A weekend trip round the island

This has been one of the funniest weekends so far. We took the opportunity to book a bus to take us round the island with the other med students as it would be much cheaper and they're a cool bunch! 

We hopped on our bus with Silas outside coconut palms at 9am on Saturday. Amy and I had a list of places we wanted to visit as did the others but ours would be first on the itinerary given their distance around the island. We had read in the lonely planet guide that there was a cool cave at Siviri village and a beach with white sand  close to that called St Lawrence Beach. This turned up to be not quite as lonely planet had depicted it. At Siviri village Silas asked every villager about the cave. Mostly just by shouting Cave at the locals until someone owned up and looked like they might own up to taking us around! 

Inside it was just what it said on the tin. A very dark....cave. With a small pool of water and a crevice at the end. There was a kayak ... It had no paddle. And apparently further through the crevice was a family of bats but not a lot else! 

The hole!

The team in the cave

We managed to convince Carl to find a paddle and let us go in the cave! Amy, the trouper, agreed to go first with Megan. Not accompanied by Carl or any other ni-Van for that matter! Inside it was dark, very dark and smelt of bat poo. After some hilarious navigation we all ended up seeing the inside of the cave and smelling. The poo and deemed it a very fun activity! 

Amy and Megan went first 

Then Hugo and I 

The beach in Siviri

Having all the fun on the beach 

We then headed to find the White sand beach we'd read about. Again in lonely planet so maybe not such a trust worthy source after our previous adventure. 

We never found St Lawrence beach. Instead we found a wildlife reserve owned by 'lawrence'. This was really badly damaged by the cyclone and we were apparently the first tourists to visit. On explaining that we wanted to visit a beach we were taken down this really cool track to a cove. No sand. But cool fish nevertheless 

Trees all fallen post Pam

We eventually made it to a beach when despite the sun going behind the clouds we sat down to a picnic

Our last stop of the day was the 'hot sprigs!' These were again a bizarre completely untouristy adventure. Hot water boils up from underground in a place that looked surprisingly like a carpark 

We first sat in a warm 'hot bath - like' temperature pool. Before rolling into a sulphur mud pool and having a lady rub the mud all over us 

The team in the bath

The smell was so strong of rotten eggs it's almost indescribable. We were washed off with a hose by the lady and were told to get in the hotter pools to let the healing work! The final pool was just too hot. The boys managed to sit for a few minutes, not without coming out with a hot looking ️ring of flesh around their middles. 

We're not sure if it was healing or if it was just a very new, smelly, muddy experience. But definitely made a great end to a very funny day