Moonhole

Last week I walked down to Adam's Bay and the end of the island to finally complete my tour of Bequia. Its another completely different area- a lot more rural with sand paths leading you down between thin beaches and dry hillsides.

Kind of more what I expected a sleepy Caribbean island to look like. And it was really nice and refreshing to see just 'wilderness' without any villas, roads or people...until I passed a large faded billboard advertising a condominium development and drawn out housing lots. Oh well. Judging by the rust on the machinery I don't think they'll be developing the area any time soon.

Another cool thing about this end of the Island is the Moonhole community- which has open stone houses scattered around the area, many deserted, and all very organically built. Officially its private property, but I went poking around the area and ended up walking out to the very end of Bequia for some great views.


I also managed to fall onto a cactus (don't ask) which gave me the strange satisfaction of completing one of those cartoon cliches- complete with sitting on a rock, picking long thorns out from my fingers and swearing.

Mañana?

Looking back at Bequia from the very end of Moonhole.

# 5 Give names to all the pineapples

And people wonder why I'm taking so long completing my 35 things... well luckily its dry season and there's not many pineapples left on Bequia. Yes, this is just the beginning, but its a good start. I think we've got most of them here.

The last few pineapples will be rounded up and named soon.

Preparing the pineapple poses

One big happy family

I think the number of weird looks we got outnumbered the pineapples we named. There goes our Bequia reputation as sane people...

Oh beautiful images

# 17- Think of 5 things that SVG could otherwise stand for

Do I get double points if I make a story out of it? I think I do. But its up to you to picture it.

1. Seven Viking Gays

[ate]

2. Sour Voiceless Gingerbread

[and formed the]

3. Singing Vulva Gang

[which]

4. Supposedly Varnished Geese

[but]

5. Settled [for] Vaporizing Gemmoids

Wikipedia is in on this game too, but I win cuz they could only come up with 4.

Feel free to add more!

* Wow, I just did a google search for SVG and it seems like an obscure computer file format is more famous than this Caribbean country. Help Vincentians reclaim their acronym! Join the movement to disambiguate SVG! Or better yet, Star the movement to disambiguate SVG!

And let me know how it goes, I'm gonna go eat Some Very Good peanut butter out of my fridge now.

#1 Find a Dinosaur

Dinosaur found!



Since the name 'Bequia' means 'Island of the clouds' in Carib, we thought it fitting to find a cloudosaur for this one. And this is unmistakeably one of them.



I tell you, the resemblance is uncanny.

Caribbean suburbia

Its not often you see metal fences and well manicured lawns here. It gives me that warm feeling of conformist culture which I love to hate. Even though seeing it here is just the opposite.

It hasn't rained for ages and the grass is turning to dust.

More photos from the St. Vincent trip

St. Vincent Hike

(mini) Vacaion

I just got back from taking 3 days off to explore St. Vincent- the largest of the country's islands. It was just what I needed.

5am wake up to catch the 6:30 ferry to get a van to reach Georgetown (up the eastern side of the island) by 9am. Already it was so nice to see a bigger island with mountains and villages. St. Vincent made Bequia seem like Dubai in comparison- polished decadence. The van ride was beautiful, I was sitting by the window in the open air watching us drive in and out of little fishing villages on the coast, at one point we stopped and picked up 15 schoolkids. In a 12 seater van.



Arriving in Georgetown we hiked up to Hells Gate falls, then continued up to the Volcano through a rainforest so rainforesty it seemed like you were walking through a contrived sketch of the ideal rainforest. All that was missing were the animals- there's nothing breathing in these islands, but it also means there's no leeches, poisonous snakes, spiders, etc.



Up up the windward side of the island into rain and fog and mist and finally we reached the top of the crater, where we walked along half the ridge, paused for lunch (and got overtaken by 3 barefoot Ganja farmers - the area around the volcano has A LOT of ganja plantations, but another post about that later) and then down the leeward side of the island towards the Caribbean sea. What surprised me is the difference in humidity and plant types just on the other side of the island. We walked through farmyards, gorges and on black sand beaches until we finally reached our destination for the night.



Next day was another early start to hike to Trinity Falls through a countryside filled with fruit trees, tiny farms and overgrown forests- it reminded me so much of Vinales in Cuba. Everyone we passed along the way, most yielding large machetes in one hand and a joint in the other were so heartfeltly friendly it made my day.



Then came my favorite part of walking through the bush and up a river (yes, in the water- sometimes up to the waist) to AMAZING hot springs coming straight out of a rock and joining the main river. We spent a few hours laying in pools of water with our bodies in warm and our feet in the cold water in the middle of nature without another person in sight. I have never just walked in nature or up rivers without a path but its definitely something I've gotta start doing.



The last day was an early swim in the Dark View falls then walking through little villages (which to me was the highlight of the trip) and waiting for hours for a van (loved it mostly cuz it got me into traveller mode again) to take us back to Kingstown to the botanical gardens and finally home- tired, sore, blistered and happy.

My working day

My afternoon

Haitian Girl

David Choe. For Yele Haiti.

MU SIC FE ST

There's 4 big events in Bequia- The Easter regatta, Carnival, Christmas/New Years and the Music Fest.

Unfortunately I'm missing carnival, but I got through Christmas and the Music Fest just finished. And I am tired. Its 4 days of music & dancing on the beach, add in work and the fact that Saturday afternoon was hosted at my hotel means a very exhausting switching back and forth between work & play. Well we didn't have to organize any of the music, but we still had to organize ourselves to host 200 people when we normally host... umm, 30?

Yep, it was busy, exhausting and lots of fun. The event at the hotel went really well, and the whole music festival was SO good. It was nice to hear different music for once with good blues, rock and some reggae. Now I just want to spend the next 3 days immobile in my hammock, too bad I'm waking up at 5:30 am tomorrow to hike the St. Vincent volcano...