Carriacou – A stroll around a beautiful Caribbean island

Late December, 2009 - Our days in Carriacou were divine.

Paradise Beach is a magical spot, and our little apartment on the

beach at Adam's Eve was lovely.  One happy day dreamily melted

into the next.

The nights were another story, however.  Christmas was fast

approaching, and Parang, the local three-day Christmas music festival,

was in full swing.  Each evening, as the sun began to set, the noise from the stadium nearby where Parang takes place began to

rise.  Parang is a music festival that features both professional Caribbean bands and local garage bands.  One of the highlights of

Parang is the local band competition.  One after another, local bands starring kids and teens came to the microphone and sang

"Angels We Have Heard On High" while fans and judges decided whose rendition was the best.  The repeated wailing of "Glooooria

gloooria glooooria" by each of these bands, not always sung in tune, wore us down after a while.

To top it off, the concert came to us in delayed stereo.  We could hear the live music, the screams

and cheers of fans and the raucous shouting of the announcers directly from the stadium, but at

the same time the bar below our bedroom decided to play the radio broadcast of the show at top

volume too.  There was a one second delay between the live show and the radio broadcast, and

the resulting cacophony was painful to listen to.  Hardly a brief celebration, we discovered that

Parang goes on well into the wee hours of the morning.

The bitter icing on this noisy nighttime

cake was the mosquitos.  Few buildings

on the island have screens, but you

absolutely have to keep the windows

open or you will suffocate in the intense

heat and humidity at night.  We learned

the hard way that the beds are

decorated with mosquito nets for a very

good reason.  It is pure folly not to use

them.  Not hearing any mosquitos when we turned out the lights (Parang

was too loud!), I slept without a top sheet and kept my nose towards the

window in hopes of a breeze.  A few hours later I had so many mosquito

bites that I looked like I had chicken pox.

Fortunately, the days were exquisite, making the hot, loud, itchy,

sleepless nights worthwhile.  We could never get enough of the

beautiful beaches and scenery around us.  Besides, no one ever said

that paradise was free.

Strolling the beach one afternoon, we came across a man carving up

angel fish fillets.  He worked steadily, chopping the heads and tails off

with a cleaver and expertly separating the meat from the skeleton.

As we walked all over the island we ran into lots

and lots of goats.  Most had a leash that

dragged on the ground behind them, and all of

them ran free.  Our hostess at our apartment explained that when

she was a little girl in the 1950's and 60's, most islanders had a

vegetable garden and kept goats for milk and meat.  But because

of the change of culture and ideals that has swept this island since

then, goats are now kept more as pets, not for milk or meat, and

they are allowed to run free all over the island.  Their incessant

munching makes it impossible for anyone to maintain a vegetable

garden without spending a fortune on fencing.  Oddly, islanders

instead pay a premium for imported produce and meat.

Wandering cows are another challenge.  Our hostess had done

some lovely landscaping beneath her balcony, but a group of cows

came in off the beach one morning, got in her gate and ate all the

fresh yummy tops off of every plant.  Her pretty yard was still in

recovery.  Her bananas were just about to ripen, however, and we carefully closed the gate behind us each time we

came and went from the beach.  Unfortunately, the bananas were still two weeks from

ripening and we weren't able to try them.

Being a desert island, Carriacou is

suffering a terrible drought these days.

Water is collected in cisterns on the

rooftops, but there has not been enough

rain to keep the cisterns full.  A water truck

delivered water to the house next door

one day, and we watched in fascination as

water was pumped from the truck into the

cistern.

Away from the main town of Hillsborough,

shops and stores look a little different.

Searching for groceries, we were pointed

to a building that gave

no outward

indication that it

housed a little

food store.

Inside we found

all kinds of

staples and a

very friendly

proprietor.

Hillsborough itself has a

main street and a few

side streets.  We got a

few shots of town early

Sunday morning when

most folks were still

sleeping off Parang.

The most scenic spots are

out of town, however, and we

enjoyed one stunning walk

after another.  This aspect of

the Caribbean is what

tropical dreams are made of.

To our happy surprise, when we

journeyed on to Union Island, the

neighboring Grenadine island in the

country of St. Vincent & The

Grenadines, we continued our

travels in dreamland.