[{"_1":2,"_30":-5,"_31":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4},"routes/__layout/tag.$name",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"tagName","tropical","posts",[9],{"_10":11,"_12":13,"_14":15,"_16":17,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":23,"_24":25,"_26":27,"_28":29},"id",473,"title","My Island Paradise, part 4: sunshine and spiders","excerpt","More photos from my parents' place in Mayaro: endless sunshine, a hot tub with a champagne holder and an ocean view, tropical flowers, and one impressive spider clinging to the hot tub cover. Consider this your selective deterrent or reassurance, depending on whether I want you to visit.","body","\r\n\r\n

The most recent set of photos was taken in two distinct sets, so I'm blogging them separately. We begin today's tour with a reminder:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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This is the sun. Remember what that looks like? It looks like that here all the time. \r\n

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This is the view from the roof of my parents' house again. The sun was shining so it looked a bit nicer.\r\n

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This is the roof of my parents' house. Note the rainbow glass from the outside. That thing in the corner on the left...\r\n

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...is the hot tub. And yes, that little silver thing on the left there is a champagne holder. My parents don't live in the same world as I do.\r\n

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This is the view from the hot tub. I bet you didn't even realise a hot tub needed a view, right? Well, now you know.\r\n

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Then I got bored and started taking pictures of the shrubbery. This is a pale pink bougainvillea, originally from Brazil (apparently. I learn a lot about my country whenever I start trying to explain it to other people).\r\n

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I don't know what this is. But it's sort of pretty.\r\n

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The much more common pink bougainvillea. Tropical flowers are not about subtlety. An anal-retentive botanist, incidentally, would hasten to point out that the bougainvillea is not actually a flower, but a modified leaf. The real flower is the much smaller red stalk inside.\r\n

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Don't know what this is either. Hell, it might even be European.\r\n

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And this is a spider! It was clinging to the side of the hot tub when I took the cover off. I include this here because I've been getting a lot of \"oh your country is so beautiful\" comments, so it sounds like a lot of people are lining up for invitations to paradise. So, for those people I say: look! It's a spider! It's big and scary! It runs faster than you can (over very, very short distances)! We also have scorpions, centipedes, and the occasional tarantula! Sooooo scary! Wooo! Don't say I didn't warn you!\r\n

For those of you whom I actually want to visit, I say: oh, hush. It's just a bloody spider. It's only two inches across. It doesn't bite or anything. I've never seen a wild tarantula. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here. Move along.\r\n

Delete paragraphs as appropriate.\r\n

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Posts tagged “tropical”