I flew from San Francisco to Miami, where we arrived at 6 am, and almost managed to miss my flight to West Providence because there was a gate change and I didn’t figure it out until the last minute, when they called the passengers for Panama City! But I got into the right flight at last, and an hour later we landed in West Providence Island, whose most important is Nassau. Immigration was a piece of cake because “I had my Golden Ticket!” in the form of my Travel Health Visa, so barely 15 minutes after we had landed I was going out of the airport.
Naturally there were many friendly taxi drivers, but I had gotten it into my head that I was going to walk to the boulevard and take the bus. Well, it didn’t quite work as I had expected because the bus must have taken a different route. Fortunately there was a cool breeze blowing, so I was able to walk in comfort. The Bahamas are the archetypical Caribbean islands, but in the dry season they look a bit parched. The limestone soils are not very fertile, so the vegetation looks a bit like that of Yucatán, with dry scrawny bushes, palm trees, and some very rachitic pine trees and the biggest magnolias I have every seen. There I was, trekking along the John F. Kennedy Blvd., with never a sight of bus 12b, until I decided to look at the map and spotted a neat little shortcut to the northern shoreline boulevard. Once there it took me no time to jump unto bus 10, which for $1.25 took me in a fun rise along the northern coast until we reached downtown.
I had imagined a bustling and colorful part of town, but I was disappointed. It think the downtown area was hard hit with the Covid lockdown, with many businesses boarded up or simply abandoned. The antros where Spring Breakers indulge in crazy partying looked despondent. “Well”, I said to myself, “maybe they come to life at night”, but I later learned that Nassau is under a strict curfew from 10 pm to 5 am. Nope, the touristic blood of Nassau has simply dried out.
The Bahamas is a Black nation, inhabited by the descendants of the slaves brought from Africa by the British; but they are still a proud member of the Commonwealth of the British Empire, which leads to the incongruous view of Black folks walking along the King’s Road, or the white marble statue of Victoria Regina in front of the government palace. To each his/her own, but I would have gotten rid of those trappings of a slave colony a long time ago.
Bahamians are nice friendly people, who go out of their way to help a visitor. I stopped in a bar to have a cold beer, and clumsy me managed to topple over and spill the disinfectant spray bottle that is ubiquitous in businesses and buses, and to pay for my drink with a $50 bill, which caused two or three other customers to dig into their pockets to break it for me so I could get my beer. Later, when I got tired of walking, a friendly passerby pointed me toward a bus that would take me at least part of the way, and the different bus drivers handed me from one bus route to the other until I finally got close to my destination on the east side of the island. Walking there, with my map open as a banner in front of me (and a brand on my forehead proclaiming I was a clueless tourist) I was addressed by an older gentleman in a car who was concerned I might be lost. I feel well cared for.
My home stay, Carla’s Cottage, is a beautifully-groomed two-story house, in a nice residential neighborhood. I have the upper floor, and the louvered windows provide me with a delightful cross-breeze as I write down my notes. I did venture into the neighborhood to find some food (spicy ribs and fried rice) and drink (a Cuba Libre and a Mojito), but I think I am going to stay home for the afternoon and enjoy my airy perch.
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