Growing up in the US I learned the custom of always facing traffic when walking along any road that didn’t provide either footpath or sidewalk. This extended to choosing sides even when walking along propers pedestrian walks. All of this, by the way, means walking on the LEFT when not in the UK influenced world to increase the chance that the driver might actually see you. (wearing dark colors at night is a completely different soap box and not relevant to 0830 in the morning).
This apparently holds as well in Isle of Pines except for when looking to hitch a ride. Then you walk in the road facing the direction in which you hole to be riding. Let’s say you are a family of three; mother, father, and toddler daughter in a bright pink hat riding on your papa’s shoulders. You have already exchanged bonjour’s with the obvious tourist hiking along on the other side of the road with shoes, backpack and camera. You wave at various cars as they pass by already at maximum capacity with adults and children. A short time later you are comfortably riding the back of a pickup truck as you wave once again to the strange foreigner striding along the road.
Not being one to hitchhike and not really caring if I successfully managed to get to the town of Vao (6km) or not I started taking detours off the main road. [The road network is primarily really wide paved single lanes that allow passing in most, but not all places.] had contemplated the cave network or hiking up the single peak on the island but settled for exploring a number of the unpaved roads off the main “thoroughfare.”
[just assume pictures will follow].
Which means I found various cultivated plots of land, nice lookouts over the ocean, a pit which looks like it is yielding an red colored clay, fabulous flowers. The native trees are more than interesting with their twisted and interlocking branches. Unlike many of the other places where we have stopped – either those who live here don’t litter or they clean it up regularly. It was a pleasure to hike along and not be avoiding all the usual detritus and trash of “civilization.”
A significant time later I hiked back to grab the tender to the ship. Since I wanted to go swim and snorkel and return to drop off the electronics was in order. I do take the warnings to “take only necessary items and secure valuables on board.”
The water was lovely, crystal clear and I had a good time looking at different various small fishes and corals before heading back to indulge in an extremely late lunch.
