What do you do on holiday but swim, eat, read, and sit at the bar after dinner? Most nights I found myself at Coco’s in Sarova Whitesands-a bar by the beach, all breeze and sand and makuti thatch. Pure tropical indulgence. Nothing says “I intend to do nothing with my life but have drinks” quite like Coco’s Beach Bar.
Adjacent to it, there’s a dance floor where the hotel stages those wonderfully cheesy shows coastal resorts love: traditional dances, acrobatics, young crew members leading choreography while guests join in with varying degrees of coordination.
The bravery of people with two left legs never fails to entertain. But what can we say, the man who counts is the man in the arena, who strives valiantly to rhythm.
However, it’s the children I love watching most-hopping around on stage, searching for their rhythm, feeling impossibly grown-up because nobody’s ordering them to bed after dinner.
I tried cocktails each time because that’s what holidays demand: switching things up. Two whisky sours later, we’d amble back to our rooms. My daughter is of drinking age now, so it was a quiet joy watching her study the drinks menu and order something experimental. She’s poised and observant, taking it all in.
One night I sat alone. A woman beside me asked, “You look sad-why are you sad in a place like this?” “That’s not my sad look,” I told her.
“That’s my thinking look.” From the bar, you can see the darkness where the ocean begins, occasionally punctuated by lights from distant ships. I was contemplating how over seventy percent of Earth is ocean, how we occupy a mere strip of land, how sitting at this bar makes me cosmically insignificant. I thought about our mortality and how it means nothing to the dominant creatures in those unexplored depths.
During the day, Coco’s transforms. I’d lie on cushioned beach furniture under shade, reading, surrounded by breeze and silence. The bar becomes both escape and observation post-a place to do nothing while feeling everything.