nearly impossible… but getting down… I guess the only real way you could get down is to fall down.

We decided to remain on our little landing instead and had a picnic of guava paste, blue cheese, crackers, sardines, and fruit.

The sun began to set and we knew it was time to get going before it was too dark to see down the dangerous stairs. The waves were crashing in and it would take a perfectly orchestrated exodus to push off from the island without getting pummeled into its rocky shore. “One, two, three, GO!” We both jumped onto the mattress and pushed off with all our strength. Waves crashed over our boat, getting us completely soaked, but TRIUMPH! We escaped the rocks. We made it back to shore, soaking wet. With a sideways glance to one another, we laughed so hard at what had just transpired. The Island of Good Travel.

As Orien put it, Sometimes the top of the stairs just leads to the top of the stairs.