Our last weekend in Swazi we decided to head for the beach and the Indian Ocean. Mark (my teammate) had never seen an ocean in his entire life so why not start here! We drove 3 hours to St. Lucia and God blessed us with an entire house to stay in over night. 
It was so much fun. We each had our own bed with sheets. Sheets were a huge treat for us. 
We arrived Saturday morning and headed straight for the beach. It was breath taking. You walked up and over this hill and there it was….waves and sand. The waves were so strong I could barely stand up straight in them. But that was nothing compared to the next day.
Sunday we went to this beach called Cape Vidal. In order to get there you have to go through a Game Reserve. There are signs everywhere warning you to stay in your car, as there are rhinos, elephants, monkeys, gators and other creatures roaming freely. We saw monkeys, wart hogs, a snake and some other deer-looking animal. 
This beach was gorgeous with lots of sand dunes and huge waves. At low tide we were able to see a bunch of reefs and go walking on them. We got to see many different kinds of plant life growing as well as lots of crabs and pretty seashells. As the tide was coming in, Mark decided to go out further on a reef. He thought it would be good for pictures because the water goes around you in such a way that it almost looks like you’re walking on water. He was successful so the girls and I ventured out for a picture. The reef is very jagged with lots of pointy things and slippery too (can you guess where this is going). We made it out there very slowly and lined up on a reef for a picture. One of the girls suggested we link arms. All was going along smoothly until an enormous wave came and literally took us out. First Lauren slipped and then so did I, followed by Katey and Esther. It was actually kind of scary between falling into the water and sliding over pointy edges. We all lost our flip-flops, which Mark had to jump in and swim around to save. In the end we were pretty scraped up but we got some great pictures! 
Showing off our wounds 🙁
Today (August 20th) we are headed back to Manzini for the night and tomorrow we will be staying in Pretoria at Alabanza again until we leave on the 27th for Thailand.
