Dancing in the moonlight (literally)

Dear friend,

Last night I found myself dancing in the moonlight with three British girls and a tall Dutchman on a private stretch of Atlantic Ocean beach, with an African trio playing just for us.

Another one of those mind-boggling, unbelievable moments in life that will stay with me forever.

The Friday night plan was to have a 'girl's night' at a restaurant situated on a beachside cliff, two minutes walk from where we all live, for drinks, sunset and and some good ol' girl talk; then walking to the nearby bakery on the way home for some cheap chicken pie for dinner. That was the plan at least, lol. At the last minute, our friend, a fun-loving lovely Dutchman came with us, so it was no longer a girl's night but we welcomed his joining us for the evening nonetheless. When we arrived at the restaurant we sat in the outdoor terrace lounge, ordered some cocktails, and watched the glorious red sunset over the Atlantic Ocean from atop our very own beachside cliff. The cool breeze, amazing drinks, palm trees and sunset was too perfect to give up when asked by our waiter whether we'd be staying to eat... The restaurant is one of the nicest in the area and with that relatively pricey, but even then, no more expensive than most places back home. And so we gave in; dinner it was! Plus, one of the girls who has just completed her Masters found out yesterday that she scored the highest mark in her entire class (from what is a pretty prominent University in the UK) so some real celebrating was in order.

It's difficult to describe how amazing the restaurant is -- open-air, covered roof, on this cliff right by the water. And the food was amazing. One of my favourite things to do is eat out -- a real weakness of mine -- and this meal, the ambiance, the location -- everything -- was, incredible.

At some point during the evening the live music started featuring a local trio -- a guy playing the guitar, another playing the African drums, and a woman singing. They were so lovely, so chilled out, with some awesome rhythms -- they even had us dancing in the restaurant on our way out! Done with dinner we decided to walk down to the beach, literally just down a set of stairs. It was a half moon, the tide was going out, and as we stood there taking it all in, we realised what we really needed was some music. So myself and one of the other girls decided to walk back up to the restaurant where we found the trio packing up and asked them -- as sweetly as we could -- to come down and play for us. 'We're down by the beach, it's beautiful and we really, *really* want to dance. Do you think you guys could come down and play for us, just for a little while? (We don't expect you to do it for free.)'

And the amazing thing is, they said Yes.

I firmly believe all you need to do in life is Ask, and the world truly is your oyster.

So they came down with their instruments -- to the utter surprise of our three friends star-gazing on the beach -- and the dreamlike scene began. Sitting here thinking back on it, it feels like a shared hallucination. Did it really happen?? Or was it all a dream??

The music was beautiful. They played three songs for us, the beautiful African melodies ringing out across our very own private stretch of beach, lit up by nothing more than the moonlight... and we danced and danced like there was no tomorrow.

Always,

-A