Your last night in an endearing place is always a bit bittersweet. A frog jumped out of the tap when I turned it on to brush my teeth this evening, perfectly punctuating my last evening here on this surprising little island.
I spent my last night with new friends, and in the morning (which comes all too quickly) it’s time to leave and begin that multi-airport hopscotch.
As if on cue, the skies open up in a tropical downpour as I navigate my 17 kilo bag down the (what seemed like) 200 stairs from the heights of my cottage on Booby Hill. Soaking wet and laughing, I cross fingers that the stash of Saba Spice, a local liqueur made from aged rum and local spices (cinnamon, fennel, and others), survives the journey back to the States. I’m certain that the Elfin Forest imps are having fun at my expense…
On a solo trip it’s always a crapshoot, but usually an adventure, in how you spend your evenings. This trip, I fell asleep early a few nights, ventured down to a local restaurant where I took meals with dive boat friends and locals, and the last night, spent with divemasters from different pinpoints on the map talking fish and Western politics and equanimity, yoga, Buddhism and life, was perhaps the most enjoyable (Aside: it is usually at this juncture where I ask myself if I could chuck it all to work on an island somewhere and live the divemaster life). You share a lot with those you meet on a dive boat. Perhaps the fact that nobody looks good in a wetsuit gets people to let defenses down and open up a little more.
The people I met in Saba hailed mostly from Europe, some from the US. Divers, all, as this place is a hidden gem; more than earning her name as the Caribbean’s Unspoiled Queen. Languages on the boat ranged from English to Dutch to German to French to Spanish, making me more intent on improving a foreign tongue in the coming year, as I realise my creaky French now outshines my rusty Spanish. I can read a menu and perhaps have a scrappy conversation with a 7-year-old in 3 languages, yet only one with la bonne confiance, as they say.
And so, after leaving somewhere that has made an impression, I reflect on not only the experiences had, but the things that got me there in the first place. The absurd airfares required for a Big Trip this Christmas; the yearning to get away from the routine back home; the random blip on the radar of this little island, nonexistent to me only 2 months ago yet something made me look into it… So it’s perhaps also appropriate at this juncture to think about what comes next.
I don’t make resolutions. As this wobbly world does its best to leave us wondering what crazy thing is coming next, and as things change along the way (as they are wont to do), I find that resolutions tend to leave one feeling more frustrated and unfulfilled than resolute come March or so. That’s not to say there aren’t things to be learnt and new adventures to be had and unfinished somethings that need finishing; because there are! And so I set intentions at this time of year, focused on feeling well and greeting the days with gratitude and welcoming new experiences into my universe; learning much along the way, finishing what’s been started and ultimately moving forward each day on strong legs and with a bright heart. There’s something about setting an intention that makes the path to achieving it more evident and perhaps the future result more tangible.
I write now, flying over the Atlantic Ocean on my northbound trajectory: a little bit browner than when I left and a little more grateful for the wonders of the natural world, having seen some quite amazing undersea stuff as well as rainforest flora and fauna. I met a few wonderful people and also encountered some characters; hiked in the rainforest, dodged raindrops and lived amongst what I’ve nicknamed the woodland creatures: Coquee frogs, snakes, lizards (the little Saba anole lizards and also giant iguanas), hummingbirds, crickets, grasshoppers, roosters and goats, all moving about on their own schedules, setting a rhythm to each day.
But when you return home, to a place where water isn’t a luxury, it makes you think about the scarcity of our natural resources. And it makes you grateful for the little things: the plentitude of bananas when you want them; hot water on demand; hair that doesn’t react so insanely to the humidity; dry stuff (in the rainforest, things only get “somewhat dry”). I ran into a woman on the trail up Mt. Scenery with unless tattooed on her shoulder. Unless, indeed.
So now, as we close the books on 2015, there are places to go and people to see and more potential adventures than there are days on the calendar. I wonder if it’s possible to do one new thing each day or maybe each week? There’s only one way to find out: try.
Happy New Year.
In 1967, a stairway comprising 1064 steps was built, leading up to the “Elfin Forest” at the top of this dormant volcano. A somewhat treacherous (mossy and steep) climb through the rainforest and around a private residence which reminded me of something like a tropical Deliverance (“take no photos, please respect” signs clearly posted), and then rising through the elephant ear and mountain palm, tropical flowers and trees. The trailside was teeming with butterflies: little white ones, black and yellow-striped and some even a vibrant orange. The mosses and ferns truly made the setting look like a scene from Grimm’s.
The afternoon is rounded out with a siesta on my little terrace, views of Mt. Scenery (partially enveloped in its signature fog) in the distance; an ear out for the giant iguana thrashing about in the trees and the hummingbirds with their miniature jet fighter trajectories. Background din is the melange of goats from down the hill, birdsong, roosters and an occasional barking dog. The sun is looming lower in the sky and the peeper frogs (Coquee) are on deck to begin their nightly chorus more.
Christmas Eve evening, shortly after I returned from diving, the proprietor here came up to my room bearing a message that I had been invited to Christmas lunch at the home of the parents of one of the women I met on the flight from St. Maarten. Because the rumour mill is small, and the magnifying glass is large on an island this size, everyone knows everyone, and “oh, she knows where the house is; lunch is at 11” was all that was needed by way of invitation. It’s nice and welcoming, when you’re on the friendly side of the looking glass in any case. In my case, I was booked on a dive boat (fish always trump Santa!) and so I walked down to the house (indeed, I did know where it was, having been greeted profusely from the driveway my first day here) to acknowledge the invitation and pre-excuse myself for being late.
After the dive, I found the best bottle of wine I could on Christmas Day on a very small Caribbean island when everything was closed, and walked down the road to join someone else’s Christmas. And though I had missed most of the festivities and all of Christmas dinner, they had made me a plate for later and treated me to Saban fruitcake. And with that very small act of kindness, coupled with the power of the Internet to bring me closer to those I’d like to be with, I went to sleep Christmas night feeling really lucky to have found this weird little island that nobody really knows about. There is a cat that visits me in my room (and slept with me last night), and a hermit crab with a broken shell (like a sunroof) that lives in my bathroom, and two hummingbirds that fancy the tree outside my door; and giant iguanas and peeper frogs and tropical rain and a marine park for me to explore in the coming days.
After a day of flights, weather delays and an ultimate departure on the last flight of the day on the small plane that would ferry me to the volcano-island that was to be my final destination, we turned around a mere kilometer from the runway because of low visibility and impossible landing conditions on this, the shortest commercial runway in the world.
The place I’m staying, 
