THE BAHAMAS
Days 74-82
A quick flight from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau, just one hour, landed, ooops!, not landed, aborted. Up, up and away again. No reason given but we think we'd touched down on the wrong runway as we 100% landed on a different one half an extra hour later sweating profusely. A fine start.
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On the bright side Sara and I had agreed that we would blow the budget for the final 8 days and we rented a complete two bedroom cottage with a pool in an acre of gardens off good old Airbnb. A snip at £230 a night, but we would save loads by being able to eat in (by now we were heartily sick of restaurants). The cottage was amazing as you can see in the pics. This is the guest cottage for the guy's main house which he rents out. All the houses in the road are mahousive! Worth millions. Big wide road, beautiful gardens, unimaginable wealth, we feel we fit RIGHT in. Right up until we go to the shops that is ........
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Off to the supermarket where we happily filled our trolley with all the basics - wine, beer, crisps etc. Up to the checkout, £200???? Are you certain????? And certain they certainly were. In the snap below I show bread at $8.33 (£6.20 or 30p a slice!), a small jar of coffee at $7.25 (£5.40) plus some other bits at crazy prices. Cheapest wine $25 a bottle. It might have been cheaper to eat out!! My full English (yup, addicted after the cruise) costs something like £5 just to buy the ingredients. Obviously the 4 eggs and 9 slices of bacon may have something to do with that. I really must cut back.
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Hired yet another car, tiny one this time, its a tiny island Nassau. Just £50 a day with all the bells and whistles, and those bells and whistles sure add up. what with CDW and extra insurance (you so need that I am always assured) and local tax and VAT and local charges and delivery and enhanced cleaning and one-way hires and booster seat (I need that being smaller than most Americans) and the big sign that says 'DRIVE ON THE RIGHT', I might be confusing that last one with what Sara keeps screaming. Then off to explore.
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Nassau is about the size of the Isle of Wight so not hard to get around. Once again the wealthy and the hotels have bagged almost all the properties along the beaches and tried to make them private so for us lowly Airbnb folk we have to track down the small and often unmarked tracks to the 'public beaches'. First you find the track, then you ignore the 'private security' or you remind them that ALL beaches in the Bahamas are public. You just need to know how to get to them.
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The next and most important thing was to fulfil yet another of Sara's lifelong dreams. Sara wanted to 'Swim with Pigs'. Now some among you may be saying that is quite an odd lifelong dream - as well you may. However I suggest you keep your opinions to yourselves, I didn't and look at me now. Paying good money to swim with a flipping pig is where I am now, against my better judgement I assure you!
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On the bright side the residents living beside 'Da Pig Bay', our chosen venue, had also taken (unsurprisingly in my opinion) against Sara's dream and got up a petition against the whole pig swimming concept. Their view was that it was a bit off to take over a small beachside villa in a lovely residential area, import a herd of pigs to live on the premises, then invite said Gadarene hordes (Luke 8:26, pigs possessed of demons) to dominate the formerly quiet and private beach to carouse in the surf with a bunch of tourists while being fed (ironically) pork sausages on a stick. Thus our venue was basically illegal and reduced to only four pigs who they bought out surreptitiously to no more than four guests. Proper bootleg pig swimming.
On the bright side the boss man allowed me in for free (in case I informed on him). His beach was stunningly lovely, and he supplied totally free, totally unlimited and totally wicked rum punches which effectively poleaxed a very happy pig swimming Sara.
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The next few days saw us checking out Nassau town and a number of other lovely beaches and generally taking it easy, walking bloody miles and miles, chilling by the pool, eating lazy and healthy meals in our cottage and doing what people do on holiday - like saying "Hi, your Highness" to the Wills and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, I kid you not. Kate even said 'Hi!' back.
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We had spotted the preparations for their journey from the airport to the new Atlantis 5 star on Paradise Island on their Royal Tour and so we staked out the route. Two hours into the stakeout we were rewarded. The thronging crowds (us two) waved like fury and as the car swept past Kate was so overwhelmed by our presence (as being the only throng, really, just us) she waved directly to Sara. Possibly we were the first people to wave? We are uncertain which was most moving, swimming with pigs or being waved at by our future Queen. I am obviously and totally for our future Queen. I never wanted to do the pigs.
Just look at that throng!!! Thronging here, thronging there, you can see about a mile down the road thronged with - just us. I am not including the policeman, he was being paid to be there. And we are on the main road in downtown. Poor Wills, poor Kate, police outriders, a 10 car convoy, roads closed, for what? They could have got the bus and saved a fortune.
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Some parting pics of our last 2-3 days winding down and beachifying at various outrageously expensive hotels and restaurants, all of which we just visited, no sitting, no dining. Apparently The Bahamas is in the top 7 most expensive places in the world and we can confirm that. Crazy prices for not a lot. $30 for a burger plus 15% service and 15% VAT, making it a round $40 bucks. And that is pretty much everywhere. No wonder there is a 30 car queue at Wendys ever single time we pass it, from early morn to late evening.
And so now, with just three days to go, I am sitting in our cottage as it chucks it down outside. Obviously it would rain on a Royal Tour. It gives Sara the opportunity to engage in one of her other favourite occupations which is to catch up on her laundry, and me to sit and tap out this drivel before we set off for home.
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I hope you have enjoyed at least some of it, learnt a bit, seen some sights, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
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