Country #122: St Vincent and a couple of the Grenadines

If you've got a good thing going, why stop? That's the best way to sum up how I was feeling. I'd hit up two new countries, Dominica and Grenada, in the last 2 months and was quite happy with both the new tan and the increasing country count. Looking further into the Lesser Antilles, I honed my sights on St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Where Dominica is the nature isle and Grenada is the spice isle, St Vincent, or more specifically the Grenadines, is the haven of the haves. It is the place where the rich and famous go to hobnob with their brethrens. Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Tommy Hilfiger, Princess Margaret are just a few of the past and present homeowners. Bryan Adams is allegedly a resident too but I'm just not convinced that "Cuts like a knife" money actually buys a house here. He may be a squatter.

Armed with this information, I reached out to my bougiest friend (in all the best ways) and set the plans for Country 122 in motion. We quickly determined that St Vincent's, home to the country's international airport, didn't really have enough to do/ see for for our 4 day visit. That left us with a bunch of Grenadine islands to choose from. Canouan, with its Madarin Oriental and SoHo House, was just stupid expensive. Same for Mustique, with its big name denizens. We eventually settled on Bequia (pronounced Beck-way) as the more reasonable alternative.

Getting there from St Vincent would be pretty simple, with numerous ferries departing from Kingston for the approx hour long ride. This was made even easier by the fact that, upon landing, we befriended Lars, a Swede who had been living in the country for decades. Not only did he know how to get around, he was willing to share some cool recommendations and a fair amount of the islands' gossip.

He was on his way to Mayreau but accompanied us as far as Bequia, where we were greeted by Glenn, manager of the lovely Spring Hotel. Yes, you read that correctly. I was staying in a hotel and not a hostel as I had been told, in no uncertain terms, that communal sleeping arrangements would not be permitted on this particular outing. That said, the welcome drink and spectacular hilltop views did ease the sting a bit.

After dropping off our bags, we set off on the first of Lars' recommendations. He was the former owner of Jack's Beach Bar on Princess Margaret Beach and had suggested it as good place to watch the sunset. He was 1000% right but we would soon learn that there are no bad places on Bequia to watch a sunset.

While planning, we had both agreed that we had to visit Tobago Cays, a set of islands with impossibly blue waters and turtles aplenty. The idea was to go on our second day, only I fucked up. I had reached out to a couple of boat tour operators to try to book the tour but missed a last minute response from one of the tour companies until it was too late. The boat literally left without us.

As a plan B, Glenn dropped us off by the remnants of an old fort and pointed us in the direction of Port Elizabeth. I would call it a scenic overlook but much like with the sunsets, all of Bequia is a scenic overlook!

As we made our way back through the port area, we stopped at a few tour agencies, still trying to get to Tobago Cays, to no avail.

Thankfully, it was not all bad news. We stopped at the fantastic Bequia Dive Adventures just in time to catch their afternoon dive/ snorkel trip. In minutes, we were suited up and ready to go. Unbeknownst to me, we were heading to the Devil's Table, a dive site I had actually noted as one of the things I wanted to do.

It did not disappoint, with plenty of fish, healthy corals and even a couple of surprise wrecks thrown in for variety.

Post-dive, we were back at the shop, chatting with the dive master aka the Vincentian Aquaman and trying to figure out what to do next. That's when we got a sign. Not from the heavens or anything mystical like that. It was a piece of paper with a hand drawn map that had been taped to the door advertising the Treehouse Bush Bar. It promised that if you followed a wooded trail, you would be rewarded (hopefully) with both a super unique bar and a cold beer. Both of those things qualify as my love languages, so off we went.

You know how they say that nothing good comes easy, this could be the motto for the Bush Bar. Alexa and Google Maps had no clue how to get us there. Residents were sending us hither and thither. One of us got into a fight with a goat. Did I mention that since this is a volcanic island, any path leading away from the sea is uphill? Yet, we persevered and eventually saw the small sign pointing us away from the road and on to a man-made path.

We followed the trail for about 10 minutes and then suddenly, there is was. It was like a mirage but so much better. The only thing cooler than the bar was the story behind it. One guy, Ken, had built the entire thing from scratch. He had cleared the path, carried the materials up these hills and by himself (!) constructed this labor of love.

I was in truly awe to this testament to one man's determination. And then I broke it. That's right, I broke the Treehouse Bush Bar. Bertila Godzilla had come out of the woods and stomped all over this perfect little oasis. One moment, I was kicking back, enjoying the view, engaged in conversation with Ken. Then suddenly, my feet, which had been resting comfortably on the railing were suspended mid-air and the aforementioned railing was tumbling down the hill. I offered to go down the ravine and try to retrieve the erstwhile piece of railing but we both knew that wasn't going to happen. Ken was super gracious about it and claimed that it was because he had cut the piece too short but I still felt pretty guilty about this act of wanton destruction.

I was ready to leave in shame- and also I was getting kind of hungry- but no sooner had we paid our bill and headed back to the trail when we saw Mindy. We had first met Mindy at the airport and learned that she was living on a boat in Bequia. That alone is enough to bestow instant cool status on anyone but she also happens to be super sweet, funny and just generally my kind of people. Seeing her and her boating friends was enough for us to turn around and head right back to the broken Bush Bar.

Fast forward to a couple of hours and many beers later, the rain had come in, the trail was muddy and we were conga-lining it back to the road. Call it a bonding experience, call it what you will but for the remainder of our time, we were welcomed into the loose knit community of inquisitive souls who call the sea their home, sailing from harbor to harbor, collecting breathtaking experiences along the way.

Looking back, I'm actually grateful that I screwed up our Tobago Cays experience since that is the reason we ran into Mindy and her crew that day. Instead, for day two, we booked a sailing trip to another island, Mustique. It didn't have turtles but it was home to pretty beaches, all the aforementioned a-listers and their hangout of choice, Basil's Bar.

The Moonhole: an eco-housing project that has seen better days.

The bar is so beloved that Basil himself was invited to Prince William and Kate's wedding, where he created a pop-up version of his bar, complete with sand that I imagine he smuggled over in his carry-on.

Based on the rum punch I enjoyed, I'm sure the bar was raging success but the one thing Basil could not possibly recreate is the setting. The beach immediately in front was so inviting that we decided to go for a swim and looky who we found...

That's right, it's not just Tobago Cays that gets to claim the turtles. There were plenty of them bobbing around and probably downing a rum punch or two.

A piece of the Ariane Space Rocket that washed up on the shore.

And if you think the turtles can only be seen in the water, think again. I decided to walk over to Macaroni Beach on the other side of the island, mainly because I found the name funny. The beach itself didn't live up to the hype but there was one sight on the walk back that definitely caught my attention. Casually placed amongst multi-million dollar homes, there they were, a giant pair of fucking turtles.

Look at the size of the bench for scale. This is not a small sculpture.

Placed alongside the horny tortoises was a dedicatory plaque reading something like "To the fine people of Mustique..." I believe there was some random John Lennon quote thrown in as well. Someone had taken it upon themselves to gift the fine people of Mustique turtle porn. How many meetings must that city council have had trying to figure out what to do with this thing?

I asked a local what the story was with the turtles. He patiently explained that this is how turtles reproduce. I wanted local gossip, he was giving me the birds and the bees. One day, I'm going to need to find Lars again to get the full scoop.

Our ride back to Bequia was a wet one, causing our Capt to go into full Gordon Fisherman's mode but the skies quickly cleared and we opted for a bit of a detour.

Instead of returning to the dock, we asked to be dropped off at cool Bequia bar #2, Bar One. This one sits smack dab in the middle of the water on a floating platform. In order to reach it, you have to either swim, kayak or get yourself on a boat.

We took full advantage of having a ride and made Bar One our hangout for the next couple of hours. If anyone ever asks if I have both requested and jammed out to Titi Me Pregunto in the middle of the ocean, I can truthfully answer that I have.

We returned to land via a water taxi and hit up a couple of the now familiar beachfront bars/ restaurants before calling it a night.

This is a first. Note that you have to pay extra to not have tofu in your vegetarian dinner.

Day three: our last full day. We had already hiked, sailed, snorkeled, drank- pretty much covered all the island bases. This was to be the chill day.

We returned to Princess Margaret Beach, this time accompanied by a troublingly racist dog. He was a true and loyal companion to us, staying by our side all day long but every time we encountered a local, he turned in a snarling hell-hound. I hope I was able to convey in my frantic look that this was not, in fact, our dog and that he did not learn this behavior from us.

Because our time in Bequia was meant to end as wonderfully as it had began, we ran into Mindy and her husband again. This time around, she introduced us to the Lion's Den, the most wonderfully local of local bars and then gave us a ride back to Bar One.