I've been taking my camera to the beach too. So, here are some pictures of our beach down at Cabo Ledo. Of course, we headed to the beach as soon as we'd gotten back from Zambia- at Joel's insistence much more than mine. On this one day, we were the only people on the beach. Just me and Joel.
I am in love with the picture clarity that this camera gives. It's 12 mega pixels- that's what gives the clarity right? :)
Angola has some beautiful clouds quite often.
Isn't he a hottie?
I've been experimenting with the different settings on the camera, seeing the different ways to capture moments. So, that is what a few of these pictures are...
Bunches of little shells stuck to this rock.
My foot, and the Chanel Blue Satin nail polish that I was disappointed with. In the bottle it looks very blue indeed- as you can see, on my foot, it looks very black. I don't really understand why/how it can look so blue in the bottle and so different on my foot. But, for an expensive bottle of nail polish (bought at duty free of course) I was disappointed.
There he is!
Doing his thang...
That's how you do it!
Our driver that day, relaxes reading a Portuguese- English dictionary. He actually stopped me as I was walking by and insisted that I photograph him. :) He's a nice guy.
This next set of pictures is from this past Saturday. Joel and another guy (we'll call him Mr. X for later reference) actually went down to the beach on Friday (we had a half day at school) and spent the night. Myself and another couple went down to meet them on Saturday.
Local fisherman pull away from the beach after having sold their catches (or at least tried to sell!). Actually the other couple that was at the beach with us once bought lobsters from some fishermen on this beach, and apparently they were good.
The local boys often ask to borrow a board from Joel and the other guys that surf. They always bring an older, crappier board which they let the boys use. Here is the boy on the board.
This hillside is the one we have to drive down to reach the beach. The water that you see is a pond that shows up when the water is high. Mostly it seems to be stagnant, and full of crap, but the local guys still catch fish in it, and the little boys were even swimming in it the other day. We don't even walk in it.
Here are the boys checking their nets. There are a lot of flying fish around these parts, or fish taht regularly jump out of the water anyway, and I've seen some jumping in there as well, but, even if I did eat fish, I wouldn't eat the ones caught in there.
The next two pictures are the exact same picture just with different focus (the first on the foreground, the sand, and the second on the background, the water).
I love this camera! The clarity!
The beach...
Sand
Joel on the beach- ready to go home actually.
We had an interesting thing happen on this day actually as we left. Now, remember I said Joel and Mr. X spent the night at the beach. So, at some point in the time before we arrived, nature called, and Mr. X had to go find a spot to relieve himself. He went to the edge of the beach, dug a hole, did his business, and then covered it up. He noticed something in the bushes while he was doing this though, and realized that the local boys who "take care" of the beach came to see what he was doing.
Well, whatever, he finished up, covered it up, and went about his business. So, when we were leaving the boys came to collect for the use of the shades. We paid them. As we always do, we also gave the boys any leftover food we had- this time, because Joel and Mr. X had overpacked food as you do for camping, plus the other couple had brought more than enough for a cookout that day- we had a lot to give them- they got several small steaks (already cooked), baked potatoes, two bags of bread, water and more.
These guys though, I guess they reckon they own the beach, which they don't of course. It's a totally public beach in the way that coastline simply is. But, these guys, you know, they build their little shades, sometimes (rarely) they pick up some garbage, if you need firewood they gather it and sell it to you. They work the beach, that is for sure. Of course, we understand that these kids don't have much, so they are trying to make a living here. And of course, we have much more than them, and the amount that they ask for the use of their shades, etc, is not really a problem for us.
But as we're getting ready to leave, this one guy, who everyone calls Bung Eye (he has one messd up eye), comes up and keeps saying something about poop and dirty and pointing over to the spot where Mr. X did his business. We didn't have any real Portuguese speakers with us that day, so, we couldn't really communicate with them, but basically, we understood that he didn't like what Mr. X had done- but we all also felt like, "What do you want us to do about it?" So, we kind of just ignored them (since we couldn't really communicate) and went about packing up and heading for the car.
Well, Bung Eye went ahead and followed Mr. X very closely to the car, and started laying into our driver! Of course, we were getting kind of pissed off, because, hey, we understand that these guys work this beach, but, what did they want Mr. X to do? Despite the work they have done on the beach, they haven't ever built a toilet there, so, what to do? It's also not like Mr. X took a crap right in the middle of one of their shades or something. But the guy just kept going on about how he had made it dirty, and that someone needs to clean it up (even though it was buried). At one point, he almost had our driver going to pick it up! We stopped the driver once we realized what he was about to do.
The thing is, Bung Eye was getting really loud and aggressive, and it was not nice. And he just kept going on about how Mr X made it dirty- really make it seem like those of us there were responsible for every piece of garbage on the beach. Finally, we just closed the doors, and pulled away. The driver let us know in the little English that he speaks, that the guy just wanted more money. And, as he walked away, Bung Eye dramatically smashed two beer bottles all over the parking area- thereby dangerously littering his own precious beach.
It's really very disappointing because, well for one, this is the closest, best place for the boys to surf, so we don't want to have trouble with the locals there. But also, there is that tough balance that you try to strike between respecting people that are trying to make a living, and even giving them your extras because you can, but also, not being taken advantage of. There was no reason for Mr. X to pay for his crap- the guys aren't going to clean it up anyway- especially not if the state of the rest of the beach is any indication of their inclination to clean up.
So, I guess it will be interesting to see what happens, if anything next weekend, when the guys inevitably head to the beach. Hopefully, all will be if not forgiven, then forgotten. OR, we'll take a proper Portuguese speaker with us, who isn't afraid to put those boys in their place. :)
