St Vincent Escapades

It was such a warm and fuzzy feeling getting off the Liat jet for the second time in St Vincent and making my way to the ferry terminal. When I was on the ferry watching Bequia grow closer and closer, it was like coming home. So long a time had I lingered here. So familiar were its shores. And this time, familiar friends ashore to meet me. Francis' face emerged from the crowd as I stepped ashore and Sam had pina coladas waiting when we got back to the boat. I returned to the Zenaida quite happily and we spent our last few days in Bequia visiting old haunts and saying goodbye to our local West Indian friends.

And then, one fine morning, we set sail for St Vincent with a reefed main and jib. We caught some hefty winds and were quickly heeled over at 7.8 knots trucking through the waves. I spent the brief sail practicing cranking down on winches properly, sheeting in the sails when needed and tacking back and forth with the jib. We pulled into a protected area by Young Island and dropped anchor.

The morning dawned with a trip to the airport as we said goodbye to Francis who had to go north for a few weeks to take care of some business. We would be meeting up with him again in St Martin. At the airport, we met up with Carrie, a peace corps volunteer who had met the guys in Bequia a few weeks earlier. After Francis had flown away, the 3 of us headed into Kingstown to explore a little. We got our first taste of "doubles" - a type of food that supposedly was imported from Trinidad. A rastafari with a huge white tam full of dreads with green, red, and yellow stripes served up the tasty treats made of slightly thick tortillas piled up with chick peas in a thick sauce like a curry but with a different flavor hinting strongly of cilantro and some other far eastern spices. All the while he bemoaned the fact that his girlfriend had broken up with him the night before and so his day wasn't going so good - but he'd be sure to find a new one by evening... We took our doubles to a little coffee shop where gathered a whole posse of peace corps workers. We discovered that there are more than 20 on this island working on various projects and we met four of them right there. Eventually we went our separate ways and Sam and I walked around Kingstown for a while exploring the capitol city. Then we rejoined the peace corps crew later at the beach near our boat. We spent a lazy afternoon at the beach, having a few beers to celebrate Sam's birthday. Deb and Carrie, who both already knew Sam, had brought along several friends, including Kat, another peace corps worker stationed in Dominica. As we were headed there next it was good to meet a new friend and contact. After geting baked by the sun we had come to decide that we all wanted to hike up the volcano, Mount Soufriere, the next day and decided to stay with Deb and Kat so we could get an early start in the morning.

In order to make it to Deb's village we had to experience the local Caribbean dollar bus service. I had used the bus in Martinique and was familiar with the system. Full size vans with the name of the destination printed on the dash stop at the side of the road to pick you up and they wedge up to 20 people in the van at any given time. But in Vinci, they have a style all their own. The vans are all pimped out in bright flashy colors. The destination is printed in tiny lettering just below the wipers and scrawled across the whole front of the vehicle in elaborate tag style lettering is the name of that particular van - names like "Vete Ran", "Iron T", and "Ballerz" proclaiming the identity of the driver. The locals learn to tell which bus they want by the driver's name not the route. And the vans are all vibrating with the boom as they pump their reggae and hiphop beats. No elevator music here.

We piled into one of these and it was like we were the ball in a pinball machine. As the sliding door slammed shut we were hit by the plunger and shot forward into space. The van hurtled around curves, up and down hills. All the people were being alternately pressed against one wall or the other as the van flew headlong into the unknown beyond the next curve. It was the roller coaster rocket into paradise and I loved it. I was holding a dozen eggs in one hand and my backpack in the other with no real hands left to hold on with and the seats were covered in plastic so we were sliding all over them like butter. I kept apologizing to Kat as I found myself crushing her against the window, then clutching at her with my spare elbow as I was dragged away towards the woman on the other side of me. The roads we were driving on were little curvy roads through the mountains with dense jungle greenery all around us at times, and cliffs dropping away to entrancing rocky coastlines on the windward side. Other cars and vans are careening past us without slowing down in the least - all playing the same pinball game and all determined to be the winner. I held my breath every time we blew past some small children standing at the side of the road and my heart just stood still. When we finally reached Mesopotamia, the van screeched to a halt and the passengers all lurched back. The door slid open and we scrambled out. The moment we were out, the door snapped shut and the van leapt into forward motion again. What a rush. I couldn't help but grin and found myself wanting to turn to the others and say "let's do it again!" Yeah, I know. I'm nuts. But remember - I'm the one who likes turbulence on airplanes... It's like a two for one - you pay for transportation and get a carnival ride for free.

At Deb's house we made some yummy tacos with homemade tortillas and talked into the night. It was my second time sleeping on land since I had begun this journey - and luckily this time - no earthquake. Even better, we got to take real showers. Well, I mean she had a shower that poured water down from above but no hot water. Which was more than we had since our water had run out 4 days earlier. No reverse osmosis on this boat. We had a place to get water. We just kept postponing doing it because fun things to do kept distracting us. So I had been doing dishes in sea water - and there was just enough water left in the tanks to rinse the dishes and brush our teeth, but that was about it.

Also at Deb's house I befriended the little lizards that crawl all over the place, inside and out, up the porch walls, across the ceilings, leaping from post to post. They were adorable, about as wide as my handspan with the fingers spread. Their heads and torso were a lovely grass green melting into yellow on belly and throat and blending further into orange on legs and tail with a striking sky blue circle around the eye.

In the morning, we got a ride with Deb's friend up to the north end of the island picking up Carrie along the way and passing through Georgetown, the old capitol. We got dropped off at the trailhead and tramped into the jungle. It began on a narrow ridge that dropped away for hundreds of feet on both sides with nothing but a sea of green falling away. There were huge clumps of bamboo swaying and creaking along the edge of the trail. There were several steep sections of stairs winding upward through heavy vegetation and although it was overcast, we were quickly drenched with sweat. We crossed a dry creek bed of old lava flow and started up the scree slope which was tufted sparsely with grasses and a variety of low growing plants. There was a lot of precipitate in the air and the wind picked up quite a bit. Near the summit we were still climbing steeply and moving through a spitting soft rain. We reached the top and looked over the edge of the abyss into the crater and saw

nothing

but mist dropping away into forever.

Which made it all the more creepy.
We sat at the top for a while hoping the weather would blow over, but in the end we got too cold in the wind and rain and they didn't show any signs of easing. So we trekked on out again. When we reached the base we found some plumrose fruit - small pear shaped fruits that start out white and ripen into a reddish color. They taste like you are eating something flowery and roselike, very tangy and tart. They were not my favorite, but it was something wet to put in our dry mouths after the hike. We felt tired and hot but exhilarated. Before we left I saw a hummingbird flit by us. It was a dark iridescent blue with red patches on its head. I had never seen one of this color. He buzzed by watching us for a moment as if investigating what strange creatures we may be. I cannot fault a day in which both hummingbird and lizard visit me. It was a good ending for our time on St Vincent.