December 2, 2005

Righto.  Well, we have just completed a 7-day tour of North, Middle and East Caicos and it was quite the adventure.  The trip started off as an adventure form the very beginning. The airline we flew with had turned all of their planes in for maintenance and the maintenance crew refused to return the planes when we were supposed to fly.  I suppose that this is probably a good thing.  Anyway, we had to postpone our trip for a day and when it finally was time to go, we ended up flying the 10-minute trip up to North Caicos in shifts since the airline only had one 9-seater plane available. I was in the second crew of people to go to the airport- scheduled to be in the last of four trips to North Caicos.  We arrived at the airport on time and discovered, much to our pleasant surprise that the previous group of people had already disappeared on two flights.  Perfect!  Actually, not so perfect.  Hours passed without any sign of  a plane.  Communication is never easy on South Caicos and the airport is no exception.  The airline we were flying with had no representative at the desk and the only other airline at the airport had a phone that could only call their own company’s numbers.  So, we had to sit and wait, and wait, accosting anyone who came into the airport to see if they had a cell phone we could borrow.  Six hours later, a flight finally arrived but it wasn’t the flight we expected.  There were six of us left waiting for a ride; myself, Kristine (another intern) and four students.  A very small private plane flies in, a man steps out, declaring that he has come to take us to North Caicos because someone gave him a call and told him there were people waiting at the airport for a ride.  Then he says, “oh, you have six people, this should be interesting.”  See, he only had a five-passenger plane.  “Six people, five seats, no problem!” he decided and proceeded to literally stack us into the plane.  This was a most interesting little plane ride full of fun dives, views, and our pilot talking in his cell phone for the majority of the trip.  Near the end, he skimmed along the surface of the ocean and did a terrific dive towards the runway for us.  I think that will have to be the most interesting plane ride of my life.

We arrived at our campsite just as it was getting dark so we set up our tent and wandered around a bit.  Our campsite was situated on the north coast of North Caicos, on a rather exposed beach called Horse shoe beach (the northern side of the Turks and Caicos islands are exposed to the open Atlantic ocean whereas the southern sides are more protected since they are adjacent to the shallow bank).  The beach was wide, white, and full of sand burs and we camped next to a very large development that is still in the construction phase.  This is a trend all over the TCI- build build build with lots of government incentives.  It kind of makes me sad and sick but the people here seem all about the tourism so, more power to them I guess.

Anyway, since it was thanksgiving, we ate a nice big meal of good food, including pumpkin pie and then we hiked about three miles to town to see what was going on, found everything closed, and walked back.  The next day, it was surprisingly cold, dark and rainy and we more or less hid in our tents until it was time to take a little tour of an old 18th century cotton and seisel plantation (in case you don’t know what seisel is, it’s a type of agave that was used to make rope).  The plantation, Wades Green Plantation, owned by a man named Wades Stubbs, was very neat.  Old rock ruins with trees growing up through the foundations and growing along the tops of walls.  There were a couple of really creepy wells, which were, quite surprisingly, totally open and ready to accept me should I have tripped into one of them.  Nice.  We also stopped at a deep blue hole called Cottage pond.  The water-filled hole is ~275 feet deep and is connected to the ocean via water-filled caverns.  It was quite stunning and to me, really exciting.  We spent another night on North Caicos and then headed off to Middle Caicos where we saw some nice limestone caves called the Conch Bar caves, ate lunch at their teeny tiny airport, and deposited our belongings at our new campsite- Bambarra Beach.  Bambarra has to be one of the nicest campsites ever.  Nice pine trees with long, soft needles, old hammocks, a lovely beach, and a small cay called Pelican cay that you can walk to from shore.  We spent a lovely afternoon there and then visited an old couple who specialize in weaving baskets and making their own sloops- by hand.  We got to see a boat they have been working on for awhile and it was perfection.  The man goes into the woods and collects branches that he feels will fit his boat.  Then he comes back, makes his own planks, keel and everything else by hand, and then fits his boat together.  It was a masterpiece.  The next day we went to see an old “bush doctor” speak about about his life.  This man was quite amusing to listen to.  He kept declaring all sorts of things and demanding us to answer him.  Every time he asked a question and someone tried to respond, he would interrupt them and ask why nobody was answering his questions.  We all tried very hard not to laugh.  He brought out a drink he called Mabe (spelling?) which he called the “high drink of the Caicos islands.”  The drink smelled and tasted like a bitter BBQ and I have no idea what its redeeming features were.

We moved campsites so we were situated on the southeastern tip of Middle Caicos ready for round two of our trip.  Our next step in the adventure would be a massive 3-day hike along the beach of East Caicos and its adjacent cays back to South Caicos.  We arose early, strained to pick up our backpacks (I have never carried such a heavy pack in my life.  On top of normal backpacking affair, we had to carry enough water for three days- approximately 3 gallons, and our snorkel gear. I estimate my pack at ~80 pounds) and set off for our first water crossing.  Now, crossing a river with your pack is one thing but until this trip, I have never had to swim across a channel with my pack.  Well, now I have- multiple times.  We endeavored to keep our things dry by wrapping them in plastic bags and this was moderately successful.  However, most of my things still got disgustingly salty immediately.  We had several crossing early in the hike because we had to traverse a few cays before reaching East Caicos proper.  Between water crossings, we hiked on very nice white beaches and VERY pointy sharp rocks.  East Caicos is currently entirely uninhabited, although there are a few ruins from old fish-processing plants, and I felt very privileged to see so much of a place where no one ever goes. We had perfect weather for the hike- blue skies, a nice breeze and sun.  The water was beautiful and the long expanse of coast stretching out in front of us remained untainted by buildings.     The island wasn’t exactly pristine, however and there was no shortage of garbage on all of the beaches. I found a small Incredible Hulk toy at the end of our first day and strapped it onto my bag.  I believe that the hulk helped me on my journey and without him I would probably have collapsed somewhere during the second day.  We camped where we could and lit fires and ate interesting camp food like a can of beans.  Although it was a pretty trying trip physically, I would definitely opt to do it again.  Over the course of three days I had some very interesting conversations with other people and I had a lot of time to reflect and think about life.

The trip was planned so that someone would come meet us by boat the morning of the third day and take away our bags so we could continue unencumbered without luggage.  Luckily, the boat made it and we sent our packs on their merry way and set off to hike and swim the 4 cays that lie between East and South Caicos.  I have no idea how we would have managed this day with our packs and I prefer to not think about it.  However, without our bags, it was a marvelous trip and we passed many osprey nests, saw beautiful sea caves, collected shells and bottles and swam with some stingrays.  We arrived on South Caicos late in the afternoon and were so happy to be back “home” that we rolled around around on the beach for a bit before heading back to the center.  Now I am recovering from the trip- eating lots of food, trying to not walk or swim so my body can recover, and looking at all of my pictures.  It seems to me that the trip was a lot longer than 7 days but that’s what usually happens when you have an action-packed adventure.

Now we’re into our final stages of the semester here.  The students have less than 2 weeks left and I will be leaving in just 18 days.  It has been one six-month blur since my arrival here and I find it hard to believe that December is already underway (this could partially be because we never had fall and there is no snow here).  Anyway, I hope that you are all warm and happy, that you had a nice Thanksgiving and that you are preparing yourselves for 2006.

Take care,

Brooke