Part 30. The "leap"

The middle balcony on the left was our room. When we first were checking out our room, I noticed that the balcony didn't lock. I was a little concerned about it, but not overly so. I mean, who is going to climb up the side of the building, or rappel down from the roof?

I went outside to scope out the view and shut the door behind me, to keep the cool air-conditioning in, and "surprise", the door locks automatically when you are outside. Luckily Steven was inside to let me in. Whew...that was close, and a normal person would remember this bit of info for future balcony outings.

Next day we headed out to the beach to enjoy some sun and surf. It was glorious, the water was warm and we swam for a long time, then relaxed on our lounge chairs, had a pina colada or three, read and dozed...really a wonderful way to spend a day.

Later in the afternoon, Steven decided to head back to the room to have a bath and get rid of the salty deposit all over him, and I was happy to stay and snooze in the sun.

After about an hour, I woke up and groggily decided to head back down the path to our room and get ready for dinner. Half way to our room, what did my mind think it was seeing? Steven, running down the path towards me...ummmm....in his underwear??

"What? What are you doing? Are you in your underwear?" I blinked my eyes, thinking it must be a pina colada dream.

"I locked myself out of the room!" His eyes were as wild as mine were confused.

"What? How? Why didn't you just wait for me? What's the rush?"

"I was on the balcony...the I shut the damn sliding door and then I couldn't get back in."

"Well, you must have gotten back in, because how are you HERE? And what were you doing out there in your underwear anyhow?"

"I went out to have a cigar and I shut the door....and when I couldn't get back in I had to jump off!"

"Again...what?"

"I dangled off the ledge, but there was too many sharp stones to drop on, so I shimmied over to the bushes, to drop there, but there were thorns on them, so I managed to pull my self up again, and balanced on the edge and leaped towards the grass!"

"You have to run to the lobby and get another key...quickly!"

"Calm down, it's bloody a thousand degrees, I'm not running anywhere (the lobby is a LONG walk from our room) What's the rush? Your underwear can sort of, almost pass for swim trunks, and there's no one around anyhow." I heaved a huge sigh of annoyance.

"I left the bathtub running!" he wailed.

"Jaysus Murphy" I snapped, and off I ran...

I huffed and puffed my way to the lobby, gasped out an explanation to the girl at the desk, got a new key and prayed it would work, ran back (and it was a thousand degrees out there) ran up to the room and flung open the door, to find the bathtub within centimetres of overflowing.

Then I started to laugh..."You looked so funny running down the path in your underwear" I snorted.

"I banged on all the neighbour's doors and no one would open up."

"Geez..do you wonder why?" I gasped out, in near hysterics, "Would you open the door to a half naked, sweaty man with wild eyes?"

"It's not that funny...I could hardly hang on to the balcony when I was dangling over the rocks, I'd have cut my feet to shreds."

"No, no, you're right, " I managed to gasp out between belly laughs, "it would have been awful. I'm only sorry that I wasn't here to see you dangling....to help you I mean..."

Anyhow. A lesson was learned and we kept a small stone in the track of the balcony door so that it couldn't shut all the way anymore.

And if that wasn't enough, the next day Steven threw a coconut at the maid....more on that event later.