Spring Break Part 2 1/2
Though I planned to do my entries by hotel stay, today was so fun it gets its own entry.
I woke up this morning and my first thought was, something is wrong. It turns out that something as actually right:the wind had stopped trying to uproot the palm trees. It looked like it was actually going to be a nice day in St. Paul's today. While one part of me regretted that I would have to leave since it was nice out, the other part of me was already calculating ahead thinking that if it was nice here then it would also probably be nice 13 km north where I was headed. I checked out looking forward to what lay ahead.
Hopping on a bus I traveled through some beautiful country and reached the Cirkewwa Ferry port. Rather than take to ferry to Gozo, where my next hotel is, I found a ferry to Comino's Blue Lagoon. Now I had read about this spot and thought, yeah I should check it out. I'm writing today's entry while I'm here and I'm pretty sure I'll be crossing something off my itinerary and coming back in the next couple days. It is absolutely gorgeous. You know how you see travel adds for certain places and they always show this perfectly clear turquoise water? Some part of me always believed that was photoshopped. Not anymore. Though cold, the water is indescribably gorgeous, and the cold never stopped me before. There was only a small bit of sandy beach, but when I was not in the water, I was perfectly content to sit on a rocky ledge and dangle my feet in the water.
First thing I did after locking down my bag was swim to the opposite side of the lagoon where small deserted beach and a couple of caves beckoned to me. Rather than climb back to the beach, I Decided that jumping off rocks would be fun, and may or may not have ruined my hat with that decision. Its ok, it was worth it and the mouthful of water I swallowed. Swimming back (because I realized I left the keys in the lock on my bag, whoops!) I then proceeded to float wherever the gentle current carried me. Getting out a bit later I found a good crop of rock and did some reading. Bored, but unwilling to go back in the water, I decided to explore what Comino itself was like. Now perhaps is a good time for Comino facts: the smallest inhabited island of Malta's archipelago (size: less than 1.5 sq miles) Comino is completely carless (read: no real roads, only rocky paths), and the only real habitation comes in the form of the islands 1 hotel. The landscape is a bit rockier than Malta's generally is, but that may be a result of it being in a more natural state than Malta. And the colors of the land and plants complemented perfectly the lagoon they overlooked.
The only down side to today was my ignorance of the sea life that lies in these waters, mainly there are jellyfish hanging out in these crystal waters. I wasn't in the water for half an hour before I got stung. 20 years I have swum in the Pacific Ocean and not been stung by one of these devils. 20 minutes in the Mediterrenean and I'm shouting and cursing like a sailor because I brush against one. The irony is that the jellies here are a bright red in the water, while the ones back home are able to hide in the sand churned waves.
Im not letting this get me down though. Today I got the thing I most looked forward to, swiming the in sea, and I put all my souvenirs thus far to good use (sandals, a towel, and a hat). Now I sit once again with my feet in the water, writing and watching the fish, putting off leaving this small bit of paradise till the last possible ferry back.
Addiju,
J
NB: After I finished writing the above, I did finally get on the ferry back, and that ferry ride includes a brief tour of the caves that the water has carved out of the rocks on Comino. In these sheltered caves it became painfully obvious that jellyfish not only can be found in the waters of this area, but in fact are numerous here. My research was not exactly thorough, but you'd think tht someone on tripadvisor would have mentioned this detail. Oops. Wish we had done the caves on the way there instead.
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