Mountain And The Sea

Whooo, we are back from vacation! After our stay in the mountains, we drove down to the coast and spent a couple days in the Atlantic ocean! It took us awhile to get going, but once we were on our way it was great! The closer we got to the ocean the greener it got. Goodbye dust, hello miles of palm trees and banana plantations! We stayed in Limbe, a beach town, at a lovely little hotel right on the water, and had a perfectly marvelous time! It was incredibly hot and humid, so much that just walking around made you sweat buckets, so we stayed in the ocean pretty much the entire time! When we weren't playing and swimming and jumping in the waves, we were sitting in the shade enjoying the breeze, playing cards or the ukelele or reading or having deep talks late into the night. And eating, of course! At the beach hotel they served us French fries and sodas right there by the beach, and we had shrimp and barracuda for dinner (yes, Mother, I ate fish!) more than once. One day we went into Limbe and visited the Wildlife Center where they had chimpanzees, drills, mandrills, baboons, an alligator, a python, a gazelle, and gorillas, one of which we touched! Which I thought was cool; how many people can say they've touched a gorilla? Another memorable day was when Karissa, Katelyn, and I got to ride horses down the beach! Cross that one off my bucket list! It was great, despite the sand and the rubbing and the one horse who I'm pretty sure was insane. Altogether the trip was fantastic and so relaxing, and I didn't want to leave.

The ride back today was quite a singular experience in itself; by the side of the road people often hold up bush meat for sale, bush rats, pengolins, etc, sometimes dead and sometimes alive. We stopped for a second to look at these adorable little pengolins (they look like tiny armadillos with super long tails, and they roll up into a ball like roly polies) and ended up buying one to bring home as a pet! (Much to Chris's dismay, but what can you say against five women? Haha) We have a pengolin! They live in the garden and eat bugs, and are the oddest, cutest-looking animals you'll ever see. We named ours Tarzan (though Arnold and Oscar were in serious consideration) and are loving the newest addition to the Jackson Village already. We counted and realized with the puppies, horses, cats, and now the pengolin, we have 14 animals! Oy vey!

But tomorrow we are going back to school and work and all that rot. Yay.... It will be a rough awakening after a blissful three days at the beach, I can assure you! But we still have plenty to look forward to, like getting our hair braided, and pizza and movie night, and going on a trip up to Takwi, a village in the mountains! Also pictures coming as soon as my phone resurrects! Goodnight and Bonne Anne! (Happy New Year!)