we've arrived; detailed email later

It felt a bit like the twilight zone by the end of the traveling day... I thought I might be boarding planes and flying the rest of my life...  bedraggled after 30 hours of travel we're here.

It is Sunday evening at 9pm as I write this. We had a delicious dinner at "the Taj" earlier. Then a walk uphill after dinner- ugh- literally moving at a snail's pace... the air is humid post a short bit of rain and the air is not moving at all. Kind of sticky.  Lucky to find an internet cafe open, the first two we passed were closed, and quite happy to have the A/C in here, that would be worth the price alone, 75 cents to use the computer for half an hour.

The smell of the air... that was what Daniel said he liked about Palau. At the airport it smells like jet fuel mixed with tropical forest. Not a hint of ocean smell in the air.
On the 20 minute drive from the airport, the air smelled of damp basement/mildew-ish... kind of like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland/

 Inside our little tropical cabin (with air conditioning) it smells like the inside of a cigar box. ( I like that smell)  At breakfast this morning, on the little porch in front of our cabin, overlooking a sweeping panorramic view of hilled countryside with abundant emerald green foliage of a huge biodiversit, it smelt of an undertone of rotting vegetation smell layered with a fragrant hint of tuberose or some sweet smelling flower over.