Island Hopping the Lesser Antilles – Part 1

Ahhh, the Caribbean in winter. Except for a short visit to Cuba to run the Havana Marathon, this is our first time. We’re working our way up the Lesser Antilles (the arc of islands on the southeast side of the Caribbean) from south to north. Our journey began in Barbados.

Barbados

Barbados has a lot to offer but it’s mainly its miles of beaches, aqua blue water and soft white sand that draw visitors. Squadrons of TUI Holidays charter planes arrive each day, delivering Brits by the thousands. They come to bask on the beach and soak up the sun. Most tourists seem to spend their days on the beaches and their evenings cruising the happy hours. The beaches are gorgeous, but not our usual style.

We stayed in the little enclave of St. Lawrence Gap, a few kilometers from downtown Bridgetown. Our hotel overlooked the ocean – a perfect start to the trip. St. Lawrence Gap is known as the party area. Fortunately we only experienced that one night. The club across the street from us blared 200db music from 10 pm until 3:26 a.m. Thankfully, St. Lawrence is now mainly tame bars for middle-aged sunseekers. We avoided that scene. Our favourite haunt was the Car Bar where friendly Cuban women served us killer rum punches and delicious Cuban food out of a converted van at the side of the street.

Navigating the Island

Transport was mostly by the local “buses” – decrepit mini-vans operated by crazed young guys driving like the hammers of hell while loudly playing soca music (a music genre based on calypso that can apparently only be enjoyed at ear-splitting volume). They get great pleasure out of packing in as many passengers as they can. Our record in Barbados was 19 people (one of whom was smoking dope) in a 14-person van. (That record didn’t last long.)

Barbados is only 34 kms x 23 kms. Surely we could see the whole island in one day in a rental car? That failed to account for the narrow, winding, congested, potholed roads, and the maniacal minibus drivers overtaking on corners. Not to mention Google Maps’ bizarre routes (“Do you really want us to drive across that farmer’s field Google?”). It was a long, tiring day but we circumnavigated the island and got to some of the remote areas. Well worth it to get away from the bustle of Bridgetown for a day.

Oistins Fish Fry

Friday nights are famous for the Oistins Fish Fry, a raucous street party/fish fry, attracting people from all over the island. Oistins was only 4 km from our hotel but the road was so congested it took us an hour to get there by minibus. The party starts around 6 pm, mainly for the tourists, and goes until the wee hours, when the party really ramps up with locals. When we got there at 8 pm the party was in full swing. Steel bands played over each other; DJ’s cranked out 80’s disco music; reggae and soca blasted out of concert-venue sized speakers. Conga lines of drunken tourists were weaving their way through the crowds. We elbowed our way to a small table, ordered our fresh fish platters and cold bottles of Banks beer and enjoyed the spectacle.

Grenada

Stop number two was Grenada. Grenada is known as the Spice Isle, for its abundance of spices, especially nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon. The fragrance of nutmeg is everywhere. Every shop and roadside stand sells it in bulk. Seemingly every cocktail and restaurant dish contains nutmeg in some form or another.

Like most Caribbean islands, Grenada is a major cruise ship destination. Ships dock alongside the main street of St. George’s, Grenada’s capital. The downtown is compact and a bit “gritty”. When a large ship discharges 6,400 passengers, as happened our first day there, the town is overwhelmed. Fortunately for us, most of the passengers stayed within a block or so of the cruise-ship terminal. The rest of the town was ours to discover, without crowds of tourists. The carenage, the working harbour, was especially colourful. Fishermen pull their boats alongside the docks to sell their catch. Small, barely seaworthy vessels load and discharge cargo by hand.

Renting a Car – Again

Not having learned our lesson in Barbados, we again rented a car to explore the island. Grenada is even smaller than Barbados. Its roads are equally treacherous. One of the main coastal roads was half washed away, a minor detail Google Maps neglected to mention. There is a large National Park, nice coastal scenery, many waterfalls and a few other touristic sites. The highlight for us was the remote fishing village of Gouyave. There were no other foreign visitors and, honestly, not much reason to stop. The town is run down and the people are obviously not well off. It was full of character though, and the people were the friendliest we met in Grenada.

Carriacou in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl

From Grenada we took a ferry to Carriacou, Grenada’s northernmost island and the southernmost island in the Grenadines chain. It is only 32 square kms. There are no cruise ships and almost no tourists.

In July 2024, the eye of Hurricane Beryl, a high-end category four hurricane, passed directly over Carriacou, causing almost total destruction. We assumed it was too soon to visit. We emailed Grenada Tourism to get their advice. They encouraged us to visit. We stayed in the only hotel that has re-opened, the Mermaid Hotel, in the capital Hillsborough. The Mermaid survived Beryl relatively unscathed. It was lovely. Our room was literally a couple of steps away from the beach. Tragically, most of the island was not so lucky.

The majority of houses lost their roofs, many were blown completely away. The island is rebuilding but progress is slow due to lack of supplies and skilled labour. Many, if not most, houses have blue tarps for roofs. Some people are still living in tents provided by the UN. Most businesses in Hillsborough are gone. A few small shops and a couple of basic supermarkets have reopened. One new restaurant has opened. Otherwise it’s mostly street food from stalls set up outside people’s homes.

Despite what they’ve been through, the people were very welcoming, happy to have tourists back and hopeful for the future.

Risking our lives on the local buses

Three mini-bus routes serve the island. We tried them all. The first day we missed our stop. After a few minutes the ‘conductor’ realized the foreigners hadn’t gotten off. The van screeched to a stop. After much discussion among the other passengers, it was agreed where we ought to have gotten off. The driver turned around and detoured off his route to drop us close to where we belonged.

The next day we took the bus to Windward on the east side of the island. Windward was famous for its boatbuilding. That industry is gone; wiped out by Beryl. We walked around awestruck by the devastation then sat down for coffee with a local before heading back to town. When we boarded the van it seemed full. It technically held 17 passengers. The driver wasn’t leaving anyone behind. Every person waiting by the roadside was squeezed in until there was 22 of us. The scariest part wasn’t the hairpin bends, steep cliffs, breakneck speed, lack of seatbelts, or decrepit state of the van. The scariest part was the guy in the front seat with two 5-gallon jerry cans of gasoline.

In the next instalment we continue north.