A Horse Named Rocky

Mid-January, an American holiday, MLK day, and a Tamil holiday, Thai Pongal, joined forces to create a much welcome five-day weekend. The kids only had part of the weekend off, so still had to attend online school, despite the fact we moved the virtual classroom to the beaches of Tangalle in the south of Sri Lanka. 

From the moment we arrived until the end of our four-night stay, Elise and I couldn't decide if the place where we stayed, Buckingham Place, was nice. The view of the lagoon from our room and the blue rolling jungle hills beyond was beautiful.  

The rooms were clean and spacious. Bougainvillea flowers decorated the bed, bathroom counter,  tub, and even toilet seat. The infinity pool was long and a deep sparkling blue. A horse named Rocky was tied to a tree in a small patch of grass next to the mangroves. 

The service attentive, the food good. There was a billiards table in the parlor for the kids to gather around after dinner. 

The stretch of beach a short walk away was completely deserted. Long planes of undulating sand disappeared in both directions. We wanted for very little.

And yet, it lacked...something. Charm, maybe? Most of the time we were one of only two parties. Which is exactly what you want in the middle of a pandemic, but it was a little like staying at an abandoned Holiday Inn resort or a convention center. 

Despite the beautiful beachside setting,  the kids were unsettled. Thursday was the Tamil holiday, so the kids were back in school on Friday, and I daringly teleworked from outside Colombo. Friday morning started with a mad scramble for outlet adapters and throwing up hot spots. The hotel's wifi wasn't sufficient to support online school for one kid, much less three, so Peter worked from the hotspot on my work phone, while Clementine worked from the Hotspot on my personal phone. Even when we got set up, they had trouble settling in away from their usual, comfy spots at home. 

The healing tonic to whatever technological challenges we may have faced in the morning was being seconds away from the green sea. Even during the school day, you could almost feel the thunderous waves crashing on the shore. 

A long walk down the beach, an outcropping of rocks jutted into the sea. Waves crashed against it and washed over the rocks, forming tode pools not dissimilar from the ones we explored two summers ago along the Oregon coast. Purple sea urchins posed a beautiful and subtle threat laying quiet repose at the bottoms of the tide pools. Black crabs --  at first invisible against the wet rocks -- picked deep green algae from the rocks with there fore pincers and forked small bitefulls into their mouths. You couldn't at first see the crabs until a small sense of vertigo rolled you when you thought he entire rock surface subtly shifted before your eyes.  It was only then you knew the rocks weren't moving but covered with the camouflaged crabs.

One of the highlights of the trip was the boys fishing together.  Pete caught the biggest fish with a handline. 

The beach was also a nesting ground for sea turtles. One night, we took a guided walk to see one of the mama sea turtles lay their eggs in a nest in the sand. Unfortunately,  the sky was mostly covered with clouds, but the few stars that could shine through were bright. 

The guide had an infrared light so we could see the white turtle eggs plop-plopping out of the mama turtle's tizu. The guide was earnest in his desire I get a good look at the mama laying her eggs and insisted I take a non-socially distanced look at the mama's bum. I told him this wasn't my first rodeo and didn't feel the same need to be this close to a birthing mother.