Sint Maarten: Afternoon and Night 5

My father returned to the apartment at a much later hour than I expected. It seems he was caught up in several additional academic matters and also involved in losing a file containing one of his lectures. We each prepared a lunch for ourselves. My father had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while I had a fried seasoned chicken breast on some celery and rice.

Once he had completed the preparation and consumption of his meal, my father started collecting a number of items in the apartment that belong to a visiting faculty member. It seems that this professor, who will be arriving in a few days, will be staying for 10 weeks, explaining the significant number of items they left. In short order we, though most of the effort was my father’s, able to locate and collect all of the items, with the exception of a garlic press and a cheese cutter. It seems likely that these are not actually in this apartment as we both conducted fairly extensive searches of the apartment (with particularly emphasis on the kitchen area) and were unable to turn them up.

One additional apartment based afternoon activity that took place was the trashing of the bottles and cans that we have acquired during our stay. As we are used to North American standards, we hoped to be able to recycle or return these items. While at work my father learned that, at least on the Dutch side, there is no recycling program or option. Thus we were forced to toss all of these items, filling a trash bag. The short- term benefit of this action is that our kitchen area is significantly less cluttered.

As we were heading out for the afternoon and taking our bag of garbage to the disposal site, we ran into the cleaner. Through the use of a combination of languages and hand signs were able to indicate that we wanted to throw the bag away. The woman was quite willing to take care of our bag for us, which was appreciated, but we also wanted to know where the disposal site was so that in the future we could deal with the matter by ourselves.

As we were riding down on the elevator she asked if I was my father’s son (boy-toy was likely the other option). She also asked if I had any siblings. When my father asked if she had any children she indicated that she had six, but they had all died. To accentuate the point she drew her finger across her throat and indicated the number with her fingers. This is a rate of loss much greater than would typically be experienced in most North American locales. It is quite obvious that the locals don’t receive the same treatment and life the same quality of life as the tourists, though this tends to be well covered so that none of us get scared or start to feel bad.

After dropping off the garbage we hopped in the car to go to Marigot, the French capital. Unfortunately, as we are more used to going to the Dutch side of the island we started traveling in the wrong direction for some time before we noticed our error.

Shortly after correcting our error we were heading back through Maho and next to the golf course. At this point my father and I noticed a hitchhiker. Thinking that this could be a good information source my father stopped and picked the woman up.

It soon became clear that instead of being a local the woman was actually an (likely illegal) immigrant from the Dominican Republic and had only been in the country a relatively short period of time. So while she didn’t turn out to be a great source of local knowledge she was pleasant and a safe hitchhiking experience.

After dropping off the hitchhiker in Sandy Ground we continued on our trip and made to Marigot, which we passed while we continued to Pic Paradis the highest point on the island. Fortunately, as it is not common, the signage and map were relatively good useful in finding our desired location. Of a lower quality was the road itself. For much of the ascent the road was a poorly paved overgrown single lane with the occasional sharp turn and guardrail free drop-off.

As road conditions were poor speeds had to be kept to a minimum, just faster than a crawl. Even with these constraints, driving was certainly much faster and easier than walking would have been (and anyways, who walks these days?). Once we reached the top we took the path between the French telecommunications station and private compound to the lookout.

Below we were able several towns, other mountains, and one of the more famous (nude) beaches. The only problem with the view was that the high level of precipitation drastically reduced visibility, making the view much less impressive than it otherwise would have been.

One of the nice parts of the walk to and from the lookout was the presence of interesting plants and a few lizards. On the way to the lookout I saw some aloe-esque plants that seemed to be growing on the branches of trees. My father immediately knew the name of the plant, though I have since forgotten what he called them. Once at the lookout we saw a lizard, of the smallish sort, on the rock that one would stand on to get a good photo or view. Unlike many of the other lizards that I have seen this one seemed to stay still for a longer period of time.

While making our way back from the lookout I found some plants that were similar to those described previously, but that instead were growing on rocks and were only the size of one’s thumb. In many ways, I much preferred these to their larger cousins, if only because I was able to examine their means of attachment in greater detail.

Almost immediately after seeing the small rock-attached plants we came across a lizard sitting on a rock wall. Assuming it would be like most of the lizards that we have seen I decided to try and film it to capture the remarkable speed with which they are capable of moving in the presence of humans (or potential threats). As I started to film the lizard I started to notice that it wasn’t really moving that much, something that was particularly strange as I was not in any hiding or disguising my presence. Upon noting my shock and desire for the animal to move my father suggested that he might be able to assist. With a stick he rubbed the animals tail. This action only caused the animal to take a step or two forward and raised its tail. This behaviour pattern might suggest that this lizard doesn’t have the same self-preservation instincts that are so commonly displayed by the others of its species.

From Pic Paradis we made our way back to Marigot, this time taking a slightly different route than we had used to arrive at our previous destination. We soon noticed the “Howell Center” and the grocery store within its confines. As we are both interested in food and price comparisons we decided to check it out (and we wanted to buy a garbage can for our kitchen). Once inside the store it was quite clear that this was a far superior store those that we had seen on the Dutch side in Maho and surrounding areas. Not only did they have a much greater range of fruits and vegetables, but they also had all kinds of cheeses and meats that one might associate with France. Also, their alcohol section was quite large and reasonably priced. Most impressive was their range of high end Scotches for $30.

Eventually, we ended up buying a few postcards as well as a bottle of aloe drink and a bottle of crème de cassis (a black current liqueur). As all of these items were on the cheap side we didn’t have the sufficient bill to allow us to pay by credit card, making it quite fortunate that they accepted dollars as well as Euros. The funny thing was that our change was comprised of a dollar bill and some Euro cents.

We then finally made our way to the town centre and the touristy shopping district. Nor surprisingly, neither of us were really all that into looking at women’s fashions or kitsch. So, after a while of just walking around and not really looking at much in any detail we decided to think about getting dinner. As none of the restaurants that we saw really appealed to us we decided to head back to the Dutch side for dinner.

As we were making our way back to our car we happened to see a stand that sold fresh coconuts and freshly pressed sugar cane drink. As I had had neither of these before, and as my father had not had the sugar cane drink we decided to order one of each. Both drinks were very nice, though the sugar cane was a more positive surprise than the coconut. The other benefit of the coconut was that the fruit could also be taken and then consumed, something that should happen when we get the chance to find a good smashing location.

Cheri’s Café, a restaurant that was reviewed highly by at least two people with whom we have spoken, was our dinner destination. As we were able to beat the rush we had our pick of seats, and chose to sit in an area well away form the heart of the restaurant.

Shortly after arriving, our waiter, who was likely new to the staff, took our drink orders. We each ordered Amstel products, mainly because we both want to try all of the beers that seem to be popular with the tourists. Though he didn’t say it explicitly, our waiter clearly felt that our selections were quite clearly not the manliest drinks around. When we explained our reasons for ordering them he seemed a little more understanding, but still somewhat confused.

When my father received the calamari appetizer that he ordered we were both shocked by the portion size. Instead of receiving just a few pieces of squid, the plate was quite full and more reminiscent of a main course than an appetizer. The portions we received for our main courses were also relatively large, certainly much larger than I am used to receiving at restaurants. I was also quite pleased with the quality my dish, which was Mahi-mahi, and the fact that they included some vegetables with the meal.

Soon after we finished eating, and while I was working on my coffee, Kirsten called. While the call was expected, we were pretty sure that she would call just as the restaurant’s band started playing. It turned out that the Sweet Chocolate Band started about a minute after she called. After the phone call we hung around for one or two of the numbers by the band before splitting.

Once we returned home we spent our time relaxing, which included two games of rummy, before we went to bed. Fortunately we were able to get to sleep at a reasonable time, as has been the tradition since our arrival.