Alpaca My Bags! : Day Eleven - Stop, it's hammock time ft. Ashlie Simon

Today was another pretty chill, but fun day. We boarded a boat at 9:30 am, and went on a boat ride to another village. This village was far more advanced than the village we stayed in. For starters, it had a bigger population so it had more houses. It even had a school. We got to go in a classroom of the school and all of the kids sang to us.. FUNFACT: today I learned that Fijians don’t say trapezoid; they say trapezium. Ulla came with us on our adventure today, and she takes pictures of literally everything. I always wonder if she ever takes a bad photo. She’s awesome. After leaving the village school, we were given about an hour to do whatever we wanted in the village and meet back at 1. Chase and I separated from the group, and we decided to go find someone to connect with and learn about their culture. We stumbled upon a woman in a house weaving a mat. We did rock paper scissors to decide who would ask her if we could join her in her home. I ended up losing so I had to ask. She kindly welcomed us into her one room home. We sat on the floor with her at first and just watched her fingers fly through the strands. TBH I have no idea what her name was because I have no idea what she said. We took some dank shots of her and her hands rapidly weaving the mat. I guess we were both mesmerized by her weaving skills because we checked the time and had to go. When we got back to the group I thought about how the boat ride was going to be long and I REALLY had to go to the bathroom. So I made lucy come with me to find a bush somewhere figuring it would be the same quality as a village toilet. A villager saw me go into the bushes, so I didn’t want to just go right there so I tried to play it off by smelling some leaves. Lucy was laughing at my cover story when the lady asked me if I wanted to go to the bathroom. Just wait it gets worse. So she leads me to this outhouse, which only made me happy because it was teal. So I get in there and try to lock the door which was a struggle and then there was no toilet paper. But the worst part was trying to UNLOCK the door. It was shut and I was calling out to lucy for help even though she could do nothing from the outside to help me. I had to hit the lock with extreme force and finally it flew open. At that point, all I really wanted to do was escape the village on this island. Thank god we left right after that in the boats. Following the bathroom mishap, we went to a little island for lunch and for the rest of the day. Mrs. Simon told Bora that she would give him 20 bucks if Bora ate the eye of the fish. All for it, Bora downed the fish eye and nearly vomited. Mrs. Simon said it was worth every penny. Brett climbed into a tree and pulled a snake off the branches. (like it’s casual) I sat in a hammock chair with Mrs. Simon (I still don’t really know how we both fit in the one person hammock chair). We watched videos of her dogs on her phone because she has SIX dogs. Oh mrs. simon. Later we all played volleyball, and my team blamed Brett for every point that we missed or messed up on. On the way back from the island to Mango Bay, we all played the app Heads Up, and it was hilarious. Also, on the boat ride back, Jamison ALMOST caught a fish, but the line broke, and it was really sad because he was really sad. Back at Mango Bay, I had a milkshake and two servings of ice cream. After dinner, Ulla did her presentation of her photography story. It was inspiring and amazing. She has done a lot of dangerous things involving erupting volcanoes and has at one point burned off all her eyelashes. #anythingfortheshot. Ulla also did a lot of work involving mummification in Papa New Guinea. That was cool, but kind of freaky. Following dinner and the presentation, I played a game of pool with Jamison and Lisa. We lost because Lisa hit the 8-ball into the wrong pocket. SMH!! SMH. On the way back to my room, I turned my phone’s flashlight on because the pathway is not very well lit. I can’t decide if this was a good idea or not. I saw a million frogs on the path. Not little cute frogs. GIANT, UGLY, DISGUSTING, LUMPY FROGS. I was horrified on stepping on a frog or a frog jumping on me. I walked BAREFOOT on the path as if I was walking on eggshells. THEN, I saw this HUGE frog. Seriously, that frog was the size of my fist. I stepped to the side of it to avoid stepping on it, AND IT HOPPED ON MY FOOT. I let out a blood-curdling scream, and I am certain I woke up everyone in the entire resort. Oops my bad. It was terrifying. When I went to the outdoor bathroom to brush my teeth, I borrowed someone’s flip-flops and did high knees all the way there to scare./ avoid another frog incident. I was so paranoid about the frogs that I intensely tried to tuck in the corners of my mosquito net under my mattress, but honestly my mosquito net has so many holes that the only thing it would really stop from coming in is a pterodactyl … I can’t even.