Turks & Caicos: Day 2

7/25/10

The alarm was set for 6:00 AM to give us plenty of time to eat breakfast while checking out our view as well as time for me to get ready for church.  Well, the alarm was set to mp3 player rather than buzzer, so I woke up with a start just after 7:00.  Church starts at 9:00!

After a quick shower I attempted to blow dry my hair with the hairdryer provided by the hotel.  That was a joke, and so was my hair.  I called the front desk around 7:30 to have them arrange a taxi for us, and we caught our ride around 8:20.  Our driver, Gladstone, was very nice and seemed to be a much better driver than the guy we had the night before.  We arrived at Our Lady of Divine Providence in only about 15 minutes, and our driver said he'd return for us at 10:15.  We liked that, and we liked that the cost for the ride was only $15 rather than $15 per person. 

I wish I had taken some pictures of the church.  It was a pretty small building with metal folding chairs set up inside.  There were a few ceiling fans, and all of the screened windows were open.  There were wood benches set up at the sides and back of the church since it appeared there wasn't enough seating inside.  The music was traditional (Gather Us In, Gift of Finest Wheat), and the priest was very passionate.  The part of his homily we most remember was when Fr. talked about how so many people came to an event in which they prayed for things they needed/wanted but no one came to confession on Friday.  On Friday, J asked "Do you think anyone went to confession today?"  We shared a laugh. 

After mass there were people hanging out and chatting, and there were already people arriving for the Creole mass at 10:30.  There was no sign of our taxi driver.  Great.  Now what were we supposed to do?  We had no cell phones, and the next mass was beginning.  We were too far to walk to our resort, so we just hung out outside for a bit.  Another taxi showed up to pick up one guy, and we tagged along.  There goes another $30 plus tip!

We changed clothes and decided to visit our resort's restaurant, Mango Reef.  We were both starving since we didn't have time for breakfast, and it was about 11 AM.  After some indecision, I ordered a shrimp and spinach quesadilla with a Sprite, and J ordered a chicken panini with a Coke.  We were both pleased with our selections, and were happy we'd have some leftovers for dinner (especially since the cost of food is so high).  We quickly went up to our room to stash our food in the fridge and then headed out to find Graceway Gourmet, a smaller grocery store nearby.  It turns out that that store was only about 3/4 of a mile from our resort and was not a bad walk (except for the two bug bites I acquired on the way). 

Though I've read that the water is safe to drink in Provo, bottled water was high on our list of items to pick up.  I'm fussy about the taste of water; it should have no taste thank you very much!  In addition to the water, we picked up some turkey lunch meat, provolone cheese, a tomato, some wheat rolls, chips, 1/2 a gallon of  milk, a Gatorade and some Vitamin Water for a grand total of almost $50.  Not too bad actually.

Back at our hotel suite, we put the groceries away and then flopped on the bed under the ceiling fan to cool off a bit.  We were glad to have air conditioning as well as a ceiling fan.  Once cooled off, we decided it was time to suit up for the beach!  I had to stop when I reached the end of the boardwalk to just take it all in.  It was quite lovely, even with the dark clouds looming overhead.  The sand was like nothing I'd ever felt before.  It was like warm powdered sugar and quicksand combined.  It was so soft that it was difficult to walk through, but we put up with that minor inconvenience as we searched for a couple of lounge chairs with a beach umbrella.  We selected a couple of chairs, put our things down and made our way to the water.  We did have to walk through a section of sand with broken shells, but they weren't sharp.

Oh the water!  So warm, and the waves just lapped at our toes.  The water didn't seem so warm the further I went in, so I just had to dive right in.  As I came up I remembered that I was in salt water.  Ugh!  We quickly became used to the water and swam around for awhile before finding our seats.  We sat and people watched for a bit before doing more swimming.  We then lounged a bit longer as a I wished for some rain.  My wish came true!  J and I were safely under our beach umbrellas as the clouds opened up slightly.  We decided to go get cleaned up and retire to our room for the evening.  We watched TV (probably something from the History channel or Comedy Central) and ate our leftovers.  By 10:00 we were ready to sleep to regain some energy for doing absolutely nothing the next day.