Bored on Virgin Gorda? Not us!

L-R: DG, DH, and me

 Nevis. Bequia. Virgin Gorda. Anguilla.  I'm frequently surprised by the number of people who wonder why we're not bored on our favorite islands.  No casinos?  No large scale all-inclusives with nightly entertainment? No duty-free shopping?  No booze cruises?  What can we possibly do with all of that time on our hands?  Well, here's what we did in Virgin Gorda, and we barely scratched the surface:

On one of the days we visited Spring Bay, we had the pleasure of watching several local youngsters climbing one of the boulders and jumping into the water.  We took a few photos, and the next day when we came back the granddaughter and I decided to jump into the water ourselves.  DH took a few shots of each of us and we had a lot of fun!

Same rock formation as above, but I shot this one from the water.

Bonsai!

Here we are, ready to give it a shot ourselves!

Success!

One day we went to the Baths because seeing them on a daytrip from Tortola in 2005 was what made us choose VG for this trip.  It was late afternoon on a Sunday and the place was really crowded, which was a turnoff for us.  What’s more, we had to pay $3 per person (admittedly not a big deal) for the privilege of setting up our beach chairs there, when we had a lovelier setting at Spring Bay that was free of charge.  The snorkeling was disappointing compared to Spring Bay, too, so the best thing about our afternoon at the Baths was doing the crawl through to Devil’s Bay, which we hadn’t done on our daytrip in 2005.  That really was a lot of fun, I must admit, and we got some fun pictures there, too.  In the future we’ll probably skip the Baths or just come really early or much later in the day, or just go all the way down to Devil’s Bay instead, which was much less crowded.

This is the beautiful, iconic, primodial-womb-like entrance to "the Crawl"

One of the many staircases along the way.  You also have to duck, balance, climb, and crawl your way through to get to the end.

 After driving around the island, we stopped off at Savannah Bay one afternoon on our way back to the villa.  This is a really gorgeous stretch of sand and from the looks of it would have pretty good snorkeling just off shore.  The beach was nearly always deserted every time we drove by.  There are a few thatched umbrellas on the beach there, but they are not very strategically located—they’re so backed up against the sea grapes and shrubbery that by afternoon there would be no room on the sand in the shaded parts.  I would recommend this beach in the morning.

Beautiful, deserted Savannah Bay.  I'll have to spend more time here in the future!

 We drove out to the abandoned copper mine twice, once close to sunset and once in mid morning so that we could shoot it in two different lights.  We were fascinated to wander through the ruins and watch the surf pound below us.  I’d definitely recommend this place as a pit stop when you’re already down near the southern end of the island.  We spent around 30 minutes there, but you wouldn’t have to linger as long as we did.

Copper Mine, in the gloaming

Copper Mine in midday

The pounding surf was beautiful here and quite loud, too!

Sometimes we just stopped to watch the world go by.  Or paused to eat ice cream.  Or make a new friend.  From tiny little take-aways that dot the main road to full-on formal resort dining, Virgin Gorda has you covered.  One place in particular won us over, though.  It's called the Flying Iguana and it's located smack-dab next to the itty-bitty airport.  Puck is the man who runs it, and we had a great time visiting with him over the course of our various meals there.  He introduced us to his two parrots, who always kept us entertained.

The Flying Iguana, seen from its parking lot.  Doesn't look like much from the outside, but just wait...

View from the Flying Iguana, across the runway to the water.  Isn't that water gorgeous?

Watching the world go by, one small aircraft at a time.

Puck's two parrots at Flying Iguana

Ice cream always tastes best in casual places like this!

Hiking – on Sunday morning, granddaughter and I got an early start around 6:30 am and hiked up Gorda Peak.  There’s a little dirt road you turn off of the North Sound road where there’s a car park and a sign that indicates the hike to the top is about 50 minutes.  We’d had a pretty heavy rain the night before and the trail was wet in places, and in fact there was a light, lingering rain for the first 10 minutes or so we were walking.  I’m not in especially good shape, but I didn’t find the trail particularly challenging.  The hardest part was negotiating the slippery rocks on the way down.  Unfortunately the sky was still really overcast when we got to the top, so we didn’t see the jaw-dropping views everyone mentions, but it was still lovely.  We rested there and took photographs for about 20 minutes before heading back down.

Hazy view of the BVI seen from Gorda Peak

View looking south over the island from the turn-off to Gorda Peak

Pausing for our breath and a quick photo op on Gorda Peak

Bored in Virgin Gorda?  Why, no, we weren't, thanks for asking!  Hiking, swimming, snorkeling, exploring, making new friends, all tempered with large doses of snacking, reading, and eating, kept us feelin' groovy for our entire trip.  And now I'm missing it like crazy--maybe I can somehow plan a return trip in 2011...

This shot was taken on our villa balcony.  I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

Snorkeling around the Fat Virgin

Virgin Gorda trip report, continued...

One of the many reasons I love traveling to the Caribbean is my love of snorkeling.  And on the trips that I've taken with DG, we have snorkeled up a storm--my estimate is that we swim/snorkel more than a mile each day on vacation together.  Despite the heavy bleaching of the corals found in the Caribbean and elsewhere (thank you, Global Warming!), the snorkeling we did on this trip is the best we've encountered so far. 

Our first full day on the island we went on a daytrip with Double D Charters on their motor yacht for $95 per person, plus tip.  This was an excellent trip with four snorkeling stops: Peter Island, Norman Island, the Indians, and the wreck of the RMS Rhone.  Our captain for this trip was Corinne, and she was terrific—skilled, engaging, and informative.  Big kudos to her for making the trip even more enjoyable. Peter Island was mezzo-mezzo in terms of coral and fish, but Norman Island and the Indians were excellent, in my opinion.  It was extremely cool to be able to swim in and out of the caves at Norman Island, and we could have spent a good bit more time in the water than our allotted 45 minutes.

The Caves

Close up shot of anemones on wall in one of the caves

Inside one of the caves

The Indians were amazing, especially when rounding the far end where there was a huge explosion of color and fish.  We could have spent more time there, too. 

The Indians, seen from the boat

One of the colorful areas of The Indians

The wreck of the Rhone was a bit more interesting in theory than in practice.  It was submerged in 25 feet of water and there weren’t a ton of fish there that day.  It was still pretty neat, but it was the only snorkeling spot that day where I felt that I had time to see everything in the 30 minutes we had there. 

Looking down into a smokestack (?) on the wreck of the RMS Rhone

The snorkeling at Mahoe Bay was also pretty good in my opinion.  While there was significant bleaching of the coral, the sea fans looked healthy and there were fish everywhere.  There were also very interesting pinnacle-like coral formations, some of which came within a few inches of breaking the surface.  We snorkeled there for a total of about 4 hours over different days and still didn’t feel like we exhausted everything to see. 

One of the pinnacles off of Mahoe Bay

Healthy sea fan at Mahoe

Our favorite snorkeling was the coastline running south from Big Trunk Bay to the more southerly of the Spring Bay beaches.  We also had the water and beaches mostly to ourselves, which was divine.  We snorkeled with sea turtles and saw the largest fish I’ve ever been in the water with—a huge barracuda that was about four feet long (NB: I have, since the trip to VG, swum with larger fish, namely tarpon, but in 2007 that barracuda was a personal best).  The water clarity was excellent and the colors of the sealife were vibrant—partly because we had less overcast weather on the days we were at Spring Bay.

The coast of VG is dotted with these boulder-strewn grottoes.
The sundappled effect on the snorkeling is magical.

Brain coral near Spring Bay

A school of Blue Tang near Spring Bay

A barracuda --believe me--it looked bigger in person!

Some healthy sponges at Spring Bay

Elkhorn (staghorn?) coral at Spring Bay

Riding home on the Double D: DG (left) and me (right)

To be continued...

(NB: photo credits belong to Emily Crowe, Emmaline Martin, or Barry Moser)

The Fat Virgin calls my name...and I respond!

View of Mahoe Bay, Virgin Gorda, from Adagio Villa

 A couple of weeks ago I got an email from the good folks at Fodor's, letting me know that I had been quoted again for their Caribbean 2011 travel guide.  If this sounds like a big deal, let me reassure you: it's not.  Despite my little jig upon hearing the news, it really only means that I spend far too much time chatting on online travel forums, particularly the Fodor's one, so it's just a small matter of running the odds to know that they were bound to pick me for something.  This year, my quotation was for Virgin Gorda, an island I've visited exactly once, but which will haunt my dreams until I return.  Though I may not be an expert (one visit, remember), I frequently raise my voice in passionate recommendations for this island to everybody who cares to listen, and no doubt to quite a few people who don't.  Too bad for them, eh?

Yesterday my complimentary Caribbean 2011 guide arrived from Fodor's, so naturally the first thing I had to do was skim the section on the British Virgin Islands to find my name in lights.  Or at least set aside in a tiny, shaded gray box:

"When you go to the Rock Cafe, be sure to make reservations for sitting outside on the deck with the waterfall--there's only one table there and it's very romantic. We had a great meal there." ~ ejcrowe  

Yes. With sage, yet strategic, advice like that, I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before mine is a name bandied about with reverence among travelers: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lawrence of Arabia, Freya Stark, and Emily Crowe. 

So since I'm not far enough into any of the books I'm currently reading to give a real review, and since I've already blogged about my latest trip, and since I'm in the mood to blog (It sure beats the pants of housework.  Every. Single. Time.),  I'm resurrecting an older report from our trip to Virgin Gorda in '07 in honor of my forthcoming fame.

 Ummm, yeah.  That was the sarcastic part.  You got that, right? 

My companions for this trip were DH and our 15 year old granddaughter, and we stayed at the Adagio Villa in Mahoe Bay for 5 wonderful nights (NB: Per my agreement with the owner, I cannot disclose the amount we paid, but it was decidedly less than the published rates. He offered me reduced rates renting directly from him after he noticed that I was an active poster on www.traveltalkonline.com.  Sometimes membership really does have its privileges!). We had taken DG on a special trip in 2005 for her 13th birthday, a tradition we do with all of our grandchildren, and she was so smitten with the Caribbean that she asked what she could do to go again.  We told her that if she raised enough money to pay her own way ($1,000), that we would take her on another trip.  We assumed that, as with many teenagers' passions, this, too, would pass, but less than a year later she informed us that she had saved enough of her money to go again.  My husband's and my finances couldn't accommodate a trip in 2006, so we took close to a year deliberating (DH would say agonizing over) all of our Caribbean choices.  Since DG and I love to snorkel, and since all three of us wanted something a little more off the beaten path, and since it's difficult to resist an island whose name translates to Fat Virgin, in July 2007, we were finally Virgin Gorda-bound.

As usual, we flew out of BDL on American Airlines and connected in San Juan to Tortola's Beef Island aiport.  We had a wait of close to two hours in Trellis Bay for the North Sound Express, which we spent exploring Aragorn’s art studio and drinking Ting at the internet café.  After a 30-minute crossing, both the villa rep and the Mahogany car rental rep met us at the dock and got us squared away.

Aragorn's sculptures in Trellis Bay on Tortola

DG on the ferry tide from Trellis Bay to VG

I had arranged with a catering company to have some provisions left in the villa, so we quickly unpacked, fixed some drinks, and proceeded to explore the villa and its grounds, complete with our own swimming pool.  The villa was airy and gracious, comfortable without being fancy, and the view out to the Dog Islands during the sunset was just lovely.   Considering the deal that we got on the rental rates, we should have been gobsmacked over our good fortune, but the long travel day, combined with the preprandial cocktail, left us instead with a feeling of utter contentment that seemed to go soul-deep.  Island time at last!

Sunset over the Dog Islands. 

TBC...

I did! I did taw a puddy-tat!

In other words, it really *was* Andrew Zimmern from the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods show whom I saw last year on summer vacation (see here for the original reference).

I'm sitting at home recovering from a long, hard week at work (mostly 10-12 hour days, mostly on my feet, mostly saying the same thing--over and over--to Mount Holyoke College students who flock to the Odyssey to buy their textbooks).  Despite my poor, tired feet at the end of each day, I really do enjoy the energy that the students bring with them, at textbook rush and throughout the year.

From the Travel Channel website: Andrew Zimmern

But I digress...as I was saying, I'm sittin' my lazy bum down at home, rotating through a delicious cycle of napping, reading, websurfing, sipping tea, cuddling with my cats, giving woogies to my dog, and watching the Travel Channel.  At this very moment I'm watching Andrew Zimmern eat his way through Puerto Rico, and as it turns out, I actually DID see him when I was there last June. DH and I were touring El Morro fort when, looking down from the ramparts, I could have sworn that I saw him on the lower level, attended by a camera crew.  By the time I dragged my husband away from taking pictures of the big breakers, the crew had disappeared and he didn't believe me.

Seeing all of this wonderful Puertoriqueno scenery and food is fueling both my hunger and wanderlust--is it time for lunch yet?  To hell with lunch, what about my next vacation?  Yummmmmm...mafongo, tritterie fritters, tostones, and corn ice cream!  And the less Bizarre foods of Puerto Rico are good, too--coconut flan, coconut shrimp, coconut water, coconut ice cream, coconut egg nog, pina coladas.  (Are you picking up on a theme yet? Is it too early to start imbibing?  Nah!)
 

Book Review: Russian Winter is an elegant new novel

You know how you can dip into a book and from the first chapter it transports you to another world?  Daphne Kalotay's new novel, Russian Winter, is just like that.  I picked it up at the height of the summer heat wave and it felt nothing short of miraculous to be carried away to the bitter winter of Moscow in the 1950s and 1960s to help keep the humidity at bay. 

This narrative pas de deux binds Nina Revskaya's mysterious past as the Bolshoi Ballet's rising young star with her reclusive present as an anonymous benefactor of the Boston arts scene. When a rash, youthful decision based on jealousy and insecurity sets events spinning out of her control, Nina spends the rest of her life guarding a dark secret. With this sweeping story of art, love, and Soviet politics come hints of intrigue and betrayal, and even those with the most dazzling talent cannot protect themselves against damaging accusations.

The book, published by HarperCollins,  goes on sale on September 7, and it's currently one of the top books by independent booksellers for the month--you can see all of our collective favorites here.  My sales rep, Anne DeCourcey, gave me an ARC of this book earlier this year.

A new novel, utterly convincing and haunting

Room by Emma Donoghue.  Jack, our 5-year-old narrator, and his mother are being held captive in an 11' by 11' room.  His mother struggles to give him as close to normal a childhood as possible under these desperate circumstances, with "Outside" being a made-up world he sees only on TV. But when Ma's daily struggle against insanity becomes too much to bear, Jack must bear the burden of a drastic escape plan.  Donoghue's ability to portray Jack's understanding of his world and Ma's determination to keep him safe is both poignant and heart-wrenching.  It's been a long time since I've read a book that has affected me as much as this one has--it's absolutely haunting.  This title was the #1 choice among independent booksellers for the month of Septemer (you can see the entire list here). It's out this week in hardcover from Little, Brown.  

(Edited to add: This book has since made the  "short list" for the Man Booker Prize.)

An incredibly thought-provoking book

Proportionately, I don't read a lot of nonfiction each year. Maybe one work of nonfiction for every 10-15 works of fiction.  But boy howdy, every now and again I really hit the jackpot with a book that entertains, educates, and enthalls, and most recently it was with Hal Herzog's forthcoming book from HarperCollins,  Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat.

 Herzog uses this book to explore the ambiguous moral complexities (or would that be complex moral ambiguities?) of the relationships people have with animals.  What are we to make of the fact that in 1933, the Nazi party signed into legislation the world's most comprehensive animal protection laws?  Why do so many people denounce cockfighting but think nothing of popping back a few fast food chicken nuggets made from hens whose lives are undoubtedly worse than the gamecocks'?  How is US Congress able to not recognize certain breeds of mice and rats as animals in the Animal Welfare Act, enacted in 1966 and still in place today?  Herzog's book leaves more questions than answers in this book that is endlessly fascinating, describing in surprising detail the ambivalence and ambiguities and complications we feel towards the animals we love, hate, and eat.  

He devotes an entire chapter to the "comparative ethics of fighting chickens versus eating them."  Herzog argues that fighting cocks live the life of Riley compared to the  "Dante-esque living conditions" of the COBB 500, a chicken modified by Tyson Chicken for its disproportionate breast meat.  He certainly convinced this reader (with help from Michael Pollan and Eric Schloss) that there are real evils in the mass production (read: torture) of chickens for the fast food industry that far outstrip the evils of cockfighting, and not just because of the sheer numbers.  So when he turns the discussion to issues of class and race, it becomes even more thought-provoking: "Why then is it legal for us to kill nine billion broiler chickens every year, but cockfighting can get you hard time in the federal penitentiary?"  After all, "factory-farmed chickens are exempt from virtually all federal animal welfare statutes INCLUDING the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958" [emphasis mine]. Cockfighting in the US is mostly the domain of rural working class whites or urban working class people of color, so Herzog suggests that "society is much more likely to criminalize forms of animal abuse that involves minorities and the poor than animal cruelties that affect the wealthy." According to him, over 5,000 horses died at racetracks in the US in the years 2003-2008, and yet polls show that most Americans are not in favor of banning horse racing.  He concludes, rather succinctly, "like cockfighting, horse racing represents a confluence of gambling and suffering. But unlike cockfighting, thoroughbreds are the hobby of the rich."

There are dozens of other chapters, each of them fascinating and disturbing by turn, and I'd go so far as to recommend it to almost every category of mature reader I know.  As a bookseller, I'm not sure I can think of higher praise. 


Just read it.  Seriously.

Four Kachinas B&B -- simply charming!

When I was in Santa Fe two weekends ago, my husband checked out of his dorm room at St. John's College to stay with me at a little b&B called The Four Kachinas. We ended up getting the last available room, and it was booked solid for *weeks* on either end of our stay, so it felt providential, as Anne Shirley might say.

The atmosphere is a serene one, with a courtyard fountain quietly bubbling away amidst gardens dappled with sunlight. Tables with chairs dotted around. We’re in the Kachina Room – high-ceilinged, queen-bedded, and bursting with Southwest charm. We have a door leading to a private patio for two on one side and a door leading to the garden courtyard on the other. There’s also a comfortable sofa, a flat screen tv(which we didn’t turn on once) and the quietest air conditioner I’ve ever heard. A ceiling fan and screened windows make the most of the high desert air to cool the room quite comfortably without the a/c, if one prefers. The bathroom is compact, with a bath-shower combo, thick, fluffy towels, and outfitted with Gilchrist & Soames toiletries.

Clockwise from top left: our private patio for two, a sleeper sofa in a decorate Kachina-
themed alcove, our very comfy queen bed, our bathroom where the kachina theme continues

The room is altogether charming and we felt damned lucky to get it—my weekend trip was booked completely last minute to join up with my husband who had already been out there for a week teaching a workshop at St. John’s College. The dorm room where the college put him up, while being perfectly adequate to his needs, was only furnished with a twin bed, so we had to scramble to find a room. I wanted a room where I could walk the downtown area while he was still teaching, but finding one with charm and local color that also didn’t break the bank was a challenge.

The breakfast spread is quite good. They offer one hot entrée each morning, and the first morning we were there it was a mushroom & cheese soufflé. They also offer a variety of breads, cereals, yogurt, and a remarkable fruit plate with ten different kinds of fresh fruit. Coffee, tea, and freshly squeezed orange juice rounded out the offerings. Because we had to leave before breakfast on our second morning to catch an early flight out of Albuquerque, Walt, the innkeeper, arranged to leave some yogurt and cereal for us in the communal refrigerator in the breakfast room.

The breakfast room doubles as a lounge or tea room for the remainder of the day, where the innkeepers provide complimentary coffee, tea, sodas, bottled water, and homemade cookies—perfect for that late afternoon pick-me-up after exploring all day. They also provide maps of the town and the region for guests to take with them, and they’ve collected menus from dozens of restaurants in town for guests to peruse in order to best choose their meals out. The communal refrigerator is also great for guests who have leftovers or who want to keep bottles of wine chilled to enjoy in their rooms later.

The Plaza was only a 10 minute leisurely stroll (shorter if one has a brisker pace or doesn’t stop to windowshop along the way), but the location was quiet enough not to be bothered by noise from traffic or tourists. In short, it was practically perfect in every way, and I look forward to my next trip to Santa Fe and the Four Kachinas.

Milagro 139 for dinner: we met some dear friends, the Detquists, for dinner on Friday night, and they made reservations for us at Milagro 139. We all enjoyed our meal in the pleasant, relaxed courtyard atmosphere. We had two rounds of Silverado margaritas, guacamole prepared at the table, two pear & spinach salads, one steak, one salmon, and two stuffed poblanos. We finished up with a trio of desserts: saffron flan, mango sorbet, and just to be as decadent as possible, a cheesecake chimichanga. Yes, I said deep-fried cheesecake. Considering that each round of drinks was $40, our bill wasn’t as outrageous as I was expecting—it came to about $230, plus tip. Everything was fresh and tasty, but above all it was the company that was so wonderful.

The Detquists, as we collectively call our friends, Karin Bergquist and Li'ford Detweiler from Over the Rhine, were at the same Image conference as my husband. They've been attending the Glen workshop together for nearly a decade now, and on the last night the duo performed songs from their new album. Showing a photo of them is as good as way to conclude this blogpost as any: