A day at the beach – Gorontalo style

Finally, finally, finally made it to the beach in Gorontalo! Look how happy we are!

(Photo Credit: Kibor Qb)

A couple of colleagues from UNG and a friend of theirs picked me up at 7 on Sunday morning. En route to Monano, we stopped to pick up another friend of theirs, who happens to be a professional photographer, and then we went to Limboto to pick up my two ETAs, Alexa and Sarah.

After more than an hour of driving over serpentine roads, inching our way through the traffic of a traditional market and stopping here and there to ask for directions, we arrived at a wonderfully remote, sandy beach lined with coconut trees and dotted with traditional fishing boats. Of course, our arrival at this out-of-the-way beach did not go unnoticed by the local regulars. Shortly after setting up camp, we saw that a few Indonesians had wandered over to sit behind us in the shade. At first, I thought maybe they were just seeking shade as well, but oh no, they were there to look at us. The group quickly grew in numbers. Suddenly, there were about 30 people plopped down right behind us giving us shy smiles and taking pictures of us with their cell phone cameras. Empty beach stretched for hundreds of feet in either direction, but apparently this is where everyone wanted to be.

Alexa, Sarah and I briefly escaped the madness by heading into the water. The sea was wonderful – warm, calm and perfect for floating. As I floated there with my hands behind my head, peering at the coconut trees over the tips of my painted toenails, I felt incredibly peaceful and relaxed. Then we went back to the beach where my colleague Titien got to work setting up a delicious lunch of tofu, tempe, chicken and rice.

At some point after lunch, we noticed a group of Indonesian men dragging one of the traditional fishing boats across the sand to launch in the water. Titien asked if we could take some pictures and before I knew it, we were all sitting in the boat posing for photos while the fishermen looked on.

Not long after that, word spread that a TV crew from Jakarta was here and wanted to interview us on our thoughts about the beach! We briefly conferred about what we would say as we walked over to the cameraman. But when we got there, I found out that I had somehow been elected spokesperson for the three of us. A microphone was clipped onto my cover-up and then the cameras started rolling. Flanked by my two ETAs and surrounded by a posse of onlookers, I said we were English teachers in Gorontalo and Limboto and this was our first visit to the beach here. I then gushed about how beautiful it was and how warm the water was while Sarah and Alexa nodded their agreement. I wonder if this clip will actually end up on TV!

(Photo Credit: Kibor Qb)

Our celebrity status more firmly established, we headed back to our stuff and posed for more pictures with the congregated masses. I started to grow weary of all the hoopla when I noticed that one guy was actually taking a video of my legs, or at least that’s what it seemed like. Sunburned but happy, we packed up our stuff and headed back to a thatched-roof hut on land where a couple of us took cold bucket showers with water drawn from a well. We changed in the hut and then headed back to the beach for another photo shoot with our photographer.

(Photo Credit: Kibor Qb)