Old and bearded: a week on the island of M
M. I forgot your name, so I'll call her M. This time it wasn't my fault, M spoke little, just enough, It would not have been easy to remember her even if we had spent six years together. M was a middle-aged woman, arisca, who economized his words and gestures. Now that i remember, I'm not sure M told me his name. Sharpening the memory a little more, I'm not sure M said anything. M rented us the car, He took us to our Guest House and hardly contributed anything else. We close the story of M.
Leaving the airport, the first thing that strikes us is that the island as we go for miles seems old. Poorer in their homes and infrastructure than expected. The big hotels do not appear and the ones that do appear have a somewhat old-fashioned air. It looks like a tourist 80 missing a coat of paint. Antigua, on the first hit, lives up to its name and reminds me a lot of Africa, perhaps because the population in a 95% They are descendants of African slaves..
Nuestra Guest House, Blue Bay, It is run by a young Italian couple., Michele and Cecilia. A traveler couple who used to live in a farming commune in Sweden, and that a call and a plane have sent them to a piece of land floating in the middle of the Caribbean. Home, three bedroom, is fantastic. Good price, in a privileged enclave and with a shared house philosophy and not a hotel.
It's Sunday, the night of the concert at the Road House
That first night we asked our hosts where to go.. "It is Sunday, the night of the concert at the Road House. A bar of local people”. we like the idea. We arrived at a wooden bar. There is a concert. We asked. Nobody answers. They are not particularly open. "M's thing must be customary", think.
First, after five minutes of doubts in which two waiters and the cook debated between looks what to do with us despite having a table and two free chairs right in front of us, they finally decided to sit at that table and two free chairs. The position was a remote place from which the show was not seen.
Then, the owner, let's call it L, He came looking for us and took us to a bar in front of the stage that “is for those who eat and drink like you”, specific. In the other area, people dedicated themselves only to drinking, although in their favor I could say that they did it with interest. He did not say much more at that moment L, she decided to go dancing spasmodically with a partner capable of twisting his body like her in the middle of the dance floor. they were fantastic, they danced to the rhythm of a stream of voice of a woman who sang with her viscera without worrying that none of her movements had anything to do with the song. No dancing, they broke.
Twenty minutes later I doubted if they were wax
We order while dinner, the fish of the day: fried salmon with ketchup on top and salad. I looked at the head table. It was a group of six people, three middle-aged men and three middle-aged women. They ordered bottles of wine and left the already drunk, which were various, in their coolers upside down. they never spoke. They never made a face. they drank. Twenty minutes later I doubted if they were wax.
Back, a birthday. thirtysomething. Sitting in a row on a bench. Some funeral I attended seemed to me more crazy than his party. A woman was wearing a pink dress and people were giving her kisses. Either it was the honoree or it was the Virgin of Fatima. Without glasses I begin to not see well.
We, after digesting the salmon with ketchup, switched to rum and in that interval, if we had not been attentive, we would not have had time to applaud when the show ended. The birthday, the presidential table and the general public present applauded a whopping five seconds. We participated in the last two. Unforgivable, my last effusive clap came in thunderous silence. Then they got up and they all went out to drink. The waiters in five minutes had cleared the tables.
“They are cautious people”, we think with some haste after M, The, the concert, a store where we stop before to buy water and some food and where we take beer, vino, potatoes and six monosyllables, the gas station where when I asked if I could pay in dollars or with a card, he answered me using my card and explaining by taking my card from my hand that he would not pay in dollars… “Maybe they save words”, hesitate. In any case, we loved that genuine space of the Road House.
a guy appeared, with dreadlocks that offered you, in this order, some diving goggles or marijuana
The next morning began the tour of this beautiful island. it was june, It turns out that the lowest season of tourism of the whole year because it is the rainy season, and we were on several beaches without anyone. At most suddenly a guy appeared to you, with dreadlocks, who offered you, in this order, some diving goggles or marijuana. The two things together had a discount.
Among the beaches to highlight, since having a car we saw many, are: Long Bay, Half Moon Bay, Pigeon Beach y Landing Bay. Highlight is a restrained saying influenced by the restrained local spirit. they are brutal, of the best beaches I saw in the world. We also went to the famous English Harbor and Jolly Harbor. The first seemed to us to be a lonely place in the low season and interesting. We found the second one neither lonely nor interesting.
As, capital, Saint John, It is a poor city in some areas with substandard wooden houses that I suppose fly with each hurricane that hits the area, which unfortunately is not strange. The last one was Hurricane Gonzalo in 2014. The city has two commercial streets prepared for the arrival of cruise ships with a casino in the middle. They are by the harbor, from which days later we took the boat to Montserrat, and they reserved a first surprise for us: a restaurant of good meats and South African wines, C&C Winehouse. Taking a Pinotage in the middle of the Caribbean was unexpected.
The second African surprise was in the English Harbor, where we had dinner in a beach bar in which we observed the Mozambican flag. In the letter there was frango al peri peri (mozambican food) and Mozambique-style shrimp. There are not many dining options in the middle of the Caribbean in a restaurant in a country like Mozambique, our house for three years.
If they got paid to smile they would have screwed up their lives
Another night we went for dinner at another modest local restaurant that was highly recommended.: Father Zouk. The “real” place is run by an unauthentic German in his fifties despite his efforts to appear so and two very pretty young women who are the waitresses.. If they got paid to smile they would have screwed up their lives. We did not like the food and the bill has a surcharge, any less. Row, the German assumes as if we lacked the honor that leaves us the account as it should be and home.
That night a strong storm fell that allowed us to sleep with the smell of wet grass and with a sheet on top. Then, like every sunrise, a breakfast looking at the sea. and then the car, and the beaches and that hedonic way of living that consists of bathing, eat, drink and read a good book. No more. Without stress. Enjoy that simple nothing.
Finally, there are two beautiful places to go, best at sunset. The Devil's Bridge, it is a natural rock bridge through which the sea sneaks and whistles, and the Shirley Heights is a viewpoint from a hill of the island, over english harbor, with a strong old man, a colonial old guard cemetery and the best sunset in Antigua.
We are delighted to go to a corner to see the sunset worse so that you record
We went there one beautiful afternoon, we met an American photographer and we waited excitedly for the sunset until a television crew arrived to do I don't know what and they asked us if we didn't mind leaving so they could record. “Claro, do not worry, We have only traveled thousands of kilometers to come to this place to which we will never return and we are delighted to go to a corner to see the sunset worse so that you can record”. The gringa was dying of laughter.
Antigua week was one of those experiences where you have the feeling that everything is heavy and slow. We enjoy that simple hedonism, of those empty beaches, of those paths full of mangoes fallen from the branches, of restaurants leftover tables, of beaches without more towels and that coming and going with no more search than to enjoy the time. No hurry, no need to visit anything, without crossing things off on a map. We were very happy in Antigua.
we went to the airport, we flew to Dominica. M had to come to get the car. He did not tell us where he would pick him up from the airport. No one appeared at the agreed time in the departures area. A very nice woman from the airport information did us the favor of calling the telephone number that appeared in the contract. a man was put, M's husband. I was out, in the parking, but stuck in his car. I arrive. took the keys and left. Didn't say anything.
What will it be like to spend Christmas at M and her husband's house??, I kept thinking before going to the boarding gate.
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Noeli
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hahahahahaha
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