The movie that brought together a whole lot of traveler experiences together like a constant buzzing hum in the mind. The lovers being easy, the cash to spend on just pleasure, the electric excitement of doing the unknown, going into the big ugly world and finding the little moments of purity of Living… The feel of the sand on a private beach at night, the living in an in-between world just like your backpack holds all your worldly belongings. The soundtrack, as well, that you found uncannily listening to are a broke down shack that served breakfast all day with the only cold beer miles.

The clubbing to tunes in strange languages and genres of music you wouldnt be caught dead listening to back home. Home – that civilized, romantized, boring, solid, roots that let you go further and away. The adventures started once you forgot to remember that home. The illegal swim could easily be doing the popular hallucenogen of the locale / finding the travelling lover and friend who would cease to be perfect the second you left to your partner back home / taking the risk of checking out old towns knowing you may get mugged or worse… the list is endless and if you have a must-put-down-in-writing moment leave this blog a comment.

Sometimes its the photos you come back with that let you re-live each of those moments. I’ve found though – the pictures really send me back to the moments un-recorded, the ones that could never be captured totally. The magic that must only reside in you with that little fear that someday you may never remember it exactly as it was.

I’m listening to Bonobo – Days To Come and it triggered this of. Although while my last idyllic travel of excesses Bonobo was only introduced in passing and never listened to. Go Figure… We listened to the The Knife a lot and I was hooked to this music.

And the beach – ah! there are two in the movie and now I remember two as well – through all the traveling there will be the clarity of moonshine on Watamu. The soft clay like white sands that were silver are night, the skinny dipping in the ocean never fearing a Shark or getting caught, the secret nude photo shoot that set the mood for a threesome weeks (?) later, the flaking its white paint sun bed that we’d drag out to the water’s edge, the crystal water that never hid anything, the wading out till the point we could to sit in wave sway at midnight – a motley crew of three lovers and a new traveller, the walks along for kilometers and getting happily lost – arm in arm – with the thought of sleeping out and finding our way home for breakfast… and those little moments of a single joint, of sitting on the corridor drinking a crate of beer – friends that came from India, Uganda, Germany, Kenya, Britain, the States, Canada and South Africa. The mundane moments that made it perfect…

The other beach – the one in Madagascar that only we have been on, and may it be that way forever more. The local fisherman walking past us from the beach but never to be found while we were there. The beach that took an hour of concentrated walking over three hills, the beach where we’d make the torturous journey on hang-over mornings, where Puppy and Boophis would require us to carry extra water for them. Where in preparation the bread would be baked and cut the night before – even if in drunken haze, where we’d save that extra Noir chocolate bar and last Cracky packet for. Where the first football kicked was sent across the ocean on journeys of its own, where it might rain on us on the way back.

Where the veterans at the end of day yelled at happy campers should the mention of things like “Strawberry Cheesecake” or “Pina Coladas” occur. Yes Grouper – this goes out to us… Where a certain girl was just allowed to be a girl with her favourite girl. Oh the memories exceed words and besides you dear reader are prolly gettin bored of the details. It was the Perfect Beach.

And I’ve suddenly found myself remembering the splashing about in phosphorescent water and the thousands of fireflies cascading over hills at night… words paint an insulting picture of these places and its why travellers can’t stop and stay for a lifetime to pass them by.

*smiles* Msafiri she has called and it may well be true.