Old Years Pt I: Orientation at Orient

The plan was, on Old Years Day, to get up early-ish, go to the beauty salon, get prepped for the night ahead and then go to the Zipline Extreme. Not really as it happened.

I woke up fine n dandy, being used to the timezone, the heat and well, not really used to having days off, was up n at 'em before E could even lift her head. I tried to wake her, softly, for the pedicure but it was a lost cause. I was going solo.

Before I could go, though, I had to wait for N's car to be dropped off - a great thing, really, since she offered the car instead of us renting one, but kinda annoying when her friend was meant to be dropping it around by 9:30 then after 10 I'm about to walk to the beauty salon, leaving E locked inside my house with no clue to my whereabouts, when the car comes in the driveway. Just breathe, be thankful you have the car.

I got the pedicure done no worries (you should have heard the Spanish woman complaining about my toes to her workmate haha - only at the end did she realise I could understand her), and even calmed down a fair bit during the process (the massage chair helped) as I was quite stressed thinking I'd miss the Zipline, or worse make all the effort to wake E and get there, then miss the timeslot. I realised that I could just throw it in the too-hard basket, let E get up in her own time and then head to Orient Bay to show her the French side of the island. Easy.

So that's what we did. We headed out, Ponche Kuba n ice in hand, direction Orient Bay, with nothing but good Old Years vibes hanging off our shoulders. Stopped by a random mountain top restaurant for some takeaway (which we ended up eating there) and enjoyed watching our heavily pregnant barmaid smoking away as she took our order (god love the French), and enjoyed the views even more. I swear that beach is better from above.

Down at the beach, finally, it was afternoon and the clouds were gathering. Soon enuf, us nestled comfortably in our banana chairs, the rain started. But we were ready. We grinned n bared it. Put our bags under the chairs and just laid there. Whatever. It's Old Years! Party! Rain, hail or shine!! We waited for the shine. It came back... eventually.

When we were packing up, I saw another Doberman exactly like the one we'd befriended at Maho, and turns out it was her! Random. The owner was a chatty fellow, I got talking while some black guys from the bar next door invited us through E to some random French side house party for Old Years. Hmmm, thanks but no thanks.

Packed up and left for E's hair appointment, where she paid what I thought was a ridiculous sum for a wash n blow dry (hooray for tourism), but looked HOT! And then it was time to prepare... Old Years here we come.