Day 4: The free ride to the beach

Day 4 was Sunday, so like just about everyone else on the island, we headed for the beach.

Looking across they bay from our hotel, we had seen what looked like a promising place to go.

We set of early and had a nice stroll along the prom towards our goal.

On the way we saw this sign.

Barbaric, I call it!  :-)

Anyway, when we got to the beach, there were already some people there, but the beach itself was not what we had expected.

No sand to speak of, just bare, rough rocks.  After a short debate we decided to head back to the main beach to see if we could secure a spot there.

Instead of retracing our steps, we found a track that was heading in the right direction.

It DID take us in the right direction, but it did lead to us having to take another short cut through the grounds of a hotel, but hey, we just acted like tourists and the guard assumed we were guests...

So, back at the main beach, we started to look for a place to have our picnic, but were interrupted by a guy who wanted us to do a short survey.  I will cut a long story short:

We "won" a week's holiday.

We were given a ride in a car to a really posh hotel to claim it.

We realized this was really a time share scam, but played along.

We chatted to the guy.

We drank free drinks.

We said No.

We went outside and walked to the beach - a beach that we had wanted to go to but was a bit tricky to get to.  Thanks for the lift, guys!

There were some people there, but we found a nice spot to eat our picnic and watch what was going on.

There were some very inept surfers who got in trouble with the life guards for trying to surf in the swimming area.

I got really hot and went for another paddle.

Then it was time to go back to the hotel, so we decided to walk.  It was a few miles away, across 2 ridges and valleys, but it was a lovely walk.

We saw the ultimate cactus hedge...

And I have always liked the very different look of this church...

Half way back, miles from anywhere, we had a rather surreal encounter.  We had got used to the taxi drivers - they cluster in the towns, eager to offer us "a good price" for a ride.  We were strolling along, enjoying the views when a taxi pulled up, and the guy offered us, you guessed it, "a good price" for a ride home.  We declined, and he looked at us like we were insane!

The final stretch back to the town we were staying in was up this rather steep hill...

As we neared the top, we DID wonder about what our reaction would have been if another taxi appeared...

Looking back from the top to where we had come from...

Back in the town, we got freshened up and headed to an Italian restaurant for dinner.

The pizza looks very basic, but it was the cheesiest pizza I have ever had.  Fantastic.

I decided to save some for later so I could have a dessert...

Stuffed to bursting, we retired for the night.