It seemed
like a good idea at the time – a quick day trip from Fort Lauderdale to the
Bahamas to get a welcome Caribbean fix – sun, sand, sea breezes and a mojito or
two. And a respite from the congested strip mall that is Miami to Boca Raton
and beyond.
So armed
with day return tickets on the recently-introduced Bahamas Express ferry
service run by the Spanish Balearic line, we hopped into a taxi at 6.15am for the one hour drive to the port from Boca
Raton. The ride had been pre-arranged for an agreed amount of $60 (plus the
compulsory 20% “gratuity” of course!)
The driver
spoke virtually no English and it soon became clear that he wasn’t too au fait
with the geography of the area either. Eventually however, we arrived at the
port only to find it in the throes of a security operation, bristling with
police and security officers stopping and searching the trunk of every car and
demanding to see everyone’s ID. We drove around for another half hour before we
were allowed anywhere near the ferry terminal.
By now the meter read $106 and the driver( who
was obviously having an each-way bet) was a little put out when we proffered
the agreed fare – so much so that he suddenly became unavailable for the return
trip.
We’d been
told to check in three hours before departure which meant sitting on hard
chairs in a bare hall with no coffee, internet or distractions other than our
fellow passengers. Obviously the three-hour window was needed because the staff
were so disorganised and inefficient that everything took far longer than
necessary. They were also inflexible: a near-blind woman had come a day late
for her voyage and the company refused to honour her ticket. She could not
afford another and it was heartening to see so many Bahamian passengers rushing
forward to each offer her a few dollars to make up the fare.
My
travelling companion from the Boca hotel was a retired English widow of
sixty-odd years with more spring in her step than most- thirty year-olds. We
soon struck up a conversation with a couple sitting behind us – he an amiable
American and she a tall, elegant Bahamian.
We learned
that Amelia was about to open a B&B near Freeport and would love to have us
as her first guests. We could think of no reason not to stay overnight on the
island and attempted to change our tickets, only to come up with the same intransigence
from the ferry company: if we wanted to stay over we’d have to tear up our
return vouchers and buy entirely new return fares.
“Well at
least let us show you around” offered Ed.
Three hours
later we berthed in Freeport, Gran Bahamas Island, a sparse port surrounded by
huge oil tanks purportedly holding Venezuelan crude waiting to be mixed with
American oil to hide the fact that the US was trading with the South American
regime.( It reminded me of the American embassy in Havana, Cuba, that is not an
embassy but an “Information Office”. The Cubans have dealt with the irony by
building a military parade ground in full view of the office tower, where their
soldiers perform the military equivalent of thumbing their noses on a daily
basis.)
A derelict
two-storey fish restaurant sat behind a wire fence signposted “Shark Feeding Area, No Swimming”. We managed
to resist.
Our new
local friends drove us to a lunchbar for a taste of Bahamian dishes and after
lunch we zipped along roads lined with abandoned hotels and empty shops, to the
sprawling whitewashed villa on a palm-fringed canal that is both their home and
virginal B&B. A yacht was moored at
their jetty and Emile, a French Canadian engineer was busy doing maintenance on
the hull.
Amelia took
great pride in showing us our rooms, explaining everything in her melodious
Caribbean accent. Hyperactive and intelligent, highly-strung and emotional, she
talked quickly and precisely as if reading from a script. Over the next 24
hours as she expounded on myriad subjects, I came to feel she had rote-learnt
everything she knew. She was fiercely possessive of Ed, even extending to his
friendship with Emile – we were to see this in action and wonder at it before
learning of her personal tragedy and the profound change it had wrought in her.
That
evening the five of us went out to experience Freeport’s only nightlife at
Lucaya Plaza – by day a collection of market stalls and clothing shops, and by
night crowded and rocking to one band or another and overflowing with the local
cocktail, a sweet concoction of rum, condensed milk, coconut and…?.
The next
morning Amelia took us off to her local Presbyterian Kirk which unlike any
churches I have seen in the past two decades , had every pew filled with
everyone in their “Sunday best” and sweet little children trotting off to
Sunday school. Ed asked on our return
home if we had been “saved”! I said they were putting it to the vote at the
next committee meeting! It wasn’t a
matter of being part of the church, it was lovely to be welcomed into the
community.
This is why I like to travel the way I do –
not just to look in from the outside, but to become part of the culture,
however fleetingly.
©FMPDH 2012
