Biking, Hiking, and Tears – May 13

I slept long and hard, and actually felt ready for the next adventure (for a change). Today the water is too rough for our scheduled morning kayaking, so we go pick up rented mountain bikes, rusting and creaky, with intermittent gear slippages and iffy brakes, and bike along a path next to the rocky shore with crashing waves, into the National Park. It is a bit challenging biking through sand of varying firmness, and later black gravel, with some small hills toward the end. At one point the biggest guy on the trip crashes over when he is powering up a hill, up on his feet, and his bike couldn’t handle it, slipping a gear and throwing off the chain. I just walk my bike when needed, rather than trusting to its heavily-used mechanisms (or to my legs). Parking our bikes, we take a short hike up some steep steps, arriving at the Wall of Tears, built from lava rocks after WWII by prisoners from the island penal colony. The Wall had no purpose except to make them suffer, and many died during its construction, and the prison was later closed. On the bike ride back we splash through some patches of water across the path, as the tide has risen. After a late and delicious lunch, we have a rare afternoon off to once again enjoy the hotel, with actual time for an afternoon siesta, and then take advantage of the “drying” room (the open flat top of the hotel with several clothes lines strung across for our wet stuff) and also the free wi-fi available in the hotel lobby, with a wonderful view of the turbulent sky and pounding surf across the street on the beach.