Our last day of 2009 was pretty close to perfect. We spent the morning diving a wreck in Gili’s crystal clear waters and saw 3 big turtles (1m) as well as hundreds of fish of all different colours, shapes and sizes. We spent the afternoon on the beach snorkeling, swimming and sunbathing before returning to our room, slightly redder than we’d left (my nose in particular seems to be immune to sun cream!).
Having walked around the whole island the previous day (took about 3 hours with numerous stops to swim) we decided we’d walk to one of the southwest beaches to watch sunset. Once more, the beach was deserted and we saw the final sun setting on 2009 with only the lapping of the waves breaking the silence. Just when I thought that it couldn’t get better I turned round from taking a photo to discover candles lit in the sand and then some music started playing (Alex had secretly saved his birthday cake candles and brought them and his mp3 player out with us). So this is how we sat and enjoyed our ‘homemade’ rum and coke.
Next we joined the party back along the main strip and after several hours enjoying the music and fireworks, wandered up to the main beach and went for a swim………. If we’d known that the fan in our room wasn’t going to work on our return, we would have stayed in the sea longer and probably slept on a sunlounger….unfortunately we didn’t and we spent the first ‘night’ of 2010 alternating between trying to sleep, giving up and sitting outside and showering to cool down. Some of the other guests had also abandoned their beds and were sleeping outside. The positive was that when the 4:30am prayers were belted out from the mosque adjacent to our homestay, we weren’t woken up! Our worst night’s sleep so far but more than made up for by our day 🙂
