Late December, 2009 - We had such a great time on Union Island that we
were reluctant to leave. The Christmas spirit was alive everywhere, and the
wide happy smiles we saw on everyone's faces were contagious. Maybe it
was the holidays or maybe it was the warm tropical air... whatever it was,
this island seemed genuinely contented. Years ago I had sailed through the
Grenadines on a charter boat, and the guidebooks in those days dismissed
Union Island as a bit run down and dangerous, so we had bypassed it. How
satisfying, after all these
years, to discover its
delights. In those bygone
days Bequia was the
favored island, and it was the highlight of my long ago visit. To avoid a
holiday booking nightmare, I had made advanced room reservations on
Bequia which required taking a 15 minute flight on a 10-seat airplane rather
than waiting a few days for the next mail/ferry boat came through again.
Bequia (pronounced Bekway) looked lovely from the air. Seven square miles
with 4,300 inhabitants, it is smaller than Carriacou but larger than Union
Island. Having been in the islands for almost three weeks at this point, away
from all hustle and bustle for almost 10 days, we emerged from the plane
into the sultry air as mellow as could be.
So it took me a while to catch on when the customs agent began
to hustle us. We were the only passengers to get off the plane in
Bequia (and it was one of just two planes to arrive that day), but
when we asked him where to go to catch a bus to town he refused
to tell us. He insisted we get a taxi ride with his brother instead.
We explained that we wanted to take the bus, as it was about 1/5
the price of a taxi, but he physically blocked our way and whipped
out his cell phone to make a call to his brother. When another
uniformed airport official approached us to give us directions to the
bus stop, the customs agent
scolded her, told her not to help
us and waved her away.
Meanwhile a crowd of twenty or
so locals watched all this unfold before them while they sat on the pavement in the shade of
the terminal building. They stared at us with blank expressions, heads turning in unison to
watch our every move. They seemed to have been glued to the pavement all morning and
gave no indications they might do something different in the afternoon.
Disgusted, we shouldered our big packs and started walking away from the air strip, figuring
there had to be a bus stop somewhere along the road to town. A young boy suddenly ran
after us from the crowd, yelling, "Those people are mean back there. I'll help you," and he
proceeded to walk with us towards town until we came to a bus stand. Suddenly a taxi
drove up and stopped in the middle of the road right in front of us. The customs agent was
hanging out of the passenger's seat yelling at us. The driver -- his brother -- shouted too,
and the two of them screamed and waved their arms in fury, telling us we were cheap rotten
tourists and that we'd spend more on lunch once we got to town than a taxi would have cost.
Luckily nothing more than insults were hurled, and eventually they drove off.
As we stood waiting for the bus, the young boy suddenly turned to me and asked if Mark was going to tip him for having shown
us the bus stop. Taken aback by his boldness, I wondered if I could have been as brazen when I was 10. Eventually a bus
arrived, we tipped the boy, and were off.
After the mellow, sweet air and smiling people of Union Island, Carriacou
and Grenada, this miserable encounter was a real shock to the system.
I hadn't been angry at anyone or anything in ages. We arrived at our
apartment still reeling from the encounter. We set our bags down and
immediately the host and hostess launched into a long lecture about
safety on the island. The windows were barred and the door had three
dead-bolt locks on it. We were to leave the windows closed and locked if
we stepped out during the day and we were to keep all valuables far
from the open windows at all other times, as thieves would reach in and
grab stuff. At night we were advised to lock all doors and windows, but
would have to pay a surcharge of $1/hour if we chose to run the air
conditioning. We weren't to take anything of value to the beach, and we
should watch our wallets carefully if we chose to go into town.
We told our hosts about our experience at the airport. They weren't
happy to hear the story, but even though they knew who the customs
agent was, they explained to us that reporting the incident would be
pointless, as the local authorities wouldn't do anything about it.
Our host and hostess left, and we looked around our very pretty room
and felt like we were in jail. There wasn't a breath of air, the sun baked
the room all afternoon, and the cool water and ocean breezes were
barely visible in the far distance.
Discouraged but still hopeful, we took a walk along the shore-side
boardwalk into Port Elizabeth, the main town, to see if we could find
a trace of Bequia's former loveliness that still haunted my memory.
The harbor was filled with boats of all shapes and sizes, stretching
on into town and out to the edge of the bay as far as you could see.
We passed the ornate Gingerbread House, and stopped in at an ice
cream shop. $7 for a single scoop of ice cream was too much for us,
but we watched an extended family of at least a dozen European
tourists get double scoops all around and slowly began to understand
Bequia's charm. If you arrive on a yacht and are on a brief vacation
with lots of money to spend, Bequia has much to offer.
Groups of chairs and tables line portions of the boardwalks, and it is
a beautiful place to while away the day, first with ice creams and later
with cocktails before an elegant dinner at one of the fine restaurants
in town. As we sat there soaking up this tourist ambiance, we
watched and conversed with many well-heeled folks around us who
were doing just that.
The ARC Rally from Europe (the trans-Atlantic Rally for
Cruisers from the Canary Islands off of Spain to St. Lucia
in the Caribbean) had arrived just a week or so earlier,
and almost every boat in the harbor flew a European flag
(mostly Norwegian).
Exquisite, beautifully appointed yachts disgorged equally exquisite
and beautifully appointed people. There wasn't a skin tone darker
than sunburned pink to be seen anywhere along the boardwalk.
Behind the counters of the shops, boutiques and eateries. however,
black sullen eyes stared out of dark, drawn, unhappy faces.
Further towards town under some trees, in an area that tourist
brochures colorfully describe as a haven for local artisans, throngs
of unemployed men in Rasta garb hung out in varying degrees of
drug-induced stupors.
We had wanted to find the heart of the Caribbean soul on the
other islands, and up until this point we often felt we did. But here
in Bequia there was no soul. Stopping at the vegetable market, a
flash from my camera elicited the command, "Hey, you gotta buy
someting to pay for that picture." We filled our bags but didn't
enjoy the process, as every vendor in the market aggressively
hassled us to buy this or that.
Bequia and its harborfront are tiny, but mammoth cruise
ships that dwarf the island arrive daily, sometimes in twos
and threes. In a round-robin cycle these cruise ships
deliver waves of tourists to and from the island in tenders.
These tourists are then piled into the
canopied backs of pickup trucks and taken
on guided tours of the island. As we
walked along the roads we would cling to
the edges when these cabs came
careening around the corners at top speed.
After a while we made our peace with
the commercial nature of Bequia,
gravitating towards the boardwalk along
the harbor front. As tourists ourselves,
this was where
we fit in best.
The beaches
around the island were pretty, but not stunning, and where the
locals did not want to interact with us, we found that other tourists
did. We enjoyed conversations with Germans, Spaniards and
Norwegians, and we discovered people who were visiting Bequia
in elegant villas, on bareboat charter boats, on personal ocean-
going yachts and in more modest accommodations like ourselves.
We had originally
planned to stay on
Bequia for a month,
but we were ready to
leave after a few
days. Besides
finding that either the
island or I (or both)
had changed
dramatically in 20
years, a new chapter
in our traveling lifestyle had
started to take shape in the
background. With the arrival
of New Year's Eve, our lives
took a dramatic new turn as
we came face-to-face with
our new conveyance to
adventure, "Groovy."