Writings By Date| Journey to Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
When we finally made it back to the "hotel", our hostess offered us breakfast, but we requested a chance to shower first. After asking her to turn the hot water on ("oops" was the gist of her Creole response), we headed upstairs to get clean, after looking forward to it for a whole day. That was our first mistake.
If I had just one recommendation to make to the wonderful folks at Lonely Planet, it would be that they include, in their descriptions of various places to stay, some mention of water pressure. Because Sam Tillett had less than none.
When Erin turned the faucets in the shower stall, we first thought the hot water was not on yet, because all the spout did was emit a weak trickle of water that looked like it was all left in the pipes from the last time someone used it. So we checked the sink, and much to our concern, the hot water was on. We stood there, hoping the pressure would build, but that was just a waste of time and heat. Erin stepped in first, but found it nearly impossible to get clean. The water didn't even really come out of the spigot, so much as "leak" out, falling straight down, and giving us no more than a few inches of moving room to get our bodies wet. Each of us grew so frustrated while showering, that we finally just grabbed an empty half-liter water bottle, placed it against the water, waited about ten seconds for it to fill, then poured the water on us to rinse off. Washing our hair wasn't even a consideration.
Three days later, we made our way downstairs to a breakfast of very farm-fresh eggs (I think the mother hen rushed into the kitchen at one point trying to save her chicksK), beans, and bread. We paid our exorbitant bill, finished packing, then started walking back to the sanctuary entrance to hitch a ride back to the junction. At this point, we were eager to leave Sam Tillett's behind us, and get a working shower in front of us as soon as possible.
As we stopped just before the visitor station to put on lotion, Erin spotted a pick-up truck of people talking by the water. We finished putting on our lotion, hoping to grab them before we left, but then they got in and started pulling out before we were done, and before we were expecting it. We scrambled to get our stuff together, and franctically jumped and waved to get their attention, but even though they were no more than 40 yards away, they didn't look back (or ignored us), and took off across the lagoon. In a very uncharacteristic move, Erin was angry as hell that she didn't walk down there, and was sure we wouldn't find another ride. Looking around, it certainly appeared that was likely to be the case, but I was determined to remain more optimistic for once.
