June 18 - British Virgin Islands

I don’t know about you but I am becoming very tired of TV commercials which insist on reminding us of the uncertain times in which we are living. It seems to me that every second commercial needs to remind us that the world is no longer a safe place. I do appreciate the sensitivity of those who are scripting the ads but enough is enough. If I really want to be depressed, I just need to watch the nightly news.

This then has prompted the subject line for this particular post. Over the last three weeks, I have also been guilty of putting up three posts in a row about COVID-19. I know that the virus hasn’t gone away, but I felt the need to write about something other than this sad topic. So...I am going to tell you about a very happy family holiday of some twenty-five years ago.

Our family trip to the British Virgin Islands was our first holiday after I stopped work. I had reluctantly decided that I needed to take a short term disability leave. This was because of the changes in my vision. However, looking back, I must say that at the time, I could see much better then than I can see now. But enough of that part of my reminiscence!

Now when you start reading this, I should ask you to remember that this was a happy vacation. I write this warning because when you read the first description of our holiday you might easily jump to the wrong conclusion. You should also know that our trip was taken on a bit of a shoestring budget. I think that other travellers might not have had the same experiences that we did.

We began with an excursion airfare that took us on four different flights before we arrived in BVI. The last leg was the most interesting. Leg 3 was delayed and so we arrived in San Juan with minutes to spare for the last flight to Tortola. The gate agents took a cursory glance at our documents and told us to run to the plane which was parked on the tarmac with propellers turning and engines running. The flight attendant greeted us

and told us to sit anywhere there was a seat. This, I am 100% sure, would never happen in today’s world of security precautions.

We arrived in Tortola near midnight. The customs agents who were on the last shift of the night, were not pleased to see us – especially as we didn’t have the proper documentation and our luggage hadn’t arrived with us. This was all supposed to happen at our last flight transfer. The officials eventually let us go and we boarded the only taxi at the stand.

The “taxi” was actually a truck and we were seated on benches on the flat bed behind the cab. The drive across the island to our accommodation was interesting to say the least. The truck’s headlights were dim and there weren’t any streetlights. The truck/taxi zigzagged up the hairpin turns of a mountainside, swerved to avoid several animals that were meandering across the road, and finally pulled up in front of a cluster of three cabins across the road from a local cemetery. The cabins were also in darkness but our taxi driver assured us that we would find the door key in the drawer of the bedroom nightstand. Lyle, brave soul, went first to lead the way.

We were hot, tired and thirsty. Lyle made a foray down the street to where we could hear some music. He found a bar and purchased four cans of Coke. This was at the exorbitant price of US$6 each. Basically this blew our food budget for the day.

Inside the cabin I wasn’t impressed to find a dead lizard on the bed sheets although later in our stay we noticed many of these harmless little critters around the place. Our son and daughter were even less impressed when they saw a small scorpion in the bathroom and a line of ants crawling up the kitchen wall. We couldn’t get the overhead fan to work at more than low speed and the bulb in the bedroom light burnt out when we flicked the switch. It was a good thing that we were all so tired. We went to bed almost immediately, although it was a bit of a restless night.

Things usually look better in the morning and so it was for us. The morning temperature was more moderate than the exhausting heat of the night before. The cemetery didn’t look as sinister and if we looked hard we could see the ocean through the cemetery trees. Mid-morning we had a visit from Sara, the local woman who kept an eye on the cabins when they were vacant. She gave us a brief orientation of the area and then gave us the most delicious loaf of coconut bread. We were famished and ate it down to the last crumb.

Amazingly, Sara baked her bread in an outdoor brick oven. We bought it often but learned to eat it all on the day of baking. Without preservatives it was usually rock hard by the next day.

On Day 1 we were still without luggage. On Day 2, we were still without luggage. Finally, on Day 3, we were told in a phone call that our suitcase would be delivered to Stan’s place. When pressured for a time frame, the response was simply later on! The later on was never clearly defined. Stan’s place turned out to be a beach bar in walking distance from our cabin. Late that night we finally were able to retrieve the lost suitcase and finally change out of sweaty clothes. The good side note to all this is that we always travel with a swimsuit and change of underwear in our hand luggage so we were able to enjoy those first three days on the beach.

It was a good first week. We walked everywhere we could. We found a very small corner store not too far away and so were able to buy a few essential groceries. The store was close to a nonworking rum distillery. In the other direction along the beach was the bar and restaurant where Lyle had bought the expensive Coke of our first night. The menu offered a virtual smorgasbord of wonderful fish dishes. Eventually we did break down and give in to the extravagance of a meal there. It was a good as the menu suggested.

However, at the end of our first week we were starting to feel a little isolated. We were the only tourists in the area. Twenty-five years ago, we didn’t have cell phones or ipads.  To use the phone we needed to walk to the pay phone at the corner store. There was no radio or television. The newspaper at the local store was usually three days old.  We were feeling out of touch and also we didn’t feel that we were seeing enough of the island. We needed a car!

Lyle caught the local bus back across the island to see what he could find. He wanted an automatic gear shift and initially was disappointed with the standard shift that he was given.

Turns out that this was a blessing. The road from Cane Garden Bay where we were staying to Road Town, Tortola’s capital and tourist centre, was steep and winding. At the hairpin curves, drivers would usually lay on their horns to warn any oncoming traffic from around the bend. One or other vehicle would then give way. On one occasion when we had stopped for the approach of another vehicle, the road was so steep that Lyle couldn’t get the tires to grip to continue. He needed to back up to take another run at it. This was all exacerbated by the fact that we were driving American cars but with road rules of the British system. The drivers were on the outside edge of the road and anyone in the passenger seat was in the centre. It was a bit scary when it came to passing oncoming traffic.

Road Town was great. There were shops and people. There was a grocery store and we were able to buy a current newspaper. The city was also the hub for cruise ships and inter island ferries.  Later on we caught one of these same ferries across a short stretch of water to Virgin Gorda. It was a great day trip but more of that in another post.

I am going to stop writing at this point and tell you that in my next post I will be continuing with our BVI adventure. If you like to travel vicariously, that is where I will be taking you.

Stay safe and stay well. Until next time.

Sue