We went down to the beach at Lampuuk around 5pm to relax and watch the sunset. We sat down at one of the beach bordered by some large caves. Right as the sun dipped under the horizon, thousands and thousands of bats flew out of their home for feeding. As the throng exited their cave, their formation in the sky looked like a long piece of black ribbon being tossed by the sea breeze. It was a pretty amazing sight!
After the bat viewing, we walked to Joel's Restaurant about 5 minutes away from the beach. Joel grew up in Lampuuk and had a restaurant on the beach before the tsunami. Because of his business and the large number of backpackers that passed through Lampuuk previous to the tsunami, he had made many friends from Europe and was living in Italy when the tsunami happened. A couple of months later, he returned to Lampuuk to help to rebuild his community. I met him over a year ago when he first returned. With funding from NGOs, Joel opened his restaurant a few months back with a help of an Italian woman. He built a traditional Acehnese house on stilts, a brick oven and started growing lovely basil plants in the front yard. The restaurant is now a favorite of ours. It serves up fantastic thin crust pizzas, great pastas, and fresh grilled fish.
Mmmm...pizza
Friends surprised me a lovely chocolate cake after we gorged ourselves on 9 pizzas, 2 plates of pasta, a lobster, a gigantic grilled fish, and countless beers. The cake was made by a woman in the village...maybe she had gone through our project's cake making vocational training! :)
Pretty cool huh???
Nima enjoying her sparkler
Someone lighting a roman candle in the big fire.
Thanks to everyone for the birthday greetings! You've made this a most memorable birthday!
2 comments:
Happy Birthday Sharon!
Happy Birthday Sharon :)
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