Travelblips

This a a tale of an unrelenting hike up… then an unrelenting hike down.

It’s been an abysmal year for me and long distance travelling – very unusual. So you know it’s sad when I view a 2 hour drive as long distance travelling! However, finally circumstances conspired to allow me to do an alpine hike this year. And of course, I make an immediate bee-line for one of the most difficult hikes in the Vancouver area…

A friend sent me a link of Vancouver hikes, and the banner of the webpage was a beautiful turquoise lake. So being one who sees a beautiful photo and then wants to see it with their own eyes, I immediately suggest we go and do that hike, the beautiful lake being Wedgemount Lake, its beautiful turquoise colour due to the rock flour from the glacier at the high end of the lake. Doesn’t matter that this hike has the steepest gradient of just about any hike in the area and I haven’t been doing a lot of strenuous field work this year – this is the hike I want to do! Luckily, my friend was game…

And so it was I found myself outside a coffee shop at an ungodly hour on Saturday, picking up my friend (after a purchasing a hot chocolate) and then in my car driving north to Whistler. The drive was a relatively quiet one, the traffic moderate and the road windy! We got to the turn off to Wedgemount Lake a little (*cough*) considerably ahead of the 2 hours and 20 minutes recommended on the website (possibly because they have upgraded the road since that was written??? Or… *cough*). As I turned off, my friend commented that he’d read that the gravel road was suitable only for 4WD vehicles. As I blew him off, I hiccuped inside, knowing the clearance on my Honda Civic is a lot lower than my previous cars as evidenced by the fact I keep hitting the front of the car on the curb when parking which I’ve never done before on any of my previous cars…

At first the gravel road was fine, and then it started to go uphill… and then we started to see cars abandoned on the roadside… Slightly worrying. And then we came to a hill which I fired up to… then the wheels began spinning and I could see these big pot holes! Groan. We were probably no more than a third of the way along the 2km track to the parking lot at the trail head. I reved up my car, tyres spinning and… but I’d paused too long to vet the trail ahead and with no 4WD, I wasn’t going forward again with out another run up. I figured I could have taken another stab at it and cruising up the left side of the road but one unexpected swivel or slide, and my car would get an awful dent! In the end, I rolled the car back down and reversed it into the next available space off to the side of the road behind all the other abandoned cars.

10 minutes later we were kitted out and hiking up the gravel road to the car park. As we hiked, a slew of 4WD expensive SUV’s passed, choked to the gills with Asians. Uh oh, looked like the quiet difficult hike we had planned on taking was going to be fraught with battling through a large contingent of some Asian outdoor club. Or two. Or three…?

When we got to the parking lot, it was crowded with a thick throng of ever-increasing Asians, all kitted out in expensive backpacks, gaiters, walking sticks, water bottles, radios, ipods, carabina’s, whistles, Arcteryx rain jackets, bear spray and just about anything else you might need(?!) for an arduous hike. The noise was awful!

After a small detour, we forged ahead, only to be overtaken quickly by some very game mountain bikers… I was damn impressed they were going to try to cycle up this reportedly steep climb. However, when we rounded a corner, they had pulled over and had a couple of maps out and were trying to work out where they had gone wrong – apparently Wedgemount Lake was not their destination and they had taken a short cut….

We had barely been hiking along the (what we were to learn was the ‘flat’ bit) trail, before we could hear this ever ascending volume of noise behind us. The Asian outdoor club was on the march. I just wanted to let them pass, knowing we’d hear them all the way up, but if we were behind, we’d hear very little. After a minute or two, we pulled off to let the pass. And pass… and continue to pass… Finally when about 30 had overtaken us, we moved on again, the radio chatter scaring us!

According to the notes from the website, it was to be a 20 minute hike through second-generation growth forest to 2 bridges which cross Wedge Creek. The floor of the forest was soft with pine needles. As we started to emerge out of the forest, more rocks appeared underfoot and then we came to a small rock slide with a restricted view of the valley below. Straddled across this rockslide were about 10 Asians all taking photos. We were effectively trapped until they moved. And as we waited, more Asians started to pour out of the forest from the car park trail. And these one’s had even MORE radio’s! We just stood there and let them all get past… Another 10 or 20 of them….

Finally we thought there might be a break in them and most of them seemed to have moved off the rockslide and we pushed on. However, in short order, we came to the two ‘bridges’ that crossed Wedge Creek, to find it choked with the Asians taking photographs again. Getting a bit impatient, I stood menacingly over a few until they finally moved. Fortunately the bulk of them had moved on.

And then began what can only be described as the ‘up’ section. Now, the extreme vast majority of hikes I’ve been on, tend to undulate in a general up direction and are interspersed with flatter sections and even downhill bits. This one was straight up. And apart from 2 sections, both less than 100m, never flat, and no down at all.  Just up.

At first we began climbing up through more forest, but along a ridge through which we could glimpse a rock slide to the left. It was a very steady push… I was quite relieved it was mainly scrambling over roots and the odd rock – I am probably even less fond of hikes like the Grouse Grind where steps have been put in. But. I am by no means as fit as I was when last working in the field….

The path meandered for an hour (at my pace) through the forest, and we could occasionally hear the waters of Wedge Creek to our right. Eventually we caught up and overtook the back stragglers of the Asian group, radio’s blaring loudly with chatter as the people who owned the radios had them cranked up to hear it over their ipods… Seriously people, hiking with music in your ears???? Seems to somehow violate the whole spirit of being out for a hike in nature to not be able to hear the sounds of nature!

We reached the half way point at lunch time which was a rock slide with a small brook babbling away next to it. As we were both suffering hunger pangs, we broke out our lunch and shared ourselves with the mosquito’s that rose up around us. The backwash of the Asians overtook us… but since we didn’t last too long in the company of the mosquito’s, we overtook them as they paused on the trail to eat as well.

From the half way point, our notes informed us it was an uphill trail to a ’steep’ part just before the top. Well, if I had thought the bit before was unrelenting uphill…. This didn’t stop, meandering ever upwards and at a pretty steady gradient which I would say is comparable to the lower section of the Grouse Grind. Every now and then we caught a glimpse of Wedgemount Falls through the trees on the other side of the valley. According to the notes, Wedgemount Falls was 300m… at first glimpse we could probably still see a conservative 200m of the fall tumbling from the lip of a cliff above us…Oh my.

My friends GPS was by now practically registering a vertical line for our elevation plot – we had already hiked up about 750+ meters over just under 3km… This 171.5m rise for every 1km seemed to be a bit flat – afterall the road near my place is a 17% gradient according to the sign warning trucks to be careful – and it is not as steep as this!

Just as I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get out of the trees and hit the legendary ’steep’ bit before the top, we began encountering people coming down. I asked one party and they assured us we were only about 10 minutes away. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later we suddenly emerged from the trees and were standing on the edge of a gorgeous alpine valley. Green meadows, scrub and rock covered the valley but it was beautiful and above the treeline.

We scrambled over rocks and rounded some trees, when my friend suddenly commented, “Look at them! They are like ants!” I looked up to see the bulk of the Asians meandering up a steep rock slide for the final ascent. They did indeed look like ants, colourful ants completely covering the rock scree…. However, personally, I was relieved it was going to be a steep scramble up over rocks because they tend to go quicker than never ending trails, and also relieved the Asian outdoor club(s) were a good 10-15 minutes ahead of us (except for the stragglers behind us)! That would have been a nightmare scrambling past them.

Pausing only to take photos of a small alpine meadow still with some flowers, we quickly reached the bottom of the rock climb and began going up. I cannot speak for my friend who was beginning to fret about the descent by now, I was relieved it didn’t take long to do the scramble! Going down…pshaw. I dont’ get puffed going down…

Before long, we were cresting the first false crest and paused briefly to look back down the Whistler Valley, very stunning but unfortunately very unphotogenic owing to some unforecast cloud having rolled in. Then we quickly scrambled up the last bit and got our first glimpse of, well, I have to admit, the BCMC mountain hut there, absolutely swarming with Asians… But a few steps further along and there was the glorious turquoise lake! My friend detoured off down a small valley to a snow patch and I dawdled after him, taking photos. After he’d stamped and slid on the snow (newbie?!), we meandered back up to the BCMC hut… threaded our way through the milling Asians and continued on to the gentle trail that led around the lake to the glacier.

From the hill the hut sat on, I could just glimpse a bluish bit on the glacier and wondered if there was some deep crevasse of a small serac there or something. Anyway, would find out soon enough! The trail was a pretty easy one with the first 3/4s of is clearly marked out with strategically rolled and flattened boulders. The last little bit was yet another scramble over a mixed jumble of moraine debris and rock slides. And then I crested the last mound of rocks and boulders to find my friend enthusiastically photographing not a blue crevasse but a deep blue cave at the foot of the glacier! A small stream, filled with slabs of glacial ice flowed out from the cave. Wow!!!!

Many photo’s later, we had a shot of drambuie to celebrate doing the hike, took more photos and then after glancing at the time, reluctantly began walking back. By now the clouds were beginning to thicken and the temperature was falling (or we were just close to a glacier!) so it was becoming a bit dim. However, when we scrambled over the last moraine, we could see the BCMC hut was now bereft of people. Nice… the Asians had all begun to go back down. Seemed a bit weird to spend all the time getting up to the lake, and then not making the comparatively short and flat walk around to the glacier, but… we shouldn’t complain – we had had the glacier almost to ourselves apart from a couple of campers sweep through briefly.

By now though, I was running a little low on creating ‘potential energy’ (energy created when an object is lifted) so took a few minutes longer (I hope it was only a few minutes longer… felt that way to me) to get back up the shallow hill to the hut. Kinetic energy was good though. I would have no problems going downhill….. It took us 5 hours to get up, surely it would only be 2.5 hours to get back down?

With one last glance at Whistler Valley (still utterly unphotogenic with its high cloud ceiling), we began scrambling down the steep rocky bit. This is not a descent you’d want to do on a rainy day! In relatively short order, we were crossing the boulders of the alpine valley before entering the tree line and continuing our descent.

It was rocky and it was root choked and it was down, down, down! Although I had no problems keeping up with my friend, it was an arduous task making sure I didn’t trip over a root or slide the wrong way down a rock! Every now and then he’d turn around and remind me that going downhill was worse because it was more technical – uphill was all plodding, downhill was about having to focus on where to put your foot etc…

Down and down and down we went… We were probably only nearing the rockslide where we’d had lunch when I began questioning if I had seriously climbed this??? Maybe I’d been teleported at some point – I just couldn’t recall it being this long and steep! Down and down we went…

Eventually we did hit the rock slide. Quick consultation with the elevation plot on the GPS. Not looking good. We were half way down, but apparently had only descended just over 500m – we still had another 700m to descend if the GPS was to be believed! Good grief!!!

The rock slide was terribly short (being rather flat in nature, it was a welcome relief to step from rock to rock…) and before we knew it, we were back on the trail in the forest going down and down and down… It never ended. By now I was verbally questioning many times if I had seriously climbed up all of this! It just hadn’t seemed to bad or so long or so steep. I was pretty impressed my legs seemed to be holding up, although I was definitely fatigued.

Down… down… down…. We entered a part of the forest I recalled a ‘flat stretch…’ It took us another 10 minutes to get there – and it was only about 100m long. Surely it had been longer than that??? Or was it the gentle incline it rapidly turned to had seemed flat when coming up relative to the steep bit below – the steep bit which we all to quickly found ourselves back on?!

The descent continued on down and just as I was very literally going to ask we pause for a moment, really our first pause apart from the GPS consultation up above at the half way point, my friend collapsed on a log ahead of me. His legs were killing him. Spasming from the unrelenting down. He needed  a break as well! Out came the GPS, more depression as we tried to estimate how much more elevation we still had to loose. It looked like we still had another 400m to go down over a distance less than 2km. Believe me, that sounded steep!

No where near refreshed but filled with a real need to get off the mountain and this trail, we pushed ourselves off the log and began going down again. There was no conversation at all – we’d both retreated into our heads trying to will ourselves to get down. Eventually the trail turned and began paralleling a rock slide. Ok. We were nearing the end!

However, the ridge trail seemed to be twice as long as memory served before we encountered the two bridges across Wedge Creek. I can’t speak for my friend, but my legs were aching horribly and despite being elated to hit the bridge, I did recall it was still all downhill back to the carpark…. However, it wasn’t as difficult. Sure, every step down hurt my m. rectus femoris thigh muscles, but I don’t  know why… cycling??? – my legs continued to hold me up even when I jumped down from a rock or over a root.

Finally we entered the ‘2nd generation regrowth forest’ where it flattened considerably and the groud was relatively root free and covered in soft sawdust. I felt like I had large braces on the sides of my thighs and I was walking very rigid like. May not have looked like it but I sure felt like it! Although I had no energy left to speak of, I still raced through that bit – desperate to exit and be back on the relatively easy road. I think my friend felt the same way – he almost galloped through that forest.

And then… the car park. Oh if only my car had been able to get up that hill! My friend broke out his GPS and managed to depress us both saying we were still 2km from the car, which I refused to believe since the car park was supposed to be 2km from the road and I had driven at least a third of the way in. I desperately wanted to tell my friend to take my car keys and get the car (weak grin) but suspect he was also thinking of asking me to go and get the car for him. And so we both kept silent knowing it would be hit and miss if the car would get up the over the ruts on that hill and trudged back down the road. Making only the odd observation that the road was more of a decline than it had seemed coming up.

Finally we came to the hill with the ruts. I could see a car right where I’d parked… but it was in the shadow. Looking closely as we walked down the hill, I realised that wasn’t my car – it was some large 4WD. My friend was obviously thinking the same thing and pondered out loud that he didn’t think we’d parked my car so far down – we could see 2 cars further down the road. I said I didn’t park that far away – we’d parked just past the 2 cars (now 1 car) at the foot of the hill, and that car there was not mine. Where was my car???

We kept walking, alarm beginning to creep into our conversation – had someone stolen my car? I just couldn’t believe that! Who would do a hike like this and then test all the cars to see if there was one to nick? Or was there an organised gang out of Whistler than knew cars parked there were parked for the day and came to test them out? Whatever, I just couldn’t believe my car had been stolen and was seriously not looking forward to walking an additional 12km into Whistler to report it – or could I call 911 (since we did have phone coverage) and actually get some cops out here?

When suddenly, nearly parallel to the 4WD in ‘my’ parking spot, there was my car, nestled in right behind his big behind! Oh thank goodness – my car hadn’t been stolen! Woodenly, we threw our stuff in the back of my car, a little faffing around to get the car turned around and we were out and on the way home.

It had been a very long and ambitious hike and very worth it. But next time, I think I’d like to do that hike as an overnight camping trip!

Popularity: 1% [?]

I was sitting in a pink bus outside the hotel. This was to be the start of my afternoon of snorkelling with Stuart Cove diving in Nassau, Bahama’s. Turns out I wasn’t the only person staying at the Hilton (ka-puth) – a family of 4 french people got on as well as a young, possibly honeymooning couple. We then drove west towards Cable Beach, stopping into all the various ‘all-inclusive” resorts to pick up other people. I was kind of glad I wasn’t staying this far out of town – there wasn’t much to do apart from romp around in your hotel…

We then drove to the far southwestern part of the island where we pulled into a gravelly parking lot lined with quaint looking wooden shacks. All very cozy looking. Somewhere between the bus and the place where I paid for my afternoon of snorkelling, it became pretty clear the movie,  “Flipper” with Paul Hogan had been filmed here – plenty of little ‘reminders.’ I went inside and paid for my snorkelling trip, asked if they rented out towels (having not bought one thinking this was an all-inclusive trip at the price they were charging), was told no but I could buy one over there.. I went and had a look at the $US35 tea towels they were passing off as beach towels and decided it was 25C and I could survive with no towel…

After about half an hour, we were finally all paid up, kitted out with flippers that fitted and receiving our very laid back safety briefing from a couple of black dudes. I was on the upper deck, snuggled in between an American family of dad, stepmother, and dads 3 sons, and 4 young american friends. The French and latino collection were down on the lower deck. I felt very quiet amongst all the loud American’s all yelling jovially at each other…

We exit through the narrow mouth to the Cove’s harbour and head out into the open seas, heading west to the some low lying islands just off the west coast of Nassau. Within about 10 minutes, we are pulling up at Hollywood reef. We are told we have about 30 minutes here. The American’s work themselves into a frenzy, grabbing the fish food they had purchased back at Stuart Cove’s. I frowned slightly. Nothing good comes of feeding animals!

Everyone exited to the back of the boat, but I slid over the side and swam around to the front. I could see coral way down but it wasn’t very exciting. So I swam around to the front of the boat and then headed towards the tiny low lying island. I quickly came across a reef rising up about 20ft from the ocean floor. I looked up… no one was around, they were all still hovering way out beyond the back of the boat. Okay… Wasn’t sure what was out there – maybe plenty of those large yellow fish that were near the boat, but there were plenty of colourful fish all around these rising spires of coral! So I contented myself with diving continuously down to investigate the spires and chase the little coloured fish around the spires. I was a bit surprised how tame the fish were!

After about 10 minutes or so, I thought I’d go and check out what was attracting everyone at the back of the boat. When I got there, there was a school of yellow fish (about a foot long) but apart from seaweed encrusted coral lieing 30 ft below, not much else. Okay… I still didn’t know why everyone was there and having ascertained I didn’t have much longer, I just went back to the coral spires I’d been swimming alone around, and played around there, while keeping half an eye on some SUB aquanauts being lowered into the water – looked like a rather fun way to see the underwater life if you didn’t snorkel or dive…

I got back onboard to see utter pandemonium amongst the mixed family. One son had had all his fingers bleeding copiously after being nibbled at by the fish ferosciously attacking his little pre-paid fish food baggie, (never a good thing to feed the animals…) and another  had a bleeding ear having dived down to retrieve a conch shell – which after photos were taken, one of the black dudes told him he had to throw back into the water… Eventually Dad and Stepmom calmed them down and we got underway to our next stop. I seemed to be surviving with no towel thank goodness!

We headed back to the sheltered southern side of the island at a bouy called in an area we were told was called Piri Piri, which was near a Cessna plane wreck, in about 40ft of water. Being a little closer to the coast, the water was murkier. We were told the wreck lay near the end of the bouy. I slipped over the side and swam to the front of the boat. I thought I’d be followed by everyone else, but no… they all swam with the new school of yellow fish at the back of the boat. In fact, in all my time there, I only saw two other people swim over to have a sticky beak at the wreck. Two divers swam beneath me at one point.

However despite the wreck of the cessna – and schools of yellow fish, this wasn’t a very scintillating stop. I swam inshore and came across a small lone coral spire and eeked as much enjoyment out of it as I could, chasing the technicoloured little fish into crevasses in the limestone. I then headed into the shallows to see if I could see what was causing little small sand mounds on the bottom. I saw one tiny crab…

I then swam back out to the cessna wreck. By now, most people were either back in the boat, jumping off the upper deck into the water or… swimming with the yellow fish… However, with most now depleted of fish food (or so I thought), there were less injuries when we were finally summoned back on board.

At this time, one of the black boat dudes decided to strike up conversation with me. Awkward conversation. I felt so quiet voiced amongst the dense crowd of Americans…. Suffice to say, he thought I was really weird to fly alone all the way down from Canada for a weekend and felt (as most Bahamians did) that I should have stayed longer… I said I didn’t know many people who would make such a long flight for a such a short trip so since I had credit with an airline it was better to just come rather than dither and find a travelling partner who also wouldn’t think twice about a 16 hour return flight for a 48 hour vacation… I was clearly too strange for him and he gave up on making polite conversation after that introduction other than to add I needed to come back for longer next time. I smiled politely. Beach holidays are not my forte – with or without travelling companions!

We drove out to sea at this point and tied up to a buoy about a mile offshore. There was one other boat tied up to a buoy nearby. Our two dudes gathered us up and began to explain that this was where the lemon (or tiger?) sharks were (which indeed we could see swimming menacingly under the boat) and we were…. not to put… (wince) fish food in the water. As he said that, a latino girl was obliviously pouring in another packet of fish food to the sharks below which swam up awful close to the surface. Her companions reached over and horrified, wrenched the fish food out of her hands.

We were then told one of our guides would jump in and ‘assess’ the mood of the sharks before we would be allowed in, all holding onto a rope that had been extended from the back of the boat. I didn’t know it at the time, but they had dropped a baitball to the ocean floor. So I was shocked when the black dude who had been making polite conversation with me jumped vertically into the water! However, he surfaced soon after and gave us the all clear.

Vexingly, somehow I ended up right at the back of the line of people viewing the sharks this time, so by the time I got in, there was about 2ft of rope left and the people at the end were being asked to start getting back on board! I turned my facemask down and furiously watched the sharks circling the baitball (now evident) below – as well as our friends the yellow fish.

At this point, the black dude tapped me and motioned for me to duck under the rope! So cool – he basically gave me extended time as a result, as everyone else climbed back onboard the boat while I got to stay there watching the sharks circling below until everyone was aboard! Nice dude!

When everyone else was back on board, I was told to take my last look at the sharks (now starting to rise slightly…) and get back on board. I did so and then once I was onboard, the black dudes began to lift the baitball, bringing the sharks to the surface until we could see the back fin, swishing menacingly through the surface of the water!

Everyone poured over the back of the boat and it was a long time before I again got to have a look and snap some photos of the sharks on the surface of the water. I could only guess how well fed these sharks were with probably around 5-10 diving trips and 2-3 snrokelling trips out here per day. No good can come of feeding the wild animals….

Once the bait ball was all gone, they pulled in the empty rope and we headed back to the cove. Once there, I had about 10 minutes to go in and change into my dry clothes, (slighthly horrified at the knotted mess my wind-dried hair had become…) before climbing on a pink bus and taking my lift back to the hotel.

It was a quieter evening (2 of the cruise ships were now gone) and I went to Senor Frogs and had a quick meal there before deciding it was to quiet for me and went back to my hotel for the evening. It has to be said, travelling solo in Nassau wasn’t really working for me as a social experience!

Popularity: 2% [?]

After a very deep sleep the night before (10 hours, out cold, since I put in earplugs to block out the amorous activities next door to me in the Hilton…), I was up by 10am and wondering what to do before my snorkelling trip. I decided to push on past the seedy limits of the cruise ship shopping area and walk to the causeway that lead over to Paradise Island and the curiously tall pink towers that dominated the island – Atlantis I believe. Wasn’t sure what that was all about – I just knew it was very very expensive to stay there for one night and wasn’t in my budget at this time!

I had thought I would grab a Subway sandwich on the way to breakfast but it turned out it was just a painted logo on the side of the building and if there had been a Subway place there, it has since closed down. So I pushed ever eastwards to the causeway. The streets were sleepy but very bright in the Sunday sunshine. A few bahamians loitered near bus stops, but once I got throught the area that was dominated by “For Lease” signs and out into a boulevard lined with gated shops and government buildings (all closed), I was the only one on the street apart from the cars constantly zooming past me.

It was about 3km to Atlantis Bridge (as I see it is called on Google Maps…). Crossing this bridge by foot had been recommended, being a cheaper way to get up high over this rather flat island. Hilton, probably annoyed I had not paid much for their room (or lack of service) had given me a ground floor so this was going to be my one chance to get up high!

I paused half way across the bridge to admire the deep turquoise waters (the Bahama’s do have nice coloured water!), and the odd pink towers of Atlantis. Cars streamed steadily behind me but the only other people out were very fit American’s jogging. I paused and took a few photographs before continuing my wander across the bridge to Paradise Island.

Once on the other side, sign posts were somewhat confusing, pointing in varying directions to Atlantis and shops etc. I followed the signs to shops and found myself in a very ordinary part of the world which if I hadn’t know better, I could have mistaken for any sleepy, sunny, neighbourhood in Florida which had seen better days. I came across another ’straw market’ and had a quick sticky beak before concluding it might be more spacious than the one downtown, but it had no more to sell.

I then crossed the road and found myself at the back end of a strip mall. It contained a couple of stores selling beachware – all ’steeply discounted,’ a cornerstore advertising itself as supermarket and a resturant which promised breakfast. I went in and took a seat near the front of the restaurant and was profoundly ignored by the staff milling around a bar. I moved myself deeper in to the restaurant so I could blend in with all the TOURISTS! Immediately I was handed a menu – why was I directed to the front of the restuarant initially????

I ordered an orange juice and a bagel with cream cheese. I got a glass of Tropicana orange juice (ugh! you’d like to think in the tropics you’d get fresh juice..) and a hastily defrosted bagel. Yum… and for that I paid $10. I have to admit, by now I was not sensing anything cheap about the Bahama’s other than the flights there! Hotels were expensive as was food and taxi fares!

With the food leaving a decidely sour taste in my mouth and pocket, I paid and went back out and followed signs to the casino which seemed to be generally heading towards the Atlantis Pink Towers. I took bit of a circuitous route to get in as I kept trying to avoid large burly guards. But eventually I found my way into a shopping mall filled with Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo and Versace… I then dawdled into a casino… Lasted about 2 seconds in there before drifting to some large glass doors emitting sunshine. I went through them to find myself facing a veritable artificial landscape of pools, palm trees and people. I started to walk down some steps when a girl stopped me and asked me to show my pass. I asked if I could just look around, and she said only if I paid.

Right. Back out… I think I’d seen somewhere it was about $27US just to enter their private playground and gawd knows how much if I wanted to swim there! So I just cut through the casino again and walked past the designer stores and back out into Little Florida (my name, not anyone else’s…). By now I was getting slightly concerned about time as I wasn’t exactly sure what the time was! You see… when I arrived, the Westjet people announced the time as the same as Toronto. But in the Hilton and in a number of clocks around town, they’d all been an hour ahead…

So since I had my snorkelling at 1pm, I thought it better to be safe than sorry and started to make my way back. However, on the way, I came across a little harbour, lined with your usual American chain restaurants and art stores. Huge fishing yachts filled the harbour.

I found the sandwich place which had been recommended in some brochure but wasn’t feeling like a ‘mega-sized’ sandwich so soon after the awful bagel and orange juice. So beginning to panic slightly now I’d seen another clock which had the time one hour ahead, I thought I better start walking back to my hotel (a good 4km away now) and hope for the best with regards to my 1 o’clock pick up for the snorkelling!

So I began to walk back to the hotel, first slowly and then  gaining speed with every clock I saw an hour ahead of what I thought the time was. I began to wonder how much a taxi trip would be to the snorkelling place and if it would be worth it…

But when I finally got to the hotel, slightly hot as the midday sun meant Nassau was in its 2 hour hotspot for the day, I raced to the counter, asked the desk clerk for the time and with relief, she said it was 12.15pm! Phew. I was on the right time – just all the clocks around the island were not….

I went to my room and was just putting together my gear when I got a call as the pink bus was here to take me snorkelling with sharks with Stuart Cove Dive Bahama’s.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Too early to go to bed… to late to to not do something…

Thus it was I found myself arriving in the Bahama’s at 2ish in the afternoon – absolutely wiped out after my red-eye flight and brief sleep in Toronto airport.

Confusion would seem to be the order of the day when I arrived – a pleasant sunny afternoon. Bein someone who had no luggage, I breezed through immigration and while all the Canadians are standing around waiting for their luggage, I went to stand in line behind numerous Bahamians returning from somewhere and who were all in various stages of emptying their suitcases for the customs people. Nothing was left unturned! Fortunately I didn’t have to wait to long – a lone blonde girl with a small backpack on… (kinda screaming “TOURIST!”), a security guard saw me, asked if that was all I had and asked where was I staying and lifted a cord up and let me outside.

Well. Where were the taxi’s? I admit a bunch of sleezy men all accosted me as I walked out (the big “TOURIST!” stamped across my forehead now working against me…). But once outside, the only taxis were all lined up and the drivers were holding signs indicating they were there to pick up people.

I walked through the throng of Bahamians all crowding the exit door… got out to the end of the entrance and was in a big empty parking lot. Taxi??? I wandered back to a small cluster of Bahamians in a uniform, and asked where the taxi stand was. No taxi’s I was told. You are supposed to order your taxi’s before you arrive in Nassau. What??? I didn’t believe that every single other pasty white Canadians inside had pre-ordered  a taxi! But not to worry, I was told, we’ll get you a driver. Uh oh.. I thought. But it was a long walk to my hotel…

Anyway, a few minutes later a large beige American ship… er boat… er car, sails into the empty parking lot, parks and a lady breezily gets out and waves me over.  I turn and look at my uniformed accomplices and they shoo me in her direction. I ask the uniformed Bahamians before I go how much this will cost… fixed price I am told. Its always one price from the airport to town. OK. Cool. $27US. Ugh. About 1/4 of my budget…

My drive in is pleasant nontheless with my native Bahamain driver chatting away, vocally expressing her horror at the temperatures I’d left in Canada (3C) and how cold it was right now in Nassau (25C) and how it was necessary to wear a coat and wool hat at nights (16C…). She gave me a few tips and we arranged for her to take me back to the airport when I leave in 2 days time. She didn’t try to swindle me and I felt slightly bad I had not yet grabbed any change so wasn’t able to give her much of a tip as I had only a sparten handful of $US on me.

Due to time constraints, I had decided to stay in the heart of downtown. It was a case of $50 more to stay there or save $50 staying further out of town in a dump of a hotel. Mind you, I was staying in the British Colonial Hilton Hotel and although it had been about 5 years since I stayed in a Hilton, my opinion of them was not destined to change during this trip either. Well. It was a roof over my head – nothing more. I’d go out to do everything else… I was bemused the last time that someone took offense at my dry critique of the Hilton hotel and reckoned you get what you pay for and apparently they felt silence was one thing you get in a Hilton. Let me assure you, it isn’t. In the one I stayed in in Alaska, I heard every single conversation as people exited and waited for the elevator, and this time, I heard the chattering of the maids outside my room as well as the very intimate honeymoon ‘conversation’ next door. You know.. I can hear that in a Super 8 motel as well – but I pay a lot less to hear that kind of crap in a Super 8! Ergo, my opinion of Hilton hotel’s remains unchanged – overpriced hotels which offer less than a mid-tier hotel, but think by offering up fancier decor they can get away with that. Sorry… Not in my books!

Anyway. So by now it was 3pm and again, still too early to go to sleep and too late to do much either. So I quickly unpacked, and then headed into town, where I’d spied 3 honking great big cruise ships toweing above the town. I figured it maybe Saturday afternoon, and who knew what it was like here, but the shops wouldn’t be closed with that many cruise ships in town!

I walked out of the Hilton, walked along the narrow, bright concrete sidewalk around a corner past the hotel, slightly in awe of the many Canadian banks which had ATM’s here… And then I was in the thick of downtown – a slightly seedy looking street, absolutely heaving with pastel-clothed pasty plump white tourists (I admit, I am well within the pasty white category – but was wearing more ‘colour…’). Right near the hotel, there was all sorts of bahamian musicians dressed in hawaiin shirts playing steel drums and other carribean sounding intruments. I wondered down towards the wharf as I had read somewhere that the main tourist centre where the ships docked had free internet access. Security guards lined the steel fences everywhere, but once again, my loud “TOURIST!” stamp on the forehead swung back into action and I slipped through the crowd unnoticed. I eventually found the tourist centre, discretely broke out my ipod Touch (thought I’d give it a go but I wasn’t fond of it – with no computer with me on this journey, I had no way to charge it… And people look at me stupid when I ask for an mp3 player which runs on batteries… we don’t always travel with a computer folks!). No connection. Eventually I found a booth advertising free wifi – if I signed up for the cruise ship equivalent of time share. Yep. Right. Pass.

I exited the crowded tourist centre with its collection of little stalls selling what can only be called, tacky goods. I then made my way back to the main street, West Bay Street. It seemed to be full of duty free shops selling cosmetics, watches and jewellry only, and clothing store selling cheap chinese made beach ware. Ho hum. And meanwhile, the sound of the steel drums wafted over the thick crowds and it all just felt like the Love Boat had docked in Mexico and the border had blurred between land and ship and it had all become one seamless entertainment venue…

I weaved my way through the milling American tourists until I was past the last possibly entrance to the cruise ships (about 2-3 blocks). Abruptly the number of shops dropped off and the number of “For lease” signs increased dramatically. Knowing this was the way to Atlantis on Paradise Island I kept on walking but after another 2 blocks it was really beginning to be very run down and my safety radar was kicking in… Thank goodness I hadn’t booked a hotel further out towards the eastern end of the island – not only would it have been quite a walk, it may not have been the most pleasant walk!

So I turned and went back to the tourist crowds, vowing to see the famous “Straw Markets.” By now it was coming up on 5pm and this being Saturday and the Carribean, cruise ships or not, things were starting to close. I found what looked to be a large cavernous hall with the entrance largely obscured by blue canvas. A few people seemed to be selling cheap knock off bags and coconut toys. Lots of tourists seemed to be dithering near the blue canvas. I plunged into the narrow opening and found myself in a surprisingly large warehouse filled with narrow aisles. The sides of the aisles were lined by tables piled to the ceiling (almost) with either cheap knock off desginer bags, chinese-made straw bags or t-shirts and towels. And everywhere blue canvas covered up stalls not currently being attended, making it all the more dense and cluttered.

Hmm. The Straw Markets I presume.

I went down a couple of the aisles but not being a straw handbag type of person let along a designer knock off bag kind of person, I somewhat deeply underwhelmed by what I was seeing, quickly found myself exiting the other end of the warehouse. Well. I can’t say I wasn’t forewarned – this is what people had said the Straw Markets had become on reviews I’d read on the web!

I went back to the hotel and watched TV and booked myself on an afternoon trip to go snorkelling the next day, having found an extra $50US in my passport. I was rather glad my taxi driver had pointed out the Fish Fry, supposedly a collection of people selling fish under the wharf… Well. I in my innocence had thought that mean under the cruise ship wharf, but thanks to having the Fish Fry being pointed out to me by my taxi driver, I know knew it lay about 2km west of the cruise ship terminal, and near an industrial area. Might have been a port or wharf hidden behind the concrete, I dunno.

Anyway, I started to walk along the coastline to the west. By now it was dim and I was bit surprised given it was only just after 5pm. I also appeared to be the only TOURIST! walking to the Fish Fry… Oh well. I kept my wits about me and got there unhassled. Truth be told I didn’t feel very threatened in Nassau – just wanted to be ‘aware’ of my surroundings is all.

As I got to the outskirts of the Fish Fry, there were a few stalls set up with speakers absolutely blazing out loud dance music. I am sure the fish would have been cheap, but it was all fried and since my time clock was absolutely messed up, I didn’t feel like fried food! Approaching the ‘bright lights’ of the Fish Fry I stumbled into a one-sided alley which was distinctly filled with large wooden shacks which looked anything but temporary. One of them proclaimed on just about every square inch that it had been featured on CBS and NBC. It was packed with American tourists. I walked past it.

I ended up at the end of the ’strip’ in a dark wooden shack which seemed to be filled with dating and flirting Bahamians. I sat down at a high table and was promptly handed a menu. I ordered a Strawberry Dacquiri to keep me entertained as I watched some french TV. I settled for a conch salad, not quite sure what I was going to get. I was a bit surprised when it did come out – all steaming and wrapped up in silver foil! However, when I dipped my fork into it, it was incredibly delicious – conch and some vege’s all cooking away in tomato flavoured water. Mmm! It was delicious! I was pleasantly surprised and ate it all!

Once dinner was over, the night may still have been young, but I was still very tired from my red-eye flight from the night before. I kept my eyes peeled as I walked back along the sea front to the hotel again (but the Bahamians were as polite and faultless as ever), decided to go quickly walk past the hotel to see what the action was like along West Bay Street with 2 cruise ships in (one had sailed out as I ate my meal), saw Senor Frogs (popular chain of bars in the Carribean…) was cranking… and turned tail and went back to the hotel. Too tired to deal with the crowds!

I admit it, the red-eye flight from Vancouver had wiped me out. I was going to be a wuss on this saturday night…

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Apparently parents with young families and idiots like me with ‘Use it or loose it’ unrefundable credit with an airline…

But that said, it’s weird that taking a flight for 8, 12 or even 16 hours (as one tortuous flight from Los Angelese to New Zealand once was – yes, I didn’t know planes could stay in the air that long either…) usually entails either a very long day or a very long night. Its endurable and rarely are such long distance flights called “red eye” – probably because they entail crossing time zones – lots of them.

Yet to fly a 3-4 hour flight and arrive tired, tossled and jet lagged from a short night is rough! Such was what I endured on an overnight red-eye flight from Vancouver to Toronto. That means I leave Vancouver at the quite civilised hour of 11pm – just the right time to go to sleep right (unless you are like me and not one who can sleep on a short flight if you haven’t been travelling for 48 hours or more…), but arrive in Toronto a scant 3.5 hours later (because the prevailing winds blew us across at a blistering 620km/hr). And of course, its 6.30am there… the day has begun even though my body is struggling to be awake at what it percieves as being 3.30am…

I blearily walked out of the plane, glanced at the screens – my connecting flight was 4 gates away, except in Toronto that apparently translated as practically the next terminal… I staggered there… got a hot chocolate, and then made the mistake of using the rest rooms.

Surrounded by bright and perky Torontan’s, I looked (and felt) like a wreck! My hair had become limp and greasy (only planes seem to take freshly washed hair and wreck it withing a few hours…). My eyes felt swollen – and to my horror, when I looked in the mirror, they were swollen! Worse, they were red and blotchy! And what people couldn’t see was the constant eruption of red hot sand behind my eyes….

Sighing, I staggered over to the gate. I was the first there and the seats were a very unpromising hard green leather with chrome. I sat down and thought I’d finish my drink playing a game of sudoku, but my mind couldn’t focus and even though the game was marked ‘easy’ I still botched it up twice…

When I looked up from my game (a game which took 3 times longer than usual to work out), I realised the lounge had filled up with frazzled, bleary eyed young parents with anywhere between 1 and 4 kids. They were all in various stages from ordering spread out and fast asleep, fussing over beyond tired kids who were just crying and crying and trying to get them to sleep on the seats, to ordering hyperactive kids to sleep. I hastily spread out my bags to cover 3 seats adjacent to me…

I decided since I had 4 hours to kill before my flight (and only know was it dawning on me.. I was about to leave Canada and I had yet to show my passport to anyone resembling a passport official?). Overhead a TV played something… but very annoyingly, the Air Canada advert jingle that is played on their planes was constantly being played – and I wasn’t even flying Air Canada! It was very irritiating – bad enough I have to hear it every time I start a new program on Air Canada’s inflight system!

At first, I was heavily distracted by the constant noise from people chatting as they walked to their gates, security guards trundling by with carts or in carts, kids giggling and shrieking – and the annoying TV ads… And then magically, it all faded away.

Silence. Black out. For the first time in over 24 hours, I was asleep.

At first I became aware of the annoying ad jingle playing. Then of the incredible volume of people talking all around me. Then the carts of the security guards. I was back in the airport. I raised my arm. 9am. I had managed to grab about an hour of blissful sleep before waking up and still had 2 hours before departure. I tried to return to the land of nod, but I was awake now. Not happily! Body protesting loudly and red hot sand in eyes now almost blinding me! But I wasn’t going back to sleep. I slowly hoisted myself vertical, my thighs protesting heavily from having been pressed against the hard leather seats.

So I sat there like a zombie as more and more bright and perky people arrived at the gate. They squeezed their way between the sleeping families, and as they gradually woke up as well, quickly nabbed the seats formerly taken by their supine bodies.

I guess this is why there comes  a point where people start to ache to fly business class. I’ve long past that point but it still doesn’t seem to be my destiny to fly business class. Worse, even business class facilities don’t necessarily offer beds or even reclining chairs! They just offer more comfortable chairs…

And I can’t believe that later this month, I will be doing another red-eye effort! After years of only long distance flights, returning to shorter hopes with true red-eye horrors, and twice in 1 month!!! Horrors!!!!

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