Victoria's Voyage

26/07/2018

When my alarm sounded this morning, I cursed myself. Why had I thought this was a good idea? When my travel companion Rachel had suggested it I was all ears, but that didn’t make getting up in the middle of the night for the second day in a row any easier.

And then, after a magical mystery tour with a Spanish taxi driver who couldn’t really understand where we needed to be, we approached the pier, feeling the sand between our toes as we made our way down the beach and to the ocean edge. It was quiet, but there was a sign and a family waiting. Chances were this meant we had hit the jackpot.

After genuinely resigning ourselves to the fact that we were wandering blind and would almost definitely miss our pickup, taking that step back with that sense of relief was a moment of the purest kind. We stood in silence as bluey pink hues began to peek out behind the nearby mountains, the crickets and the crashing of gentle waves the sole reminder that this was real life and not a still image.

I’ve never really seen a sunrise that didn’t contain tequila – sleep is very important, after all – but in that moment my tiredness seemed to fizzle away, replaced with a sense of calm and tranquility. I almost didn’t mind having to wait for the boat that we’d booked to watch the sun going up at sea.

After what felt like an age, the boat turned up, we boarded and we were on our way, enjoying the warm breeze battering our faces and causing our hair to dance like there was no tomorrow.

I decided today that I like a sunrise, especially when experienced in a place beyond the confines of usual civilisation.

The sun was up and I closed my eyes, taking in the fresh sea air. And then it happened, the other selling point of this trip was beginning. I heard the distinctive “click, click, click” first, before a fin arched its way out of the water, and then a full dolphin came into view, gliding elegantly and effortlessly through the waves, creating ripples and swirling around our boat – in simple terms, just magical.

Sure, we were wandering lost in the dark at 5.30am after getting out of the taxi on the streets and having to stumble our way through the dark to find the beach, but we made it. Though we also learned a valuable lesson this morning about checking our meeting point before the day of a trip. Our 10 euro taxi there was actually a 10 minute walk straight up one single road to our hotel. But hey, it’s all part of the adventure…