WorldTravelReynolds

On Sunday a little after 1 pm, our power went out here on the island. We thought, or at least hoped, it would come right back on. We waited around the apartment for about an hour and during that time, we also noticed our cell phones didn’t work either. So, we decided to take a walk to see if we could reach a cell tower closer to town.

What we saw was everyone looking at their phone and becoming frustrated because they couldn’t figure out why, for the same reason we couldn’t. We stopped in a small 7-11 type grocery market and thankfully the owner spoke a little English. He told us he heard the power was out for the entire island and had no idea when it would be back on.

He heard that there was an explosion at a power station. We decided to spend some time at the beach and then determined that maybe we should get back at the apartment before dark. With 3 floors and 15-20 steps between each floor, we didn’t want to be roaming around in the dark, literally!

To rent two chairs and 1 umbrella the cost is 6 Euros per day ($6.55 USD). Works for me!!

We have lots of noisy neighbors to begin with, yelling across and down the road at each other, but at night when its pitch dark, its a little creepy. The only issue was this guy clapping continuously. He would not stop! I remembered I had music on my phone so we turned it on and turned it up. At least we could try to read on our kindles.

If you can tell from this picture the mountain has a mesh wiring wrapped around it to keep the rocks from dropping on the road or people or cars!

The fridge was “warming” up so we moved our fridge items to the freezer in hopes of salvaging them. We bought groceries right after we arrived and still had at least a weeks worth of protein in the freezer, milk, cheese and yogurts in the fridge. This is one of those times that eggs not being refrigerated was a huge help! Around 10 pm, the power came on! Thank goodness! We were only without for about 8-9 hours. And miraculously our cellphones began working again. I’m not sure why this has eluded me, that the electricity is off and so are our cell phones. Its not that way in the U.S. but probably because there are many backup generators that help in the recovery.

We were fortunate that we weren’t driving downtown. All traffic lights were out and the traffic had come to a standstill. We read in the local paper that people just abandoned their cars and left. They eventually were able to bring in some traffic assistance to get the cars moving.

Sitting in the covered area on the 3rd floor having coffee. Very nice!

The news also said people were stuck in elevators and on the tram. Crazy!! In other not so exciting news, we spent the day at the beach yesterday and walked along the water way today. Its very hot here this week (mid 80’s Fahrenheit) and with no A/C, we rely on the breeze but today its not been blowing in our direction. We did find a fan in a closet that will help.

That glass partition to the left is the open area into the apartment atrium.

It’s a little warm but not complaining. I’m so happy to be wearing shorts again. We hope to visit the volcano this week. Not a whole lot of activities on the island other than the beach. That’s what we came for so I’m sure we’ll be back out again in a couple of days.

Most of our pictures from this trip will be on the beach and water so hopefully I don’t bore you.

May God bless you all!

Chuck & Lea Ann