Los Llanos

On the third day, when it was finally sunny, I sat by the pool the whole day, rubbing in coconut oil that smelt like bananas and reading my book The Covenant – (thanks Mum, it really is interesting). I was just in ore of my surrounding; I came to realize that the tree most representative of happiness and peace is not the olive tree, but the palm tree, how can you be sad looking at that! And yes, we drank straight out of the coconuts with a straw pierced through a slice of lime… heaven. Everything was so green, rich bright wet green in contrast with a blue sky which seemed so high because of the clouds and the dark blue mountains to the north. Cata, Stephy and I went horse riding, I lied and said I couldn’t ride so I’d get the slowest and oldest horse! It was great, I just sat there, the horse knew where it was going… I realized pretty quickly that it didn’t like walking on the rough cobble stone or through the puddles (lakes!), so because I had the best view we weaved our way up the road, and of course on the way home all the horses walked twice as fast.

Sammie commented that my blog was too impersonal, so I’m taking guidance from Gilly’s new blog and will try and make my entries a little more diary like.

Of course, I have to mention the food… Dad, you would have loved it! Each lunch time we stopped at a roadside dinner and gorged on BBQ meat, Mamona style. The technique is to skewer whole sides of beef with a long stick and then rest this vertically on the edge of a huge open fire place. The beef grills for up to six hours and the result is very tender meat with a crispy fatty outside, this was served in large chunks on flat banana leaves accompanied by piles of potatoes and platano, about 3 large dishes for all the family to share. Again, I had to wonder why the Aussie´s think they are the BBQing nation.

It was just really peaceful to be in the country again to hear crickets at night and to wake up to squawking parrots. To have chickens and ducklings roaming the gardens and to hear the cattle grazing in the paddocks. But what made me think of home was the sweet exotic smell of the moon flower plant. Just like the one at Hovenden that only blooms at night.