A map of Gossier
We finally woke up around 11am. The room looked much better in the light of day. Ruben was the first one to take a shower, and we threw on our bathing suits. We went and scoped out the beach at the hotel, then walked into town. The walk took about 20 minutes. It was really hot and humid, and I don’t think our discomfort was solely due to our being from the cool Pacific Northwest. At least our room was air conditioned, even if it did still smell a little funny.
The cars on the road are really small, and so are the streets. It looks very European, from what I remember of the roads in Switzerland. There are a lot of stands selling colorful cotton clothing, fruits and drinks along the side of the roads. We stopped and bought a large water bottle and 2 Oranginas (orange soda that I love, and I’ve turned Ruben onto them now) for 29 francs. We eventually found the beach in the downtown area. The lot just behind the beach was littered with garbage, but the beach itself was pretty nice. We sat under the shade and enjoyed our drinks. Then I ran and dipped my feet into the water. Oh man was the temperature nice. I went right in and soaked for a while and Ruben watched the stuff. After a little coaxing, I got Ruben to go into the water. It was so easy to float!
We started our walk back by going into town. I saw a taxi and assumed there were enough of them floating around that we could hail one if we needed. On the way up the hill back to the main drag in town, we found a supermarket. We picked up some water, orange juice, yogurt and a couple of packets of snacks. Ruben asked the cashier if we could pay by credit card, and she slooooowwwwlllyyy sauntered off to ask the manager in a room behind a one way glass. She came back and said that it would be ok if the total is more than "cent cinquante francs." That means 150 the uninitiated like me. Only problem was that we caught the "cinquante" but not the "cent" so we were really confused when the total was 55Fr and she wouldn’t take the card. We paid with cash, and said "merci."
After that we walked back to the main drag. We contemplated walking back but it was high noon, very hot and we had heavy water to carry back (I was concerned about drinking the tap water). So I sat on the curb and tried to think what to do next. About 2-3 minutes later, I saw a taxi cruise by and waved my hand. Somehow the guy managed to see me (I was slightly hidden by the cars on the side of the road). Although he didn’t speak English, we told him where we were staying, and got back for 30Fr in an air-conditioned car. He taught us how to say "tres, tres chaud."
All that before 1pm!
We had lunch at the hotel restaurant – La Veranda. After lunch we laid on the beach for a while. We swam twice in the water just outside the hotel. This water was a shallow cove that was blocked off from most of the wind and the waves. The water was bath temperature warm, and so easy to float in. When we were out of the water, we stayed in the shade. While we were sitting there, a man and a woman walked up and spoke French to us. We figured out they were selling "Coco Glacee" – coconut ice cream. They hand churned it right in front of us. Boy did that taste good.
Dinner that night was at La Zawage in the hotel next door to us (La Creole Beach). That hotel looks a little fancier (and higher priced) than Residence Canella beach, but I was getting used to ours by that point. We ate dinner, listening to the waves crash under us (the restaurant is located on a pier-like structure, nestled into the rocks). The full moon rose to the east of us, and a really cute tortoise shelled colored cat begged food from us. We spent dinner attempting to learn French from a English-French-Spanish phrase book that the hotel had given us. We also decided that our new goal for any meal would be to finish the bottle of wine before we finished our meal (I kept pointing out that we were eating too fast – the French come to dinner around 9pm, and stay for a looooonnnnnngggg time). I wore my new black sleeveless dress, which Ruben really liked (I he used the word was ravishing). We did notice that we were aclimating to the heat, it didn’t seem quite so hot and humid by this point.
