6/10/03

The weekend of the May 31 through June 2 I took a little trip to Antigua to visit Ivan. I flew in Thursday night at about 10. My flight was about 1/2 hour late... which is ridiculous because it doesn’t even take that long to come from Barbados, which is where the flight was connecting from. I was also the only person getting on at St. Lucia.

Friday we just hung around. Ivan got his guys to cover for him at work, so he had the day off. We rented a car so that the work crew guys could use the jeep. We went to a beach near Ivan's house, where there was Sandals and another hotel. We had lunch at a nice beach bar and then got free chairs at Sandals. Ivan went to get drinks at one point and tried to pay but they wouldn’t let him. When the bartender said, "no, it's all inclusive," Ivan said, "Oh, right, I forgot!"

(The beaches on St. Lucia are all considered public property even if they front a big, fancy resort hotel, so we were perfectly within our rights being there…)

After that we went to the grocery store. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. The grocery store was just like back home. I about went nuts. I was so excited to get things like OJ in the big jug, tortilla chips, skim milk.... but for the things we got it was $100EC! Later we went out with Jake and Denise, two of the PCs from my group who are there. We ended up going to the bar at the restaurant where Ivan and I had had lunch. The place was similar to our usual bar, Shamrock’s, but a little nicer. It seemed like a lot of expats and locals, and Jake and Denise knew lots of people. Actually there were people there who I had seen around in St. Lucia, which was kind of strange.

Saturday we headed out to snorkel. In my Lonely Planet book it talked about a couple of sunken ships that weren’t deep and you could snorkel to them. We thought that would be cool to do. On the way there, we saw Ivan’s friends with a flat tire so we stopped to help. It wasn’t too big a deal. Then we drove around lost for a while trying to find this certain beach. Finally we found it and rented equipment from the water sports and paid them to take us out to the site, setting us back about $50US. But as soon as we got out in the water there were jellyfish all over. The guide reassured us "there's nothing there", so I started swimming around. Then I saw about 5 more jellyfish. The guy said they don’t sting. Riiiiiight. So we got back in the boat and could see them all over. For the 5 seconds I was in the water, I could see that the shipwreck wasn’t too special anyways. So the guy took us to another place that was very un-special and nothing next to Anse Chastanet, the nice snorkeling beach in St. Lucia. It was disappointing and we didn’t get any money back or free rides on the jet ski from water sports. We consoled ourselves because we planned to go to a Mexican restaurant later. I got all done up and we got to the restaurant at about 9 only to find that it was closed. We were pretty vexed because it seemed that the whole day had gone wrong. And to top it off, the customer service in Antigua is even less friendly than in St. Lucia. Also we had to be around tourists all day, who always seem to leave their brains and good sense at home. A number of the heavier-set European women had also left their tops at home. Instead of the Mexican, we found a nice pizza place. Later we had plans later to meet up with the Jake and Denise and the other Peace Corps people, as well as Sam, Shan and Domitille who also happened to in Antigua with some other friends. We went to a really nice club. It was really posh and US-style, and also really expensive. The people there were mostly rich locals and expats. The funny thing was that they played the same music as any other bar in Antigua or St. Lucia. I would hope that for the $30 cover (which we got waived! And $8 beers, they would have some totally amazing music or something.

The going-out scene was interesting there, but I actually prefer the scene in St. Lucia. For one thing, we know most everyone. That can have its good and bad points, as does anything here. There are perks and drawbacks to being the freakish white person. For one, we can kind of blend in somewhere like Sandals and get free drinks and the star treatment. But then in other occasions, we’re subject to what Deb has dubbed the "white tax" where people like vendors, taxi drivers and bus drivers will overcharge us because they think we’re tourists and therefore rich. It can be really frustrating. If you don’t pay it or object, they will most times accuse you of being racist. One of my favorite things ever, I won’t even get into it. But along the same lines, we get to kind of be the big fish in the small pond, socially speaking. We are the popular kids without even trying. Heads turn when we go places. This is also good and bad, because we have to deal with almost constant sexual harassment. In Antigua, I could tell that it would be different. There are many more white Antiguans than there are white Lucians. And all the girls were done up and cute at this club. I don’t think we could still be the ‘popular kids’ there if we just went to the bar in jeans and a t-shirt like we do here.

Sunday Ivan and I just hung out. We went back to the grocery store and I stocked up on things to bring back, more salsa and chips, and a Thai-food gift for Deb. Then we went for a drive to use up the gas in the rental car. The countryside in Antigua is a lot more barren and unremarkable than here. There were cows and goats everywhere. Here it’s nice because there is a bit of everything. The south of St. Lucia is flat and more barren, but there are also rainforests, banana plantations, and beautiful green hills everywhere. We have the same cows and goats, though.