The captain's girlfriend, all blonde and straight teeth and wearing a baby blue polo with the ship's crest and logo, told me and Kim that there a great pizza place on Bequia. In fact the best in the Caribbean. She even showed us the menu. Mac’s Pizzeria in Port Elizabeth, famous for lobster pizza. She was calling in an order and would be picking up a pie for the captain himself later today. Also, she said, pointing to a long stretch of white sandy beach backed with palm trees, that is a great beach. Just take a trail along the water, it will go up over that hillside there, and you can just walk to the beach. Sweet! That's awesome.
Off we went, taking the tender into shore, walking past men in short sleeve shirts and slacks, offering us a ride to the good beaches on a water taxi or a regular taxi. No thanks, we are all set, thanks to the captain’s girlfriend. Just take that trail along the water like she said.
I carried a dark blue cargo net bag with our snorkel fins and masks. Kim toted a blue cloth bag labeled with the cruise line logo and stuffed with bottles of sunscreen, towels, bottled water, a New Yorker and a Vanity Fair magazine. The cloth bag had been on our door handle in the morning. At some point during the hike that would never end, ownership of that bag transferred to me as Kim tottered in the heat. We ascended from the beach towards the hillside we had seen from the ship, along a trail that had some signs of recent use but was also somewhat overgrown. As we climbed, I could only name the cactus lining parts of the dry foliage, none of the other plants. At least cactus could be used for water in a pinch. Up the hillside we tromped. We passed one sign that said outdated trail or something like that. Later we passed another sign that read PRIVATE PROPERTY NO FURTHER TRAIL ACCESS. Kim, did you see that sign? No what sign? We meandered on because the trail never came to an apparent end and we trusted in others and we bumped into a long fence line and walked parallel to it and my mind started to turn to thoughts of bandits and scoundrels and hooligans and then wondering just what the captain's girlfriend really knew.
Suddenly a bright green lizard, later discovered to be an iguana, skittered through a patch of dry leaves, their sounds full of snap and crackle and pop! We came upon a family of goats, a Billy and three kids, the Billy with small horns looked threatening even as short as they were. Not too much later, up ahead and above us, I heard the roar of a car, perhaps a jeep or SUV, grinding through gears, climbing, and I thought we were soon saved. But not quite. Our trail then descended to an abandoned road thick with grass, and we turned away from the sea, and we walked some more and we came upon some houses, only we were in a ravine below these mansions, these three story monstrosities.
As we pondered our options, a small dog began to bark upslope from us. It was a little Pomeranian, and it continued to bark and finally a woman with substantially sun dried skin, looking like Darth Vader without his helmet, spotted us way down below her Caribbean mansion and asked what we were doing and we told our tale about the trail and the beach and the goats but she was not seeming too worried about us or amused with our tale and she asked us over and over, because I wouldn't answer her, who told you to come up this trail and she asked four or five times, each time with the guttural acid toned of a well-aged smoker and, finally, we scrambled upslope, under her swaying palm trees and evil eye, past the barking doggy, past old crotchety and up stone stairs inlaid into dry dirt and following the pointed finger of her hired help, emerged onto a narrow concrete road.
From there we walked some more, staying on the shady side of the road. My tank top was drenched in sweat. Those damn taxis roared past us. A utility truck or two. Residents in their personal vehicles. The road turned steep, downhill. Knees buckled. A large-bodied local gal trudged up that steep road towards us with nary a glance. Once Kim put her thumb out, trying to hitch a ride, but the driver of a small jeep just shook her head as she zipped past. Finally we reached Friendship Beach. Yes, that was the name of it. I dumped our possessions onto sand, under the palms. Kicked off my sandals. Sprinted into the salty sea, cussing that captain's cute girlfriend.
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