When I realised I had left my sandals behind at my previous accommodation, which was over an hour away from where I was currently staying, there was only one resolution in my head.
I had to rescue them.
It seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do – like it was the only thing to do.
But when I tell people this story, how I journeyed for hours to be reunited with a pair of footwear, they tend to give me startled expressions and ask something along the lines of, “Why on earth would you go back for them? Why not just leave them?”
But I just can’t get to grips with that mentality!
You see, there’s two things you should know about me.
Firstly, I hate being wasteful. Like hate it. Chucking old clothes in the bin, no matter how ripped and battered, fills me with inexplicable sadness.
Even chucking very minor things away upsets me, like a ceramic pot my dessert came in or even the plastic lid that comes with my tooth-picks. I cannot for the life of me understand why they are provided in the first place. Is it meant to be so I can reuse my toothpicks? Who on earth reuse toothpicks?! What a waste of plastic!
Second of all, I have this really strange fondness of inanimate objects. Like I feel bad for them.
It’s odd – I know they’re inanimate and all but I can’t change the way I feel. I didn’t even realise it was weird until one day when I was about 5 or 6 years old my mum was trying on a range of boots. She kept asking me what I thought and I just said I liked them all.
She turned to me and asked very seriously, “Why do you say you like everything? There must be some that you don’t like.”
And my response was, “I don’t want to hurt the shoes’ feelings.”
She laughed. Naturally. And I was embarrassed. So I told no one else that I was afraid to offend inanimate objects – I knew it was weird.
Of course I know that shoes or any inanimate object doesn’t have feelings but yet I am unable to shake the feeling of guilt I get when I slag off the look of a house or Lewis moans about how poor quality something is.
Anyway, back to the sandals.
I sat on the balcony sipping on a tea I had just brewed. I listened to the vibrant chorus of birds, chirping their good morning’s to one another.
The sun lit up the perfect vista in front of me. I let my eyes rest on the blue ocean, the peaceful beach, the thick mass of palms and the beautiful mountains in the far distance.
I took a sip of tea and let the hot liquid tickle my taste buds and fill my body with a warm, calm sensation.
This was perfect.
I have a perfect vision of what a holiday will be like. That vision involves me sitting and drinking tea in the sun and the tea has never tasted so good.
I think this perfect scene stems from a past experience when I was sipping tea on a balcony in Mallorca with my mum. Now every holiday needs to replicate this moment – the moment when tea has never tasted so good.
I’m pleased to inform you that finally, on the last day of my Caribbean trip, the perfect hug in a mug took place. It sure took it’s time but I was just grateful it was here now.
The moment was bittersweet. I tried to enjoy it all I could but I couldn’t shake the knowledge that I had an important task to attend to today. My sandals needed me.
I was kicking myself for forgetting them. I tend to always forget something on holiday but this time I was sure to scour the villa from top to bottom until I was certain we had everything. My only explanation is that my brown sandals blended in so well with the brown wooden planks that made up the floor of the villa.
When I realised my sandals were missing, I had messaged my previous hosts immediately. Fortunately they found my sandals quickly and I made the decision to journey to pick them up.
Honestly, I was not looking forward to it. The drive was lengthy and would eat up a good part of the day.
Today was my only day in the north of Dominica so I was essentially throwing away the opportunity to spend the day exploring in order to retrace my steps from the previous day to pick up my sandals. How ridiculous. But yet it was so necessary.
My sandals were the only pair of sandals I owned. I purchased them from a beautiful coastal town on the Greek island of Kefalonia and loved them. They were made from good quality leather and when I bought them I was convinced they would last me years.
I tend to break pretty much every female stereotype and don’t buy many clothes. I like to reuse the same items of clothing for as long as possible. I suppose this fits in with my dislike of chucking stuff away.
So today we were going to drive all the way from Calibishie back to Rosalie in order to save my sandals.
To make things a little easier, my previous hosts were going to bring my sandals on the ziplines across the rivers and on the trek through the jungle to finally drop them at the end of the road.
That was a relief.
I would still have to drive for a lengthy period of time and tackle the jungle track which included a river crossing.
Lewis and I devoured our breakfast and then set off on our mission.
I was determined to make the most of our drive and devoured as much of the beautiful surroundings as I could. We even stopped off to fly the drone.
At last we reached the turn that led down the narrow jungle trek. However, I was surprised at how efficiently we tackled the stretch. The first time we were faced with the tumbled road encased by wild bushes and trees it had taken us a long time to trundle down.
This time Lewis was experienced and undertook the terrain with ease. We splashed through the driver crossing and charged out of the forest and into the open.
I was relieved to see my sandals hanging in a plastic bag at the end of the road.
You’re safe now!
In the spirit of making the most of the detour, we stopped off at the Pagua Bay House for lunch, just like we had done the previous day.
It was funny – when we stopped off here yesterday we were gushing to our waitress about the food so much. We said that we must come again.
To my surprise, the waitress had shaken her head. “There’s so much to see where you are going. You won’t want to come back here.”
But yet here we were.
She was pleased to see us and greeted us warmly. I wasn’t prepared to go into why we were here. She had been right – there was so much to see up north in Calibishie. But circumstances had brought us back down south and right now I couldn’t be more excited for my lunch.
We ordered some spicy chicken, dasheen puffs and a goat curry. All dishes were divine, especially the spicy chicken.
I no longer felt annoyed with myself for forgetting my sandals and causing this saga because we got to eat this as a result. Ah, life works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it?
When we finally arrived back at our gorgeous cottage on the cliff, it was just past midday, meaning we had the whole afternoon free to do whatever we wanted.
Maybe now we could finally do some exploring of Calibishie.
