DAYS 15-17.....ST. VINCENT..........Roads In Paradise

At last we arrived by speedy ferry on St. Vincent from Union. An early start but an early arrival too. The quayside was busy and bustling on our arrival and I think the Bequia ferry had just arrived too. It was alive with carriers, trucks and barrows carrying goodness knows what from and to the islands of the Grenadines. The next stage in our journey was the one up to Rosehall where the family home is located. I remember the first time I landed here and met with cousin Fred who minded us during our dollar van nightmare up the mountain. This was in the days before Venold, Trish's brother, lived in the family home and was able to meet us in his people carrier, which is what he was doing today.

For new readers who were not avid readers then, the journey to Rosehall takes, with a normal, sane, Venold type driver, about 90 minutes. Roads are narrow, villages busy with dog and human traffic but Dollar Vans race against the clock and each other, in order to secure more and more customers over the course of a day. Dan, the village Dollar Van driver has done the trip in half that. And is proud of it too. They overtake in ridiculous places, on hairpin bends, blind corners and summits, blaring their horns at the unsuspecting in their way, which was us on our calm journey, but not on my first terror ride.......

We were IN the dollar van, hanging on for dear, dear, life, as sheer drops on one side and landslides on the other brought additional terror. Fellow passengers, crammed sweatily into the van, seemed oblivious to the nightmare as they read the evening paper, slept, listened to the reggae music emanating from the tinny speakers or chatted and cursed among themselves, while all as one, swaying in their cramped prison at each twist and turn of the upward, downward and upward again mountain trail.

Rosehall, is the last village on this journey. And when you arrive, the van pukes you out into the sunshine with your bags and your sweat. You are hot and exhausted, clothing sticking to your back, fingernails left in the seat back that had been in front of you. But as the van races off to deliver its other victims further up the hill, you notice the calm that has descended. A light breeze welcomes you as it races from the valleys of Mount Soufrié. The view is spectacular, and as Jim said today, a photo cannot do it justice. The sparkling Caribbean Sea dances way below in Richmond Bay. Soufrié  rises in its magnificence looking down on the fertile valleys on its sides and in its skirts. Clouds weave and warp around its summit with weather systems fighting for dominance. The iron gate of The O'Garro house swings squeakily open and Cousin Elwyn, thin and wiry, ex grave digger and house caretaker welcomes us with a tombstone toothed grin and indecipherable words that mean we are welcome and we are 'home'.