the ship at dock, ready to rock
One of the benefits of getting a reputation as a Full Blown Traveler is having people ask what you’ve been up to lately and then actually stay tuned in to hear the answer.
I often find myself obliged to tell the same tales many times. Fortunately, I’m not easily bored talking about myself. I also feel a strange sense of duty to entertain those less fortunate. Call it verbal philanthropy. It’s the karmic price I pay for splashing around in the Caribbean as if it were my bathtub, again and again, while others have to make due with drooling over island-themed screensavers in their cubicles.
A few friends and acquaintances are bitter. These ask where I’m going next and then scrunch up their faces as if constipated. As if to say I wouldn’t go there if you paid me to. But I never encountered as much facial constipation as when I told people that Yllithia and I were going on our first cruise.
“Cruises are for the newlywed and the nearly dead,” we heard. Many objected to the amount of weight gained on cruises, as if crewmembers recommended the soufflé by holding a gun to your head. And more than one person said, “That’s not your style!”
I happen to be well aware of what my style is, and agree. My style isn’t compatible with luggage featuring handles or wheels. My style has a stomach that churns at the thought of “formal night.” My style is the opposite of being told when I may leave and when I must be back or else.
But guess what: my style isn’t dressing up as a drag-queen cheerleader, either, but one Halloween I did it anyway. Yllithia and I booked this cruise for kicks. And also because the itinerary had us hopscotching between five Caribbean islands we’d never seen.
Enough friends and acquaintances scorned our cruise that I became determined to oppose their negativity with sheer joy. This would be the best cruise of all time. Ship rules would be bent until my style gushed in at the seams. The issue had become larger than us vs. them. There was a truth at stake here that affected all travelers—were cruises only for the stereotypical cruiser, or were the rest of us missing out?
water so wet it soaks
ARUBA—
Aruba fascinated me for having an endemic rattlesnake. There are also cacti and sand dunes, making the place a legitimate desert in my book.
Yet Aruba’s desert legitimacy was threatened by the fact that it was raining. In March. Was this some sort of pansy desert treated to regular sprinkles like a garden? I asked the rental car guy when he last saw similar weather.
“December,” he said, “and then yesterday.”
We rented a 4X4 Durango and rocked every puddle en route to Arikok National Park. The road traversing Arikok is dirt, so I worried that, courtesy of this untimely sprinkling, we would swiftly become mired in a landscape of pudding.
Nothing doing! Our confidence grew so large that we took a side road toward some interesting-looking limestone cliffs and accidentally found Quadirikiri Cave. Nobody there. Ceiling holes allowed in beams of sunlight and we used a headlamp to explore dark pockets where bats hung in crowds. On to Fontein Cave, where red pre-Colombian petroglyphs echoed mysteries.
Aruba’s beaches hold up to their world-class reputation. We snorkeled Baby Beach and had touristy Eagle Beach all to ourselves thanks to a fresh bout of sprinkles. Both beaches had white sand so fine it was like walking in clay.
Still there was time. And since it is a heinous faux pas not to partake of a country’s local brew Yllithia and I sat down to sample a Balashi. In the bar we couldn’t help but notice that there were just two patrons: us. Solitude had been typical.
A good omen.
going like 1oo MPH on moped
BONAIRE—
Pondering Bonaire on a map before we arrived, one thing became certain: it was moped or bust.
Fortunately, right off the wharf a grizzled expat sat in front of numerous mopeds. And since I doubted his intent was to ride them all himself in some sort of circus act, I asked how much for the day.
Soon we were ripping gleefully across Bonaire.
It had rained recently. You could tell by the fresh-seeped aroma of the chaparral. If Mother Nature were on a cruise, she’d wear Bonaire After The Rain to formal night.
Bonaire is an island of peaceful drivers enjoying smooth roads—moped compatible indeed. We relished the warm Caribbean wind squeezing tears from our eyes as we hurled along at 60 mph.
The rugged beauty of lake Gotomeer leveled us. We were emotionally unprepared for this blue water with its islands and pink flamingoes…I thought about weeping but decided to save my energy.
Later, we pulled off onto a dirt road where wild donkeys stood contemplating the surf. Donkeys and surf are two words, I’m pretty sure, that have never been in the same sentence before, and that signifies something about the importance of the moment.
The caves of Boka Onima looked like big limestone waves themselves, and we stood (like donkeys) in contemplation of their astrological petroglyphs. Yllithia was rendered stupefied, mouth askew, a rope of drool dangling from her chin.
On the southern loop we blew past miles of salt flats. These were shallow turquoise lakes accentuated by ruins, obelisks and windmills.
Bonaire is famous for its reef, so we parked the moped under a tree and snorkeled. The reef sparkled. The island rose even more in our esteem.
Bonaire felt like home, such privacy had we enjoyed. It was as if the island had been evacuated and we’d missed the memo. Nary a cruiser in sight all day…again.
The score: Cruise 2, Nay Sayers 0.
driving into doom & damnation
GRENADA—
As far as renting a vehicle in Grenada is concerned, anything less versatile than a tank is a liability.
There were signs that this would be so. First, the terrain was steep and cliffy and St. George’s one-way roads were packed with aggressive drivers. Second, the wheel was on the right side of the car and one drove on the left side of the road (where all the cliffs are located). Third, we required a local license, which meant dealing with police. And fourth, the cop sweating profusely in his concrete office refused to glance up at us for seven minutes.
We rented a big fat Suzuki anyway. Grenada was too big to circle, but we outlined a pretty ambitious loop and set sights on accomplishing that.
The jungle was thick. Villages we passed were painted exclusively in Rasta colors. On impulse we took an exit for Concord Falls.
We were soon stuck behind two tour busses full of cruisers moving at turtle-swiftness up the hill. This must be one of the “excursions” we’d heard cruise people chattering about.
Concord Falls are interactive and therefore popular. The falls disappear into an 18-foot-deep punchbowl of clear green water. This allows for all sorts of ambitious high dives. Yllithia and I jumped a few times and explored downstream and when we came back everyone was leaving. The cattle bell had rung. Already. We kicked up our feet. Soaked up some sun. Relaxed. Alone.
After this, however, nothing was relaxing. The remainder of our loop looked simple on the map but wasn’t in 3-D. Not one sign. We became stupendously lost in Gouyave. Locals looked at us as if we were Martians. Little punks punched at our car as we sped by for the third time.
Americans aren’t exactly heroes in Grenada. Not after the invasion in ‘83, when the United States intervened against a coup and blew shit up with spectacular firepower.
As soon as we escaped Gouyave we sighed massively, at least until we got lost in the hills—which was even more frightening. “Wrong way! Turn round!” This is what bumpkins screamed at us from cinderblock windows in the geographic middle of nowhere. We envisioned missing the ship and shuddered, shuddered even unto the marrow of our bones. If only I had a tank, I kept thinking.
But eventually we found ourselves in Grand Etang National Park, where more excursion busses were parked. This time sighing would not suffice. We guzzled a few Carib beers and retreated to the crater lake for a Zen moment.
Grenada was one of those experiences you graciously label an “adventure.”
hot spring + hot couple = NC-17
DOMINICA—
The number one reason we booked this cruise was Dominica. I’d wanted to visit for years. On this island nature was unleashed.
A row of taxi drivers lurked at the end of the wharf. I braced myself for impact. A man named Phillip approached us and I asked about renting a moped. He laughed, pointing to the hills. A car then. Nobody rents to cruise ship people anymore, Phillip said.
Hard to believe. Shunning tourist money was unheard of. But Phillip took us to a rental agency and proved himself honest. We hired him on the spot.
Our advice to anyone going to Dominica: HIRE PHILLIP. You won’t do better on your own and you won’t find better. Three random taxi drivers stepped up to us during breaks and said, “You have the best.”
Phillip was in no hurry. He stopped in the middle of the road to point out native riches. Breadfruit. Papaya. Prickly Pear. Avocado. Grapefruit. Banana. Plantain. We detoured into a botanical garden just to see what a Cannonball Tree is.
Phillip chauffeured us to Trafalgar Falls. Here three cascades plunge from adjacent gorges onto one pile of rocks, forming a torrential river on the spot. Like a tropical Yosemite.
Next to Tia’s Hot Sulphur Water Pool, where jacuzzis of steaming mineral water were situated alongside a creek. We spent over an hour there—alone.
Phillip took us to the end of Dominica and back to Champagne Beach, where we snorkeled among bubbles rising from underwater vents.
It was a tough goodbye; Yllithia and I wanted to take Phillip with us. To mooch off his infectious good vibe. We toasted him with Kabuli beers, waiting until the last moment to board the ship.…
the thinker thinks
ST. THOMAS—
Nothing to report on St. Thomas because we took a water taxi to Water Island instead. We returned in time to gorge on our last cruise buffet and disembark.
We’d decided to disembark thirteen hours early. For all that remained of the cruise was a final snooze and an early wake-up call in Puerto Rico, whereupon everyone was to stampede the gangplank in an orderly fashion.
This did not sound like fun to us. But camping on St. John did.
While unwinding on St. John we reflected upon our cruise. We laughed at the thought of our friends and acquaintances trying to pull off the same itinerary sans a ship.
There’d be numerous airplane tickets, to start. This meant claustrophobic flights, boring layovers and jetlag, whereas, by contrast, we cruisers swam in pools and played cribbage and went to shows.
Our friends would need to find places to sleep for seven nights. Hostel or hotel? We cruisers, by contrast, had private staterooms featuring fluffy beds that were magically made in our absence.
Our friends would play Digestive Russian Roulette by stepping into 21 different eateries. We cruisers, by contrast, had easy access to high-quality buffets and restaurants all day long. This—contrary to what we’d heard—was a decidedly good thing.
We couldn’t speak for all cruises (yet). But in the Caribbean, where most islands can be circled in a few hours, little is out of reach. And although cruise ships tend to dock in ports whose principal offering is duty-free shopping, with even a little ambition it’s easy to escape.
One’s style need not be sacrificed upon the altar of ship curfew. For a Full Blown Traveler such as myself, this meant being able to explore rabidly. Especially to the ancient and abandoned places that Caribbean islands tend to hide in their nether-regions. Only here, in the quiet bowels of ancient caves and along abandoned stretches, do I feel that intimacy which endears me to a new land and makes traveling worthwhile.
A cruise did not prevent me from achieving this intimacy. It facilitated it. In the end everyone (me included) was wrong to think that my style was incompatible with Caribbean cruising, which is for the newlywed and the nearly dead and everyone else too.
[PUBLISHED BY CARIBBEAN COMPASS]
