Tomb it concerns

It had been another lovely meal of mega salad and seafood with the odd pineapple mojito on the beachside balcony of Dukes. We’d eaten early to get a good table and were feeling just a bit guilty at having succumbed to a dessert of Dukes’s sensational sorbet cake.

Since we had some daylight left, we decided to explore a corner of the hotel mentioned in the hotel information pack. It seemed to be a pavilion with rest rooms for the public by the public beach beneath our balcony. It had a lift to “the lagoon”, Bruce reported. Let’s check it out.

And thus we went past the conveniences down a long corridor stepped into the mountainside. There was strange artwork on the walls. It felt a bit like the entrance to a tomb with an art deco influence. At the end were the doors to the lift.

Hmm. Is this a computer game?

The lift opened promptly. It was rather world-worn inside. The faded dials gave us a choice of UL or LL. We pressed UL and the doors closed. It was quite a long ride up. We shuddered to a stop and stepped out onto a narrow walled parapet which looked steeply down on some very scruffy foliage. No view. A cement path went around what turned out to be a rather grand and lonely lift tower.

There was no sign of lagoons.

We crossed a road to some steps and thus into the first of a series of very long colonnades. There were highly groomed gardens on one side and at the other, a broad expanse of aged asphalt tennis courts, unfenced, weed-lined and long abandoned, their lines just visible. How odd, we thought.

At the end of this colonnade was a stridently-illuminatad laughing buddha. White as white in the bright downlight, he sat in vast obesity enjoying some private joke. Beyond him were a couple of working tennis courts with some fit young men having a hit.

The colonnade turned left and led to another junction in which stood a huge rooster statue. Beside it was a rope and a sign saying “Stairs Closed”. Some very overgrown stairs led down to a roadway below.

Another long stretch of colonnade beckoned.

This was strange. Apart from the two tennis players, we had seen no one.

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There, beside us to the left was another tennis court - not just a tennis court but a whole tennis stadium sunken into the hillside. The tennis stadium that time forgot.

Weeds straggled out from among the tiers of dirty, abandoned seating. Grass peeped from cracks in the court surface. Creepers festooned the fences. The back wall was gouged and ragged.

It was a strange and melancholy sight. A huge question mark.

Clearly tennis had enjoyed an opulent heyday once upon a time.

Why had it died?

The colonnade continued. There was a sense of somewhere nowhere. Still a suspicion that we had walked into a computer game. Lara Croft might leap out at any minute.

Feeling decidedly disconcerted, if not just a bit weirded out, we followed the colonnade. It made another turn marked by another sculpture.

This time it led towards what seemed to be a formal garden.

And, there a very grand scene opened up. A very beautiful round swimming pool lay behind a “Swimming Pool Closed” sign.

On close inspection, it did look a bit crumbly and in need of care.

But our attention was seduced by the very grand building at the far end of the garden.

Steps and levels of lawns led up to a magnificent marble terrace.

Wicker arm chairs and tables were tucked behind grand columns.

Lights were on inside.

There was the faint sound of music.

Timidly we approached the great glass doors, expecting at an minute someone to come and tell us to go away. The doors opened. There were more lights on through glass doors at either side of a very grand foyer with huge chandelier, lounge chairs and coffee tables upon which large picture books lay open, showing Hawaiian landscapes.

But, no signs of life, apart from the hauntingly quiet music.

Centrepiece to the foyer was a tall glass display table wherein rather enigmatic design plans were set out.

We poked about curiously, ever more haunted by the feeling that we had stepped into some other dimension. There were signs of golfing paraphernalia in an illuminated side room.

Was this some sort of golf club?

Where were the golfers?

Through large doors on the other side there lay a lake and beyond that, yes, golf links.

Immense white fish sculptures rose from the water but the little promontory was closed off, a deserted work site.

Skeletal remains of huge unfinished buildings stood on the horizon. An giant crane stood there, idle, bowed over in such a way that it looked genuinely crestfallen.

Still no signs of human life.

But we found a big placard which invited interest in a fabulous new development.

“This could be your view,” it offered.

“Go into the Club House and we will tell you more."

There was a photograph of a luscious resort-like development. The photo was fading.

Obviously it had been there a long time.

We were getting a strong feeling that we were being watched.

We had stepped into, not a computer game but a massive broken dream.

This was an ambitious golfer’s heaven that had turned into hell.

We were wandering around in a mire of millions of lost dollars.

It was a very strange ghost world.

We retraced our steps down the long, once-proud colonnades whence we had come and back to that strange old lift which, thank heavens, took us back into the sanctuary of our lovely hotel.