Day 7 Tubing

I saved this excursion for the later part of our trip because I figured it would be a fun day. I had no idea it would actually be this fun. We had to be there at 8:30 which by now this was bright and early for us. We'd really slipped into vacation mode because the time change was hard.

 There was quite a drive out there after we all met together for our instruction and getting fitted with gear. The helmets were stinky but later on we were mighty glad we had them. Everyone had to have water shoes and heavy duty gloves and lights on their helmets.

The tubing was done on an old sugar cane plantation. They had Chinese workers that dug the tunnels out all by hand using picks, shovels and sledge hammers. There are 5 tunnels all together and they are really quite long. It was quite an engineering feat to do that 100 years ago. They converted the irrigation ditches into a fun tubing experience. Most of the time it was like a relaxing float but we did get going pretty fast a couple of times. The tunnels were a little brutal whipping around in the dark. That's where the lights and gloves and helmets came in super handy because our heads bumped into the rock walls frequently as we zipped along through those tunnels. 

One of the things that made it challenging was the tubes kept spinning around and around and there's really not much you could do about it. Each tunnel and section of the ditch was different. It was beautiful.The tubes are made from a heavy duty material so they could survive rubbing up against the rock. You had to make sure you didn't rub up against them or you would get a terrible rash like on a fiberglass surf board.

 There was one drop and that was super fun too.

Mendis and I spent most of the time on opposite ends of the pack because of all the spinning and tubes coming and going.

After the fifth and final tunnel they turned us loose on the lazy river portion to float down

together if we wanted.

We had a quick lunch of sandwiches and chips and then we were done. Way too soon. It was really fun. Our guide gave us some food suggestions on the drive back that we followed up on right away.

 He recommended this shave ice place. It was all organic so Mendis didn't love the pale colors and "weak" flavor etc.

 This was called a lava flow.

After that we walked through town and did some shopping. We found a wind chime set we liked and some earrings for the girls and of course magnets.

 Loved seeing all the ukuleles in the music shop window.

 We found another beach and sat there for awhile and watched some sand crabs running around.

 That evening we watched a tiki lighting ceremony at sunset at the resort.

For dinner we went to Street Burger another recommendation from our guide and this one as fantastic. We got to sit at the chef's counter which was a real treat. We loved watching them cook. What a well oiled machine. Dinner and a show. Another great day in paradise!