The Life of a Migratory Bird

Following the success of my previous mission to bring joy to the peoples of the world by travelling amongst them and imparting wisdom, I am now embarked on a new quest: to emulate as closely as possible the life of a migratory bird. To that end I spent a few months summering in England at sites familiar to me from my fledgling days and then, with the onset of autumn, I took flight once more, bound for warmer climes.

On such a long journey migratory birds may break the journey at familiar sites along the route. This seemed a sensible policy to me also, so the first leg of my journey was England to Boston. There I was made very welcome by my cousin, family and friends and passed a very pleasant week enjoying New England in the fall.

And thankful I was for some succour along the way as, in common with so many species in these changing times, the way of life of the migratory bird is threatened by changes to habitat and climate. I mean fifty dollars to check two bags? Five dollars for an in-flight beer? Compared to that the problems facing the white rhino or the giant panda are a walk in the safari park. I managed to blag my way out of the former levy, but the latter I just had to swallow, repeatedly.

But it would be a short-sighted bird indeed that escaped the English winter only to replace it with the even harsher conditions of the Northern US so, after my rest stop, I took flight once more and headed for my winter flying ground in Eastern Colombia. And here I am still, enjoying the payback of the stressful migration in the form of warm weather, nice flying conditions and friendly locals.

My main problem, apart from the fact that a power cut killed the stereo, is that I have arrived here a monoglot in a polyglot environment. I am in the process of changing this and have made some progress to the extent that I managed to crack a joke in Spanish the other day, sadly I can't help but feel that I've also been the butt of far more than I realise. So, with that in mind and as it's a cloudy morning, I'm off to conjugate some verbs.

Chao

Don Simon.

P.E. Como siempre, fotos en www.don-simon.smugmug.com

Once More Unto the Beach

'El unico riesgo es que te quieras quedar', that's what the Colombian tourism posters tell you, 'The only risk is that you'll want to stay.' It's a bit of an over simplification, probably for marketing purposes, but it also has an element of truth. Colombia is very far removed from the popular perception of it back home, I remember catching myself a few times wondering whether I could be arsed to lock my door, often I couldn't. Wanting to stay, however, is a very real risk.

Following our graduation as pilots we headed for Bogota which is, for me surprisingly, quite beautiful and made up of lots of interesting bits, some of which we explored when another birthday somehow crept up on me and then slipped away leaving me a year older but none the wiser. The climate didn't really suit me though and as soon as I found myself considering buying a coat I decided it was time to leave. So back I went to the Caribbean and the charming fishing village of Taganga.

There are essentially three things to do in Taganga: dive, fish and chill. We did a fair bit of all three in the end with varying degrees of success, including an Advanced Diving course which was to test some of our party to the limit and beyond. It was the deep dive that really sorted the wheat from the chaff.

The dive involved performing a series of simple tasks, first in the classroom and then at 30m below the surface. The aim being to see how well you cope with Nitrogen build up or something similar. Ricky and I were joined by a delightful young lady for the course and all three of us breezed through the basic maths and the child's shape association toy sections. Then came the tiebreaker. In keeping with two of the contestants, the format was fairly simple – we were all shown a common fruit or vegetable and asked to identify it. I said tomato, they said potato and we very nearly had to call the whole thing off. It turned out I was right and they were a pair of vegetable impaired idiots. Amazingly, this basic error did not prevent them from passing the course and, following successful completion of the night dive, we all graduated as advanced divers. Equally amazingly, for Ricky the moment of maximum embarrassment was yet to come.

Maybe it was too much sun, maybe too much beer, maybe it was the water. But for whatever reason Ricky shat his hostel bed not once, but twice. Obviously I was devastated for the poor lad and found it terribly cruel the way in which he somehow acquired the sobriquet “Shitter Guy”, becoming in the process something of a celebrity around the place and precipitating giggles from the very girl who had to clean his poo-soiled sheets every time she saw him.

Partly to give him a break from all the pointing and laughing, we went for a while to the more rustic surroundings of Parque Tayrona which, in the unlikely event I ever get round to making it, is likely to feature on the list of most picturesque beaches I've ever seen. Perhaps the most singular feature is the rocks which are granite and huge, but it also has plenty of coconut trees fringing the sunkissed beach. Altogether a very inspiring place.

We tried going back to Taganga after that, but people were still laughing at Ricky for having shat his bed, twice. So we took another trip, this time to Cabo de la Vela. Getting there was a mission. A taxi, a 4 hour bus, another taxi and finally a 4wd truck driven by a maniac who, despite there not being another car within sight (and you could see for miles in all directions), seemed to think it was some sort of race. Quite possibly the Indy 500mg to judge by the quantity of cerveza he was getting through before and during the journey. Largely because it's very flat and empty and he couldn't find anything to crash into, we did eventually arrive and found not so much a beach as a desert next the sea which had a haunting beauty all its own.

From there we returned for a third time to Taganga and the “Shitter Guy” taunts which Ricky got for having shat his bed, twice. And it was there that our triumvirate finally broke up. I'm not a big fan of goodbyes and it was hard to face the prospect of saying farewell in a single day to both Ricky and the cooler, the pair of whom had been staunch drinking companions throughout Venezuela and Colombia. The cooler, it seems, could sense this and the night before we were to part company it did a Captain Oates and slipped quietly away into the night. Cooler, if you're reading this, hope the travels are going well and thanks for everything.

I trod then a lone path to Medellin where, rolling back the years, the shoulder was well and truly dropped in an aircraft hanger rave. Following that a weird and amazing thing happened. Everywhere we looked, be it waiting for taxis or queueing for the after party, fit girls appeared as if from nowhere. Honestly, it was like something out of dawn of the dead only with hot chicks instead of zombies. In the end we couldn't cope any more and had to go home to ponder things in depth.

By which time my shiny new paraglider had arrived in Bucaramanga so I hot footed it back there and spent the remainder of my time flying it. Alas, I fear this blog entry is already a touch long without me boring you with the details of what that was like. It may one day be the subject of a separate blog, but for now suffice it to say that it was truly amazing and more fun the better I got at it. The only question was how to follow an amazing two weeks of flying there and the only answer was another trip to the Chicamocha canyon which turned out to be even better second time around and a perfect way to round off my time in Colombia.

The flying was not over, though, as I spent the next day on a succession of planes and had the dubious and no doubt costly experience of withdrawing money in four different currencies in the same day before finally reaching Barbados where I had time to pay a single visit to the beach and reflect on a very full five months of experiences. I had hoped to take some more money off the taxi drivers at backgammon, but someone must have tipped them off as they'd taken their game elsewhere for the day and all I found was a game of dominoes. I don't bet on dominoes.

And now? Now I'm back in Blighty wondering what I can possibly do to follow that and, once again, there is only one answer: Glastonbury beckons. If anyone fancies a pint give me a shout. Until then, chao.

Don Simon.

Photos as ever at www.don-simon.smugmug.com

Learning to Fly

They say you never forget your first time and I can't disagree; It lasted about five minutes, saw me lying facedown next to a pile of shit and ended in high fives all round. It's also true, as most people say, that it gets better with practice and as my technique improved I grew less nervous and more concerned with hitting the spot as I went down. Not that it was an incident free progression, there were some worrying encounters with large bushes and I failed to get it up occasionally, but on the plus side I was managing to make it last longer - on the 6th time (I keep a careful log of these things) I managed to keep it up for 18 minutes.

To start with there as many downs are there are ups, but with practice it is possible to complete the process without having to go down. Indeed it becomes a point of pride not to go down and a seminal moment in any man's life when he can get the job done without recourse to the bottom. I'm trying to think of a suitable analogy but my imagination fails me, I guess learning to paraglide is an experience all on its own. And every flight offers something different. The main highlight of the first solo flight, for example, was being unijured at the end of it. Later on I was pleased to discover that putting your wing into a tree doesn't necessarily damage it (though it can, as Ricky later found out). Then came the satisfaction of my first landing exactly on the designated spot and finally top landings back at the launch site on the hill rather than the LZ in the valley thus enabling more flights in a short space of time and showing off in the front of the assembled crowd.

For real showing off though, there was only one man in town, Edinson Alvarez, who took time out from being Colombian champion and all round legend to teach us to fly and also took us up on some bonus tandem flights where he demonstrated the Death Spiral along with diverse other impressive flying tricks (photos, and possibly a video if I work out how to do it, at the usual place). Strangely, doing the Death Spiral with Edu at the controls was a lot less scary than trusting Zorba, who flew like a bird throughout, to obey the rules on not cutting people up when they're over the ridge. In the end my landing that day was as expertly controlled as it was hasty, but for a moment the cafeteria roof was looking like my best option.

Also a bit too exciting at times was our graduation flight at the Chicamocha Canyon where the thermals were somewhat stronger than we were used to. The views were stunning though and, most importantly, at the end of it we were P2 qualified and allowed to do it on our own.

Absolutely amazing.

Photos at: www.don-simon.smugmug.com

Vote Si: A Nation Speaks

Looking back our first attempt at Anaconda hunting was somewhat inexpert, though what we lacked in experience we made up for in ignorant exuberance. Our guide was first into the swamp feeling his way with a large pointy stick, Zorba nabbed the one remaining stick and followed him leaving Ricky and myself to proceed stickless. Not a problem, we thought, no doubt we can feel any snakes with our bare feet. Our guide picked an interesting moment to tell us this might be a bit risky. He waited until Zorba had prodded a small cayman with his stick, jumped in the air, soiled himself and shouted for help before pointing out, somewhat redundantly, that we really ought to have sticks for this kind of caper. Sound advice no doubt, but hard to act on when you're in the middle of a swamp some distance from dry land and the nearest stick.

Fortunately there were no more close encounters of the reptilian kind that day and eventually Zorba stopped shaking. I fear, though, that his memory has been irreparably damaged by the shock as every time he recalls the incident the creature involved gets bigger. By tea time the guide's estimate of 1 metre had been doubled, the next day it was 2.5m and by the time he got access to facebook it was not even a cayman any more but a 3m crocodile. I haven't asked recently but I expect by now it's probably at least the size of a t-rex.

Other than that we were uninjured by our experience and the next day, having procured some large sticks, we set out once more on the hunt. This time we had more more luck and bagged ourselves a 5m specimen with minimal fuss and no intervening caymans (caymen?).

It was also in Los Llanos that the much vaunted Venezuelan birds started to live up to expectations having been distinctly disappointing so far. Amongst my favourites were the Scarlet Ibis and the White Egret, though, if only for its fishing abilities, the Black-collared hawk was hard to beat. Not that 'crocs', snakes and birds were the only things to see, the whole place just teems with wildlife and we were lucky enough to see capybara, piranhas and even the inappropriately named giant anteater, which in fact spends a lot of its time eating normal ants.

Next up was a trip to Lago Maracaibo to see the world's most consistent electrical storm and source of much of the planet's ozone: the Catatumbo Lights. It was indeed consistent, in fact it went on most of the night, but, perhaps due to the full moon, it was not as spectacular as I'd hoped. What was interesting was the village of Congo Mirador two hours out into the lake where people live on stilted houses in a manner the Spanish found similar to Venice, hence the name Venezuela.

Meanwhile, my inadvertent election campaign was gathering pace, our week long sojourn in the country having apparently done nothing to arrest the groundswell of public opinion. 'Vota Si' notices were springing up across the nation covering everything from walls and roadsigns to boat engines and hillsides. Unless I've really got the wrong end of the stick, the people of Venezuela have decided that now is the time for a new Simon to finish the work that Bolivar started two centuries ago. My only opponent seems to be a shadowy, faceless individual known only by the initials NO. I'm not overly concerned, he seems to be running a very negative campaign whilst mine is an intrinsically positive message. Besides which there are so many posters in support of me that he's struggling to get his message across, it's as if Hugo Chavez himself has thrown his weight behind the Si campaign.

And with that comforting thought in mind I have decided to cease campaigning and continue my travels and thus am currently in Colombia preparing for government.

Hasta la revolucion

Don Simon.

Photos at: http://don-simon.smugmug.com/gallery/7817469_GNyAD


Special election album 'Isn't it Sironic?'

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Waterfalls and Tepuis

This chaosisation is proving to be fickle phenomenon, one minute I'm sat on a Caribbean beach and the next thing I know I'm living in a cave on top of a mountain. I'd never even heard of Roraima before I arrived in Venezuela, but three days later there I was setting out across the Gran Sabana intent on scaling its 2,800m.

Opinion was divided as to how exactly Roraima and the other tepuis in the area were formed. The geologist in our group spouted some frankly fanciful story about sandstone erosion, only to be swiftly put in his place by our guide who explained that they were originally all part of a large tree trunk which was cut down by some unspecified animals who were jealous that they couldn't climb to the top to get the special fruit that grew there. Either way they're huge monoliths surrounded by rolling countryside which meant that the two days required to reach the base were fairly easy and the third spent climbing it more taxing. Still, as Monday mornings go I'll take climbing through the world's second highest waterfall in the pissing rain over most alternatives.

We had hoped that when we got to the top we'd be above the clouds, but 'twas not to be. On the plus side I finally found a use for that jumper I'd been carrying around all this time, yet despite that I had a strange, long forgotten, feeling which I initially struggled to identify, I felt cold.

Our second day as troglodytes was far more rewarding, the weather cleared and we were able to appreciate just how spectacular a landscape it was, a mixture of boulders, pools, endemic species and precipitous drops. The undoubted highlight being the 1km sheer drop overlooking the border with Guyana.

It was all downhill after that, back to the starting point and a night bus back to Ciudad Bolivar. There we attempted to have a night out, but were thwarted by the fact that in a city of over 300,000 inhabitants only five people actually go out on a Friday night, and two of them are lunatics who feign friendship but threaten to explode into violence at any moment.

The next day we boarded a very small plane on the first leg of our journey to Angel Falls. I had imagined they were so called because they're often shrouded in clouds where angels might live, or because they're as high as the heavens. In fact their name is simply down to their serendipitous discovery by an American pilot called Jimmy Angel, would that all eponymous explorers were so aptly named.

Our plane took us as far as Canaima from where it was a bottom numbing six hour boat ride to the base of the falls, broken only by the occasional need for us to get out and push the canoe up some rapids. As we bathed at the bottom rather than climbing to the top my second consecutive waterfall Monday was less taxing than the first, but no less spectacular: 900m of falling water which has largely turned to mist by the time it gets to the bottom, followed by several terraces of shorter cascades culminating in a refreshingly cool pool. Jimmy certainly knew a good waterfall when he saw one.

And I know a good beach when I see one, and I hadn't seen one for quite some time so, following an unavoidable night in Ciudad Bolivar, we nipped up to the Caribbean again for a couple of days before spending 24 hours travelling to Merida. It was on these journeys that I realised just how welcoming the Venezuelan people had been to me. Along many roadsides and daubed on walls throughout the towns were messages extolling me, either simply with the message “Si” or sometimes with “Vota Si.” Some even said “Si con Chavez” which was overstepping the mark a bit as I've not yet decided where I stand on that thorny issue, but nonetheless the effort they went to to make me welcome was appreciated, back home you'd only really see that sort of thing during an election campaign.

And now, having spent the weekend in the more interesting, but still slightly disappointing, surroundings of Merida we are once again to quit the city for the countryside on a four day Anaconda hunting expedition and after that Columbia beckons.

Ciao

Don Simon.

Photos at: www.don-simon.smugmug.com/gallery/7817469_GNyAD#506258052_Fr6kQ

A Farewell To Palms

Even outside of Carnival Trinidad is an interesting place. One of our favourite locals, who went by the strange but appropriate name of Gerbsy, described it as a cultural gangbang and perhaps that's not so far from the truth. Certainly the language there reflects a variety of influences and whilst the English is less impenetrable than elsewhere in the Caribbean it does make use of various colloquialisms which can trap the unwary visitor. For example if you're lucky enough to do any brushing during your time there, chances are you'll end up braking and be in need of a herecloth. But if someone has been macoing on your business they may push baskets so as to cause bacanal, which may ultimately cause one or more parties to enter a tabanca. All very strange.

They've even taken to finding alternative names for vegetables, a case in point being aubergines which they refer to as bhaygans. Ever keen to defend the Queen's English I considered remonstrating with them on this one by pointing out that if you need a different name for said vegetable it's eggplant. Ultimately, however, I decided not to do so for fear of inflaming colonial tensions, at the end of the day sometimes it's best just to let bhaygans be bhaygans.

We did do our bit for Queen and country by joining the Barmy Army on the Trinidad leg of its march across the Caribbean and spent three days forlornly hoping that England might produce a decent performance. The first two were great days out despite the lacklustre nature of the cricket, helped in large part by a huge cooler of beer and free doubles all day. On the third day we attempted to stay sober, I don't advise it. Cricket without beer is like a broken pencil: pointless.

Also crammed into our hectic schedule was a trip to Tobago where we met a Templeton prize nominee and spent a few hours discussing his unified theory of everything. We had to go over it a few times as bits of it are hard to get your head round and some the concepts hard to visualise, but I think we've put him on the right track now.

Other than that, a few trips to the beach, some jaunts on boats and extensive limin' there's not much more to report except that we did eventually manage to tear ourselves away and caught the ferry to Venezuela a couple of days ago. Since then we have been mostly sitting on buses and consequently are now out of sight of the Caribbean for the first time in two months. I miss the palms and the beaches, but you can't have you cake and eat it and you can't visit Angel Falls and be by the sea, so something had to give. I'll let you know if the sacrifice was worthwhile on my return.

Hasta Luego

Don Simon.

Carnival!

We little knew what to expect when we arrived in Trinidad, the Carnival was much hyped and would surely disappoint, accommodation was all booked up months in advance and everyone we spoke to warned us how dodgy it was. It did take us a couple of days to find a place to stay but when we did it was locationally superb, right in the heart of the action, with a lovely landlady and friendly neighbours.

The first inkling that Trinidad might deliver on its hype came when we attended a Miss Carnival beauty pageant at a Port of Spain nightclub and were asked to be judges for the swimwear section. Although this was a job of sorts, and therefore not in keeping with the mission statement of our trip, the duties were not too onerous and it's good to help people out when you can.

Six bikini-clad beauties paraded in front of us working hard to catch the judges' eyes. Keen to avoid any allegations of partiality we declined to look them in the face and cast our gazes elsewhere. It turned out to be a close fought contest, but our robust, four-category points system eventually decreed that contestant number one be crowned Miss Tropikini 2009, in the process winning a photoshoot and a weekend away in a plush hotel. The only downside to the whole experience was that by picking a winner we had made five beautiful ladies hate us which, whilst far from a record on a night out, was still an unwelcome stat.

Our evening of work behind us all thoughts turned to Carnival and we spent the next couple of days working out how all the different parties fitted together, securing costumes, getting in some warm-up drinking and touring the panyards where steel bands practice for the main event: Panarama. The final was on Saturday night and we went along to support our favourites, Silver Stars, whose panyard was in our 'hood. This time we could only watch and hope the judges were as discerning as those at the beauty pageant and, as luck would have it, they were and our boys walked away with the title. Carnival was getting better and better.

Next on the agenda was J'Ouvert (pronounced dew vay). Finishing drinking at 3am on a Monday morning is not normally a good idea, but somehow starting at that time really works. In fact it's hard to imagine a better start to the week than getting daubed in paint and mud, drinking heavily and parading through the streets until dawn, all to the accompaniment of, you guessed it, Silver Stars. Maybe Carnival could live up to the hype after all.

J'Ouvert finishes about 8am which gave us just enough time to go home and scrape the worst of the mud from our bodies before going out to play Monday Mas at 11 o'clock. This time the musical accompaniment was of the lorries loaded with speakers variety and the dress code: undress to impress, which a lot of the ladies there certainly achieved. Entering into the spirit of things I was soon topless and covered in gold glitter which seemed to go down well, the only problem being I didn't get a picture in the Hitchin t-shirt first. Schoolboy.


As darkness fell we could feel proud of our efforts for the day, but there was not yet time to rest on our laurels as the main event still remained. The 6am start time was again somewhat ambitious for an all dayer and the dress code... well take a look at the pictures, but bear in mind that to play Mas you have to wear a costume.
Carnival Tuesday truly is the stuff of legends. It's fourteen hours of chip chipping through the streets, wining with the gorgeous ladies, climbing walls and drinking rum, all whilst dressed as a member of the Persian Empire. But that hardly begins to desrcibe the experience. If an alien race were making a documentary on the human race they would send the ET David Attenborough to Carnival to document the behaviour there, it's that bizarre and amazing.

If Glastonbury is to retain its top festival crown it had best be good, the bar is very high this year.

Photos at: http://don-simon.smugmug.com/Travel/720011

Tune of the moment: Faye-Ann Lyons-Alvarez - Heavy T bumper. But you probably had to be there to like it.

Grenada

It takes a few weeks of getting used to, but once you get into it island hopping isn't too bad. Obviously the endless palm-fringed beaches can get a bit wearing, and lugging your stuff from one paradise to the next kind of gets you down a bit, especially if, like me, you've made the rookie error of thinking you needed to bring a jumper with you. Needlessly carrying that around everyday was just starting to get me down when we got to Grenada and even that burden was lifted from my shoulders for a while.

Having spent a day in Carriacou seeing the sight we arrived in Grenada island and made what can only be described as a speculative phonecall to my friend's uncle's wife's sister who proceeded to put us up for a week in her stunning house overlooking a beautiful bay, feed us, show us the island and even organise our social engagements. Hospitality personified, thanks again Kathy.

Also whilst in Grenada we took a tour of an old plantation which, until hurricane Ivan, produced vast quantities of nutmeg, but is now most remarkable for its waterfalls. Zorba was keen to spend some time in the secluded pool of Honeymoon falls, but I persuaded him instead to jump off the highest of the Seven Sisters. I didn't quite nail the landing, but scored plenty of points for artistic merit.

Hard as it was to tear ourselves away from the lap of luxury, we had heard there was some kind of carnival in the offing in Trinidad and thought it would be remiss not to take a look. Our carefully worded ad at the yacht club quickly brought a response and we went to meet our prospective skipper. Captain Tim was somewhat perturbed to discover we had perhaps exaggerated our sailing experience a little; we were perturbed that he was shitfaced and suffering from extreme short-term memory loss and that he was shitfaced and suffering from extreme short-term memory loss. But we all still needed to get to Trinidad so, soon after the conclusion of happy hour, we were on our way.

When next you find yourself in a similar situation I recommend blagging that you know what you're doing and volunteering for one of the night watches. Then, while the others sleep, sit back, put your ipod on and look at the stars. Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence is particularly apt, but almost any tune will be improved by the situation.

Perhaps fortunately given our lack of seamanship the only close encounters we had on the voyage were with a couple of dolphins and a pleasantly incident free twenty hours later we arrived in Trinidad, but that's another story.

Photos at: http://don-simon.smugmug.com/Travel/720011

Chaosisation

I can't work out exactly how I got here, but I think I'm a victim either of globalisation or of chaos theory. Most likely it's a bit of both, let's call it Chaosisation. Not that it really matters what you call it, these days it's all about the bottom line and the bottom line is that because some trailer park types somewhere in America couldn't pay their mortgages I'm now island hopping across the Caribbean. That's life in the big city I guess, although these days it's more life in the small islands.


Barbados was first. Preparation being the key to any successful endeavour, a two week family holiday to ease me gently into Caribbean life was entirely appropriate. It would have been foolhardy to go straight from the hassle of packing up my flat into the rigours of island hopping and a fortnight with few demands on my time beyond allowing my niece and nephew to push me into the pool was ideal preparation.


Winning $150 in the second annual Reggae Lounge backgammon tournament was pretty stressful, but aside from that it was mostly chillaxing and by the end of my time there I felt ready to face the coming trials with equanimity and took the short flight to St Vincent in high spirits. There I was joined by a companion of dubious character who I shall refer to as Zorba. Our first act on meeting up was to get drunk, our second (the next day I hasten to add) was to hire a car and attempt to track down the set of Pirates of the Caribbean.


As there are essentially only two roads this ought not to have been a problem, however, after apparently driving past the marked location several times without spotting it we decided it might be worthwhile asking directions, surely a simple task given that the locals speak English. Sadly not. I thought the Bajans were a bit hard to follow, but these guys really put the ish into English. After several failed attempts at enquiring as to the whereabouts of the set for the motion picture Pirates of the Caribbean, I decided to effect a Vincy accent.


“What way Pirates o de Caribbean?” instant understanding “Dat wey, it mark up” [there's a sign]. The set, as it turned out, was fairly unremarkable but my new found language skills are a tool for life.


Bequia (pronounced Beckway) was next, a small island where we enraged one local landlady by shopping around, so much so in fact that when it turned out her offer was the cheapest she withdrew it in a fit of pique. A decision which cost us EC$20 per night and an extra five minute uphill walk each day. Cow. Despite that the island was very pleasant and the snorkeling good so we extended our stay to four days and on each of them smiled sweetly at our nemesis as we walked past her still vacant apartment.


From Bequia we took the Thursday mail boat down to Mayreau where for US$40 a night we rented a three bedroom house complete with lounge, kitchen, bathroom, mosquito infestation and a bucket for the toilet available on request. Mayreau made Bequia seem like a bustling metropolis, at least in so far as there were probably people on Bequia who weren't related to each other and also in that on Bequia if you're stupid enough to turn up without any money there's a bank to remedy the situation. On Mayreau you have to be more creative. We solved the problem by alternately eating in the one posh restaurant which took credit cards, and convincing the locals to invite us to their place for lunch.


We also cut costs by taking a tour of the nearby Tobago Cays (pronounced Keys) on a local water taxi rather than the posh yachts. This saved about US$50 each but cost us a heavy price in pain and discomfort as the guy we'd organised it through turned out to be a bit of a character (pronounced drunk wanker) and got his mate to drive through the waves as quickly as possible so that the white boys up front got their arses well and truly tenderised.


That helped make up our mind as to how to get to Union Island and that afternoon we took the ferry the short distance South to the last of our Grenadines. The outstanding memory of Union Island is not a beach but a nightclub called Stress Out. It's essentially a house with the second floor (half) converted for use as a club. We were taken there by someone the locals refer to as The Stress Manager such is his attendance record at the eponymous venue. While we chilled on the balcony enjoying the music (which is quality out here by the way) he proceeded to rule the dancefloor in a manner all his own.


Aside from Stress Out there was little to keep us in Union Island so we soon found ourselves waiting at a jetty for a ferry to take us to the next country in the chain. The regular ferry was not running (it break down and get mash up on de reef) and for a while it looked like we might be out of luck as they struggled with mask and snorkel to get the reserve boat operational. In the end, though, perseverance paid dividends and, whisky bottle in one hand, joint in the other, our driver was ready to take us on to Grenada.


Tune of the moment: Guinney Pepper's 'Lick the Chalice'. Whilst clearly I can't agree with its core message, its musical artistry is impossible to ignore.


Photos at: http://don-simon.smugmug.com/