Daniele Somenzi's Maldives

Maldives It has always been a place that attracted me and at the same time that I feared. It attracts me because of the beautiful place with corals for great diving, yes, but for a couple of days. Then, however, since here you stay 7 days or multiples of 7, in an atoll you can walk around in 20 minutes, what do you do?

Until the opportunity arrived with all the components in the right place, that is, a good price, good company; we're 2 families, 7 in all, so even for the days of boredom, let's say, there was something to do.

The Eurofly Airbus 330 flight leaves in the evening from Fiumicino, and all of us spend the night, after dinner, sleeping. In the morning here we are at Malé, or rather on the little island next to the capital. All the luggage arrived; we follow the guy who accompanies us to the nearby fast motorboat. Unfortunately we came in the worst period of the year, in July; the sea during the 1-hour crossing is very rough and we get tossed around well and good, but I, staying on my feet, bounce and cushion every blow of the boat on the waves. We see many little islets along the way, really small ones. Finally we arrive, in the South Malé archipelago, at the island of Fihalhohi. A little pier lets us disembark; the excitement of finally being in the legendary Maldives is visible in each of us.

Straight to the reception, the welcome is good, they offer us a drink and assign us the bungalows, explaining how life goes here, the meal times, the excursions, etc.

In these days the activities repeat themselves: in the morning breakfast and after a couple of hours a swim in the crystal-clear water; in the afternoon another 2 hours of swimming and diving with mask and snorkel; the little sharks on the shore put on a fine display like the two herons of the island, we even gave them a name; some crow is always present, they're everywhere in the world, just like Italians and Chinese.

The third day we opt to go to the island where the city stands; we make an excursion to the local mosque and see how the Maldivian people are concentrated living in this atoll 5 km long and 6 wide, a concentrate of Homo sapiens. There's no lack of confusion, nor of poverty; as usual not everyone benefits from the riches brought by tourism. We enter the fish market, fish never seen before, which back home swim inside aquariums, here instead inside frying pans. We also do some shopping in a couple of little shops of classic souvenirs; I buy, with Maldivian rufiyaa, a small canvas picture that now has pride of place in my living room.

The motorboat takes us back, tossing us well and good, to our atoll.

And off into the water for a nice swim before dinner and then watching the film shown.

To pass the time, as well as playing cards on the little tables at the edges of the corals and the lagoon, we play tennis, but that tennis with the little balls with the mini parachute. Inside the building we also play billiards.

The satellite lets me watch the Formula 1 GP, what luck.

Mobiles work, but they say not on all the atolls. Anyway sending an SMS costs almost €1, better to save.

I brought the 2-seater dinghy from Italy, which I used the whole time; in the Maldives you really need a dinghy. The last day, then, I traded it for a little wooden animal. Unfortunately the time to leave has also come and my fear of getting bored turned out to be unfounded, but I repeat, thanks to the company of the other members of the group.

It's not out of the question that one day I'll end up in the Maldives again, why not. Always better than spending a week at Cinquale.

Having arrived after the usual up and down from Fihalhohi to the airport atoll, we check in and board, this time a Boeing 767 of Blue Panorama for Rome.

bye bye