We got to our beach resort and had hours ahead of us to enjoy before the evening walk to find funny looking baobab trees.  The Boy thought this late departure was due to the heat, however I had a little surprise cooked up instead.  First, I had to distract him for several hours.  That should be easy, we were on a near deserted beach on the Indian Ocean, we’ll just go for a walk…nope, the sun on the Indian Ocean at noon is no match for our shiny, white skin.  We dipped our toes in the ocean and retreated back up towards our hut.  No problem, we can find some shade to rest in, but first the Boy just wanted to feel the water of the pool.  One foot on the step, then a second, and suddenly then the entire 6’4” of Boy is underwater.  Apparently he was warmer than I thought out here!   In reality, it was just chalking one more item up on the list of “maybe we’re too old for this now…” because on top of the injured back, he had a bruised hip from the gorilla, a twisted knee from some unknown portion of the week prior, and now a whole slew of aches from slipping into a pool and hitting each step on the way down. [Ed. note: seriously. I put one foot on the top step of this pool, slipped, and tumbled down the pool stairs under water. It was the slipperiest pool step I’ve ever touched. And it hurt falling in.]  Let’s hope the rest of the trip was easy…

Luckily, the planned evening activity was a 45 minute, flat walk among a forest reserve. [Ed. note: no lemurs today, just giant awesome old baobab trees! In a spiny forest!!] We arrived just before dusk and our local guide wound us through the paths of the spiny forest, or a forest where everything is the pokey, angry cousin of a cactus, even the tree limbs have spikes longer than you finger!  We learned about the baobab and tried to climb a couple.  But as the sun was finally setting, we reached the highlight of the reserve, a 1,200 year old “teapot” baobab. [Ed. note: definitely one of the coolest trees I’ve ever encountered.] This massive trunk is as wide as seven people around holding hands…perfect for hiding a little surprise on the other side!

Unfortunately, the Boy was not picking up on the giddy hints of the guide and me as he kept slowly creeping along one side of the tree looking up and around and then when he was almost to the front, doubling back around to view the other side…Fed up of waiting and the sun almost setting, I gave up on subtle and just started pushing the Boy around the tree until he finally noticed the table set up for two! [Ed. note: I was distracted by the giant tree…]

It’s a Baobab Party!  For some ridiculously cheap amount of money, you can hire out the reserve at sunset and be served a private dinner under the massive teapot baobab…so of course I had to do this!   Now, the 8 or 10 locals who were in charge of brining in the table, linens, food, drinks, lights, etc and prepared it all just on the other side of the spiny forest wall sounded like they were having a much livelier party than we were, but I think that’s just because the Boy was rendered speechless from his surprise…or still in shock from the cold dip in the pool…