Margate (:

Miles and I surprisingly left on time this morning! We drove to Margate, which was only an hour and a bit away. It was in the opposite direction as St. Lucia, so the scenery was completely different. It was absolutely beautiful, and since the drive was really short it was enjoyable. Margate is a stunning town with beautiful beaches. We were so excited to get our stuff checked in so we could get to the beach and swim (it was cooking outside) and hopefully get a cute little tan. We also found the most amazing place to stay, called the Ingwe Guesthouse and Spa. It had a stunning view of the Indian Ocean from our deck, and was a four star bed and breakfast with incredibly hospitable service. Our room was the cutest thing, it was so exciting! We had booked to go to the spa in the morning, which was also really exciting! It was really cheap for us; the exchange rate is definitely in our favor. I was going to get a full body massage with a facial, a manicure, pedicure, and a head massage and hair treatment. Talk about being pampered. While we were getting our stuff put away in our room, one of the maids came by with robes and slippers for us for the morning (the spa was downstairs by the pool). We left and had lunch and a silly place called Mr. Fish and then went to the beach, yayy! We had been waiting so long to do this. It was the most breath taking beach you could ever see. Part of it was the whooshing Indian Ocean, which was beautiful, but the other side of the beach was even more amazing. It had still water on this side, completely surrounded by sand on the beach and then this jungle. It was a huge secluded cliff with all of these trees and plants growing out of it. You could see a view of all of this from a bridge on the road above, and I took tons of pictures! It was so amazing. There were shops on our way to the beach, so we stopped inside. We found this red coconut dark tanning oil, with no ingredient list or anything, but Miles decided to buy it, aaand we used it lol. On the beach, some villagers had created sand art, I think you would call it. They were incredibly good, so I took pictures of this too! Then we parked ourselves by the still water and jungle side of the beach to soak up the sun that I have been loving down here. It was so nice to relax and feel the ocean breeze as we felt the sun at the same time. This is when we noticed something odd. To our right, there was this couple that looked like they ‘lived on the beach’. Miles and I named them the negatives, and I’m sure you will never be able to guess why unless we tell you. Mom absolutely died when we told her about it later that night, and would have never caught on to the true meaning being ‘negative’ unless we informed her. They were so disgustingly dark, that they were the color of people in photo negatives. It was the most horrible thing we have ever seen! Their skin was so damaged that they looked like a huge blob of cancer. When we wanted to go get in the ocean, we needed somebody to watch our bag, and who better than the negatives?? We asked them to watch it, and they quickly agreed. They were from Germany, as we later found out, and had bright blue eyes with white hair, so you can imagine the contrast only made things worse for them. Especially after we knew that they were really supposed to be pale. But, we went on the ocean and it was amazing. It was pretty warm, and the waves were fun. They were very powerful, and when they caught me off guard, they practically knocked me to my feet. Miles got a couple good laughs out of watching me, especially when this huge wave came that was as tall as me. It came all the way to the top of my head, and got me drenched. I didn’t mind though (: it felt good in the excruciating heat. We spent the rest of the day at the beach until the sun was practically gone. It was sooo nice, and we got a good joke out of the experience too! Miles kept telling me that I looked like I was negative haha. We went back to our hotel and showered to go get some food; we were pretty hungry. We found this Italian place called Panarotti’s on the water, and decided to try it out. We sat on the outside deck of the restaurant since it was still nice outside. It started to sprinkle just a little bit, which is quite rare for South Africa. I thought it would be a good idea to move under cover just in case. As soon as we got all of our things moved, it started torrentially raining like you wouldn’t believe. I have never seen it rain so hard in my life, not even in Seattle! We took pictures of it, because this was even rarer to be happening in Africa. It rained so hard, and the wind was blowing so fiercely that the power went out at the restaurant for almost 15 minutes! It was quite the experience. Eventually the power came back on and the rain subsided. We finished eating and decided to return to our suite. On the way out of our suite when we were searching for food, the gate leading to the parking lot was locked. The reception area was closed, and when this happens, they lock everything up so that the guests are safe. I tried to open the gate, and couldn’t. I thought this was the oddest thing; why would they lock a gate that we can’t get out of?? So, instead of trying to figure it out, we climbed over the fence. When we returned, the gate was open, so walked on in and closed the gate behind us. But, I was still stumped on why it was locked when we left since it was wide open now. So I told Miles to come figure out how they opened the gate with me. We both bent over the gate to look at the lock, and Miles hit it with his pinky and the gate came flying open. I have no idea why I wasn’t able to get this incredibly simple lock open when we were leaving, but I couldn’t!! And Miles just believed me, so we hopped over the fence…only to find out that I was stupid and didn’t need to do that…… (:

The maids here are so incredibly hospitable and kind. While we were on the internet (yayy), somebody knocked on our door. We unlocked it and found one of them with outstretched arms holding two gourmet South African chocolates out for us. She told us it was a gift (: how cute. I was very excited for the next morning, so headed to sleep in waiting for it!