Oh yes, Hammock Life!  October was really busy and the thought of three days away on a short beach trip at the end of the month really kept me going.  We booked a stay at Kookoos nest in Dumaguete on the island of Negros, a short flight away from Manila. It was a very small resort, consisting of half a dozen native huts directly on the beach. Apart from snorkeling and diving, there’s little to do except to hang around and read.  Enforced relaxation.  Exactly what we all needed.

View from said hammock…..

It was the perfect place to stay for us.  No air conditioning (but fans in the room), a private bathroom (cold water only…which I can tolerate for a couple of days) and private balcony (with spectacular sunsets), and it was surprisingly mosquito free.  There were plenty of bugs, though, if you chose to be bothered by them. I wasn’t — mostly — they didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother them.  Except for the spider.  First night I head outside down the steps to the bathroom.  On the pathway, trying to negotiate the next step, is a very large, very hairy, black spider.  Or let’s just say it… the “t” word……tarantula.  Well, maybe not a tarantula – who’s knows, I don’t know spiders – but darn close anyway.  He looked something like this:

He moved very slowly.  I did a triple take to try and comprehend what I was looking at, then fled back upstairs.  Maybe I didn’t need to go that bad!  You can be sure I took extra precautions every evening, watching where I stepped.  Never saw him again!  Never wanted to!

After that excitement, the rest of the stay was very relaxing and uneventful.  I turned into a true hammock potato, reading 1.5 books in two days, taking four mini-naps a day.  The food was good and we ate three meals a day at their little restaurant, helping ourselves to the cooler bar whenever we wanted a drink.  I would definitely go back, despite my encounter with “Bertie” as I dubbed him.  You take the rough (and hairy) with the smooth, right?!