Caribbean Capers

Day Fifteen: Sunday 10th January

When we had booked our stay in the Beef Island Guest House we had been informed that the price (US$125!!) included a Buffet Style Breakfast. This was fine with us and although we did not expect the kind of breakfasts we had enjoyed at Sandals we did expect a similar standard to that of a comparable European hotel or B&B. We were in for a big surprise!

In the morning we emerged from our room into the kitchen/lounge area where the patron had informed us that breakfast would be “available”. We waited, and waited, and waited. Nobody seemed to be around and there was no sign of any food at all. Time was creeping by and we had a plane to catch that morning, so eventually Sam searched around and found the owner of the hotel who was busy in his office, looking after his small child and appeared to have no desire to help his paying guests. Sam was informed that she would find some food in the kitchen cupboards and we should "help ourselves".

This seemed odd, but we were both hungry so we returned to the kitchen area and attempted to find items of food to make up our "buffet style breakfast". Our search through the kitchen cupboards revealed that they were bereft of any edible items at all apart from dry muffins and a small pat of butter (complete with last month's breadcrumbs stuck to it) found in an otherwise empty fridge. After another attempt at talking to the owner he grudgingly came through to the kitchen and reaching to the back of a high cupboard supplied us with a very scrungy jam jar which we were able to scrape around in to get out the dregs of non mouldy stuff. (I'm positive this guy would have been aggrieved to have had to give us his oven scrapings for breakfast. Luckily for us it seems he didn't have any oven scrapings that day, but he had to supply us with something and he did his best to find something similar.) There was no milk to make tea or coffee with so we went without.

To cap it all the owner came through to watch us eat our scrungy food and made jokes about how the English like to eat English muffins (these muffins were nothing like English ones and given that we had no choice apart from going hungry, this joke was in extremely bad taste.)

This guest house was by no means a cheap one, and we believe that the breakfast con was a ruse in order to make you buy breakfast next door in the Loose Mongoose which this bloke also owned. This didn't quite work in our case, so stronger measures may be called for with the next guests. So Mr Beef Island Guest house... may I suggest you serve a few dog-hair sandwiches next time perhaps?

I would not recommend this guest house to anyone, unless you enjoy mouldy jam, crumby butter, stale muffins and similar culinary delights first thing in the morning. (English prep school anyone?)

It seemed that our day, having got off to a bad start would continue that way. We had ordered a taxi to take us to the airport (which was very close to the hotel) but it was late and by the time it arrived we were half way to the airport having decided to walk. The taxi took us the rest of the way for which we were grateful since it was hot, humid and our bags were heavy.

We had to wait a while before we were allowed through to the departure lounge during which time Richard was accosted several times by a rather elderly lady. We couldn't understand her but she seemed very cross and we could only assume that Richard had unwittingly offended her in some way. After a while we had to resort to ignoring her as she ranted on at us about the price of fish or something in Caribbean and eventually somebody came along to claim her for themselves.

At last we were allowed through to the departure lounge safely away from the old lady who had continued to give us intermittent hard stares from across the room, and after the usual baggage/passport formalities sat around for an hour while we waited for our first delayed plane of the day. This did not concern us too much....we had plenty of time didn't we? At last the plane landed, emptied itself of passengers and we were allowed to board and then had an uneventful flight to San Juan.

Upon arrival at San Juan we were once again faced with those utterly stupid immigration cards to fill out. Basically it involved writing down all the information in your passport, ie name, address DOB etc and then answering questions on the back of the form. This was the most ridiculous set of questions we have ever come across.... do the Americans truly believe that if you are a drug dealing Nazi involved in international espionage that you are going to tick the YES boxes on their poxy forms? I think NOT! Come on America, get real!

Anyway after queueing again and getting our forms checked we made our way to the other part of the airport and awaited our flight to St Lucia. To our dismay this flight was delayed in leaving and then once over St Lucia was delayed from landing and put in a stacking system as we had caught "rush hour" as the captain told us. By this time we were getting worried because we had to get over to the other side of St Lucia in order to catch our trans-atlantic flight home and time was looking short.

Eventually we landed at St Lucia and were then faced with an absolutely enormous queue for passport and immigration controls. As usual the St Lucians were getting nothing done quickly and seemed to be taking great pleasure in watching the tourists sweat in the long line of bodies and baggage. At any one time it seems that only one official can actually work, while at least another three are required to stand around watching him and gossiping. Richard and I were now frantic as this line was moving nowhere and we had another plane to catch at a different airport many miles away. We pleaded with the other tourists who thankfully were very understanding of our situation and we jumped ahead to the front of the queue. We were hot, stressed and fed up as we made our way through customs and out to the taxi ranks.

We were lucky to find a taxi immediately that took us down to Hewanorra for $60. It did nothing to help our stress levels though, because it would seem that the driver had obtained his driving licence from the back of a cornflakes packet. He drove at top speeds with the usual St Lucian style and got us to our destination in under an hour by which time we were pleased to still be alive. (The journey would normally take about an hour and a half for a taxi driver behaving in the usual St Lucian way and that is scary enough.)

On arrival at Hewanorra airport we were once again faced with a massive queue for check in and as usual were herded around like cattle before being allowed to go through for boarding.

What a relief to get onto the Virgin Atlantic plane! It was an older one than the aircraft we had flown out on, and the TVs on the back of the seats were not so good, but there was still the wide choice of films on offer etc.

We seemed to be hanging around for much longer than we would have expected and it started to become extremely hot and stuffy inside the aircraft. Eventually the captain informed us that he had to wait for a fax from London before he could move and this did not seem to be forthcoming. We continued to wait and children on board were offered drinks. The adults could have done with some too, as by this stage we were all very uncomfortable with the heat. Eventually the captain informed us that he had received the fax but was now unable to start one of the engines! He said he would turn the plane around into the wind to see if that would help. At this point Sam was a bit nervous because we were committing ourselves to an 8.45hr flight across the Atlantic in a potentially dodgy plane. Oh dear! Richard is a more seasoned flyer and did not seem too worried however.

Eventually the engine started and we took off uneventfully. The flight was extremely turbulent though and although Richard managed to get some sleep Sam did not. Service on the Virgin flight was as good as ever. Due to all the turbulence and the worry about the engine Sam was especially relieved when we landed at Gatwick.