Adventure Tour Day 2

When we got up this morning, we went for breakfast at Ziad’s house. This breakfast reminded me so much of my first trip here. We had a traditional breakfast cosseting of roti, tuna, banana, and hot milo. It was fun to watch the family adjust to the different breakfast. After breakfast, we took a walk around the island and waited for a boat to go to another island. Ziad’s brother captains a vegetable boat so we took the boat to a neighboring island. It was at this island where we met a man who runs a cultural center. When the cultural center is open for business it has local islanders performing their trade as tourist walk though the area. There are abbot 10 different stations. These stations are huts with thatch roofs. It takes about 2 hours to go through the entire exhibit. We walked through with an abbreviated narration of the activities. After the seeing the cultural center, we went to the guides house. Here we had coromba again. After our coconut drink, the girls stayed behind at the house while the guys took a tour of the island. At one place there were 6 or 7 ladies sitting on the beach, under the shad of some trees making rope out of coconut husks and making thatch for the roofs. This is truly an art. The island was very clean but had a great deal of mosquitos. As tourists come to visit these islands, I believe that tourists would love to sit with the ladies and learn the art. While they learn the art and make their own souvenir, they would spend hours talking about life, culture and other fascinating subjects. We went back to our hosts house and he opened his tourist shop and asked us to pick out a gift from him. Kyndal picked a necklace and Angie picked a wooden vase made from coconut wood.

Just before lunch, the speed boat that we had arranged arrived and took us to the next island. At this island, we had lunch and saw how they make baskets and other household stuff by weaving strips of coconut leaves. We watch one man prepare the leaves and another lady begin a weaving project. We bought a waste basket from the man and a small basket from the lady. It is really amazing to see their talent. Ziad had arranged for lunch on this island. We went to a man’s house for another meal. All of the meals were the same… fish, rice, and sometimes some vegetables. We ate some nuts and dried bread fruit.

We then moved to the next island. At this island we met a true historian. It was this man’s hobby to collect all kinds of items from the history of this country. We saw things that dated back to the 1st century, currency used from the 4th century until present day. We saw shells, plates, ancient writings, tools, calendars, art, a working weaving loom, and so much more. It was really cool to see literally thousands of years of history. I hope to go back soon and talk with him about how to arrange the items in a better flow and make the descriptions so that an English reader can read the about the history. I really think I can help him make a profit with his hobby.

We left from this island and went to an uninhabited island to snorkel and swim. We only had about 20 minutes before the sun began to set. However 20 minutes was enough time to see the biggest Manta Ray of my life. You can read about mine and Braden’s encounter on the July 29th entry entitled Adventure Tour. After the swim, we took the speed boat back to Ziad’s island and stayed the night. It was a long day. Ziad asked Braden and I to join him for night fishing. We stayed around long enough to see them throw the bait in the water. We waited for about 15 minutes and bought fell asleep and almost fell of the jetty. We decided to go on to bed.