15th to 17th May, Saba, Dutch Caribbean.
We only spent a weekend on Saba but
it's such a special place that I decided it deserved a blog entry all
to itself. It's a little thirteen square kilometre speck of a
volcanic peak, a part of The Netherlands, with a population of 1500 (plus 500 students at the
local medical school – because a Caribbean island isn't a Caribbean
island without a medical school). Allegedly it was the inspiration
for Skull Island in the original King Kong film. It's quite the
fortress to approach from the sea and I assume attracted a
particularly hardy breed of settlers who favoured isolation. Settlers
were English, Irish, Dutch and Scandinavian along with their slaves
and fishing and piracy were apparently the ways of making a living. I
fell in love with Saba before I arrived when I looked at a map. The
two settlements on the island are The Bottom (the capital) and
Windwardside. The airport is at Flat Point. There's a hiking trail
called “All Too Far” and a bay called Cave of Rum Bay. And the
only road is called....The Road.
This was a place we were definitely
not bringing Gráinne to. The only access to the island from the only
anchorage involves the 800 steep stones steps of The Ladder so we
thought we'd be tourists again and take the ferry. Saba has just
reopened to vaccinated tourists this month but we still needed the
swab up the nose before we went. Our only choice was a 6am ferry so it was an unusually early start for us in the dark and we got to witness our first sunrise in ages. Apart from us there were only two other passengers - a woman and her little daughter who had been turned away at immigration the evening before and were now being escorting on to the ferry by two police officers. So if it wasn't for her we'd have had a ferry all to ourselves. It's a bumpy ride on a fast catamaran but
the view approaching Saba in the early morning is stunning. As our
taxi driver's ex-husband always says “I wish I could approach Saba
for the first time again”.
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| Approaching Saba on the ferry. |
We arrived at a small and not very
protected harbour at the base of cliffs, moored fishing boats bobbing
like mad, a crazy little spot to have a harbour. We got stamped
through immigration under the watchful eye of a portrait of the Dutch
King and then moved on to see the Health Officer. She was very
excited to see us – Irish people! Her colleague is Irish (The Only
Irishwoman on The Island) and had gotten very excited when she saw
our names on the arrivals list, though slightly disappointed to see
we lived in Australia. Then the Health Officer introduced herself and
we realised that she was the owner of the accommodation we were
staying in, we'd been e-mailing. She's also the island vet.
Multitasking is useful on a small island I suppose. Formalities over, we hopped in a taxi and drove up The Road to our accommodation.
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| I suspect The Only Irishwoman on the Island had a hand in our welcome message. |
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| The deck of our little cottage |
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| The view from our shower |
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| The view of our shower |
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| Pondering the day's activities over breakfast |
The plan for day one was hiking. I took
over the planning and picked what I thought was the gentlest route I
could get away with – from Windwardside to The Bottom via the old
tracks that the locals used before The Road was finished in 1958. It
started with some steep steps, then we took a wrong turn up a hill
but ended up with a lovely view, then we got back on track through
typical lush green rainforest.
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| This was how you got around the island before The Road. |
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| A wrong turn gets us a nice view of Windwardside from above. |
And then every now and again you come
across a cottage, in the middle of nowhere, only accessible via the
hiking tracks. So if you ever feel the need to really get away from
it all just sell up and move to one of these little places on Saba.
At one point I thought I'd gone astray and ended up in someone's
garden but then a man poked his head out his window to say “it's
ok, you're on the right track!” as I continued, literally, right
past his front door.
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| How to truly get away from it all. |
I also came across a snake which set me off on a
little gallop while really wishing I hadn't skipped the fauna section
of the guidebook. We later confirmed there is only one species of
snake on Saba and its venom is not dangerous to humans. After a long
sweaty downhill we made it to The Bottom where we stopped for a
drink. As you do. There was a poster on the wall of the bar
announcing a birthday party the previous weekend for a popular local
with a picture of the guest of honour. When I looked outside he was
sitting on wall across the road, gossiping with another old dude.
It's that kind of island. It's a quiet little spot, the university
campus pretty much deserted apart from a couple of goats. Actually
the goats are an issue apparently, they're everywhere, and an
official roundup of sorts was due to begin the following week. Given
how skittish and speedy they are I think it might be a highly
entertaining event for spectators. After a brief break it was time to take the “easy” route back to Windwardside via The Road, and then
after lunch the final push up a very steep hill to our cottage. And
suddenly the swimming pool, which hadn't looked inviting at all in
the chill of the morning, was soooo welcome. Ah.
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| A church in The Bottom, services happen one Sunday a month, I quite liked that attitude. |
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| Walking back The Road |
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| And back up to our little cottage. |
Day two we decided to divide and
conquer. Karl was going to climb to the top of the island and I was
not. Karl was on a mission – to claim the highest peak in The
Netherlands for Ireland. So off he went with his little flag and his
camera while I wandered around the suburbs and further over The Road. Both missions were successful but Karl's boots only just held out
until he got back home. He proudly sent photographic evidence of his
capture of the peak to our Dutch friends on Umnyama, to the owners of
our Saba accommodation and to The Only Irishwoman on The Island (who volunteered to act as Governor). We
expect a response from the Dutch government any day now. After all
that excitement it was time for some sitting around, admiring of
scenery, listening to the birds, spotting the giant iguanas and
becoming incredibly relaxed.
That last picture of Saba, from the back of the ferry, looks like it may have been Inishtooskert ye were on all along. And a lot of Germans and Dutch buy holiday homes down in Cork and Kerry. I smell a rat!
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