Guilo the Hospitable

It would take a cafe band and some fresh iced tea to retell the mystical journey that was Brava.
I will try my best without the tea.

We arrived by ship at midnight.
Four of us climbed into the back of a pick-up truck with port crew and a mattress held between our knees. 

The days sped past in the beds of half-backs and cement trucks. 

Daylight tramps were hyphenated by sleep atop the staircase of an abandoned Red Cross, in an ATM bureau and in the den of a ferry guard named Guilo. Thunder and business hours kept our dreams well tailored.

We bathed in Feijon d'Agua, natural pools cozied into the rocks on the Western shore.

The grotto floors were spotted with fossils and ink-black urchins. 

We escaped the current with only the slightest surface wound, quickly healed by local Grog. 

Fresh sugar cane and yeast borned the mist settling from the hills and rained into tiny coconut skin cups. 

Krioli kindnesses spill smoothly under such cloud covering. 

We ran and rested, laughed and prayed.

Cold beers rose cold sunrises and a ferry carried us away from the fora.

Adieus bid we each turned in our directions and scratched the mounds left by mosquitos all the way home.

Adventure lingers stale upon my breath as I yawn and fall into another island slumber, pricked by sunburn and sprite.

photographs courtesy of C.Bach