Friday, March 9

 

 

We hardly slept on the plane because we had a number of children behind us under the impression that flying in a plane precluded sleep. We arrived shortly before 5:00 feeling tired and slightly grumpy. Irma leaped straight onto an electric golf trolley and sped off while I opted to clear my head by walking. My strategy didn’t work; Irma’s did..

We got through security, baggage collection and customs at walking speed, got a taxi with a female driver, and arrived at the Star Metro around 6:00. We said hello to the people at the desk, slumped on some couches, had breakfast at 7:30, and slumped back on the couches in the lobby.

At 11:00 the man on the desk told us that we could go to our room. We took the lift to the seventh floor, pleased beyond measure by the service, entered the room, washed, fell into bed and slept for 4 hours.

Once we woke up again we both felt neither here nor there. We walked down the road to Gift Village and bought some things we needed; as well as some things we didn’t.

We then cross the road to Reef Mall where we wander around looking at things in a benign daze. We both notice the roof at one end of the mall and I take a photograph of the dome.

We will then go next door to the Al Maya supermarket to buy things for tomorrow’s breakfast. We will take these back to the hotel and then walk along to the Barrio Fiesta, in the ground floor of the Ramada hotel. We will have a cheap and perfectly acceptable buffet.

Testing the television in the hotel room we will find ourselves watching a dance routine from hell: grimly smiling young men in beards and scarves twirling guns in unison while women move arythmically on the spot behind them, flicking their hair to no beat that we could determine.

Eventually we will drag ourselves away from all of this in favour of deep and immediate sleep.