A Soufrière beach overlooks one of the dormant volcanic Pitons.
VISITOR INFO: www.stlucia.org. ANSE CHASTANET AND JADE MOUNTAIN: Tel 800-223-1108 or 758-459-7000; www.ansechastanet.com, www.jademountainstlucia.com. Cost: Anse Chastanet rooms from $330 (off-peak), from $495 (peak). Jade Mountain sky suites from $950 (off-peak), $1,200 (peak); sanctuaries from $1,250 (off-peak), from $1,550 (peak). FOND DOUX ESTATE: Tel 758-459-7545; www.fonddouxestate.com. Cost: from $200 (off-peak), from $350 (peak). BEST TIMES: Dec–Apr for good weather; 1st week of May for Jazz Fest.
A Gastronomic Hot Spot in the Caribbean
ST. MARTIN’S FOOD SCENE
St. Martin, Lesser Antilles
A 37-square-mile island peacefully divided between the French and the Dutch since 1648, St. Martin/St. Maarten is starkly different depending on which side you visit. Dutch St. Maarten, in the south, is known for cruise ships, casinos, and condos, whereas St. Martin, being French, focuses on the art of gastronomy.
On an island dense with the Caribbean’s highest concentration of restaurants, the small resort town of Grand Case is the hot spot for fine dining. Le Pressoir is one of the best, specializing in classic French cuisine. Spiga is pura Italiana, down to the ebullient Italian-born chef who prepares homemade pasta daily, along with favorites like pancetta-wrapped roast pork tenderloin. For down-home Creole cooking, try Le Ti Coin Creole; chef/owner Carl Phillips serves up simple dishes such as fish fritters and conch cocktail. A stay at Le Petit Hotel puts you in the heart of it all. This tasteful, ten-room beachside inn oozes charm; it is also near the island’s seaside “lolos” (barbecue shacks). These side-by-side eateries (look for Talk of the Town) will cost you next to nothing and include a Technicolor sunset free of charge.
The island has plenty of beautiful white-sand beaches to keep sunbathers elated, and Baie Longue, at the western tip of St. Martin, is a stunner. It is the site of La Samanna, a Mediterranean-style resort that is the island’s most sybaritic place to stay. Dining reaches its opulent peak at Le Réservé, the hotel’s open-air restaurant.
Baie Orientale is one of the largest and most popular beaches, with restaurants, hotels, boutiques, water sports, and a clothing-optional section in the south. Set on a hill overlooking the bay, the romantic, Provençal-inspired Sol e Luna Inn’s six charming rooms adjoin a fine restaurant known for classic dishes with a French flourish.
The calm waters ringing the shallow reefs make the island a snorkeler’s delight, but the very best sights are found in an underwater nature reserve off the coast. Take the 5-minute ferry to the uninhabited (but never deserted) Îlet Pinel (Pine Island), where two beach bars prepare lobsters plucked from the sea, and a snorkeling trail leads you to alluring underwater spots.
Gourmet restaurants line Grand Case’s shores.
VISITOR INFO: www.st-martin.org. LE PRESSOIR: Tel 590-590-87-76-62; www.lepressoir-sxm.com. Cost: dinner $60. SPIGA: Tel 590-590-52-47-83; www.spiga-sxm.com. Cost: dinner $45. LE TI COIN: Tel 590-590-87-92-09; www.grandcase.com/ticoincreole. Cost: dinner $30. LE PETIT HOTEL: Tel 590-590-29-09-65; www.lepetithotel.com. Cost: from $300 (off-peak), from $475 (peak). LA SAMANNA: Tel 800-957-6128 or 590-590-87-64-00; www.lasamanna.com. Cost: from $995; dinner $80. When: closed Sep–Oct. SOL E LUNA INN: Tel 590-590-29-08-56; www.solelunarestaurant.com. Cost: from $130; dinner $40. BEST TIMES: Dec–Apr for good weather.
The Grenadines’ Favorite Jump-up and a Hillside Retreat
BEQUIA
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Lesser Antilles
Hilly, green, and just 7 square miles in size, Bequia (pronounced BECK-way) is the largest and northernmost of the Grenadine Islands. Once the region’s busiest whaling station (back in the days of Moby Dick), it still maintains traces of its seafaring heritage as well as a glimmer of how the Caribbean was not so long ago—no high-rises, no golf courses, no pretense. The wildest it gets is Thursday night, when the Frangipani Hotel’s open-air barbecue and jump-up (who could stay seated?) is the place to be with live steel-drum music. Any sunset is reason enough to drop by for the famous Frangi Fever cocktail, which keeps hotel guests, locals, and the yacht set happy. The latter use this casual raffish gingerbread guesthouse as their nerve center, a convenient hub located right on picturesque Admiralty Bay, where they can keep an eye on their moored craft. The sailing is excellent in the Grenadines (see p. 1106) and this is one of its safest harbors.
Bequia has begun to go upmarket with the transformation of a formerly modest hillside inn into Firefly Plantation Bequia. Set on a 30-acre, 18th-century sugar plantation with orchards of mango, guava, and Bequia plums, it’s as small and luxurious as its sister property Firefly Mustique (see below), with four lovely guest rooms in three buildings of hand-cut stone. It’s perfect if your ideal vacation is one spent reading in a balcony hammock, listening to cows lowing and palm fronds rustling, turning your head occasionally to catch the glorious views. Take a dip in the pool or take a short, pleasant stroll to the deserted but stunning beach at Spring Bay, where the snorkeling is excellent. In the evenings, candlelit dinners feature ingredients fresh from the grounds or netted in the nearby waters.
VISITOR INFO: www.bequiatourism.com. FRANGIPANI: Tel 784-458-3255; www.frangipanibequia.com. Cost: from $120 (off-peak), from $190 (peak); dinner $35. When: closed Aug–mid-Oct. FIREFLY PLANTATION BEQUIA: Tel 784-458-3414; www.fireflybequia.com. Cost: from $395, all-inclusive. When: closed mid-Jun–Oct. BEST TIMES: Dec–May for good weather; late Jan for Bequia Music Festival; Easter for Regatta, Sand Castle Competition, and other events.
An Exclusive Enclave, Always Refined, and Now Welcoming
MUSTIQUE
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Lesser Antilles
Join the rich, famous, and royal on the privately owned Grenadine island of Mustique, a regular stop for the sailing crowd and best known for its beauty, relaxed vibe, and utter exclusivity. Mythically beautiful Macaroni Beach, on the eastern side, is almost always empty, and the picture-perfect village on Britannia Bay enjoys a strict no-cruise-ship policy. The 2.2-square-mile island has just 100 charmingly named villas ranging from the modest to the lavish, the latter owned by a rarefied group of royalty and pop stars. Many of the villas can be rented by the week, fully staffed. Renters are often high-profile glitterati, so if you’re hoping for celebrity or rock star sightings, you may not need to look far. Celebs have been coming here since Scottish baron Colin Tennant bought the island in 1958 and gave 10 acres to a young Princess Margaret.
The elegant but charmingly low-key Cotton House is the island’s only true hotel, an 18th-century coral warehouse and sugar mill that has been transformed into 20 guest rooms, recently revamped and glammed up to accommodate the overflow of the villas’ house guests. Come for dinner at the first-rate Veranda Restaurant, or Tuesday’s fun-yet-refined cocktail party in the plantation-style Great Room.
More intimate and romantic is Firefly, a once private villa transformed into an inn with just five exquisite rooms and some of the best dining on the island. On a dramatic hilltop overlooking Britannia Bay, Firefly is popular with residents as well as visitors—expect a lively bar scene and come in time for sunset.
That is, of course, unless you’re nursing a Hurricane David at Basil’s Bar, the heart of the island and magnet for locals and boldfaced names alike. Basil Charles, the Caribbean’s answer to Casablanca’s Rick, has been a Mustique legend since Princess Margaret’s days. Drinking the night away here is something of a ritual, but thatch-roofed Basil’s, which stands on a pier facing the turquoise waters of Britannia Bay, is also a great place for dinner. His famous bar is at its liveliest during the Wednesday-night jump-up barbecue, with lots of loud live music, the famed New Year’s Eve celebration, and the 2-week-long Mustique Blues Festival.
Sailing enthusiasts are drawn to Mustique’s exclusive waters.
VISITOR INFO: www.discoversvg.com. HOW: The Mustique Company handles villa rentals. Tel 784-488-8000; www.mustique-island.com. Cost: fully staffed 2 BR villas from $5,500 weekly (off-p
eak), from $9,000 (peak). COTTON HOUSE: Tel 800-223-1108 or 784-456-4777; www.cottonhouse.net. Cost: from $520 (off-peak), from $815 (peak). FIREFLY: Tel 784-488-8414; www.fireflymustique.com. Cost: from $995, inclusive. BASIL’S BAR: Tel 784-488-8350; www.basilsbar.com. Cost: lobster dinner $85. BEST TIMES: Nov–Apr for pleasant weather; late Jan–early Feb for Mustique Blues Festival.
A Private Island Resort Where There’s Little to Do
PETIT ST. VINCENT
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Lesser Antilles
Those who really, really want to get away from it all should drop anchor at this privately owned 113-acre luxury island resort. Encircled by white sand beaches, covered with palm trees, and washed by the impossibly clear waters of the fabled Grenadine archipelago, it’s a castaway fantasy for a few privacy-seeking guests. They’re drawn not only by what the island offers—a quiet, natural setting, superlative service, and remarkable dining—but also for what’s missing: television, telephones, air-conditioning, casinos, beach vendors, even room keys.
Twenty-two large, breeze-cooled stone cottages are situated for maximum views and privacy. Room service works like a charm: Run up the red flag and the staff gives you a wide berth; raise the yellow flag, stick your request in your mailbox—a mango daiquiri, extra suntan lotion, dinner on your private terrace—and it arrives in record time. Weary CEO types in need of a retreat love it here. So do newlyweds—who can choose to make an appearance or not. Some people bring their children along now that there’s more to do than in the early days: spa treatments in your cottage, tennis courts, and a dock house with everything you need to sail, snorkel, kayak, windsurf, or fish. Take a picnic lunch to the sandbar just off the island for a total castaway experience. Guests who fear they’ve become dangerously relaxed can arrange for deep-sea fishing, scuba diving, or a sailing trip (day or overnight) to Tobago Cays (see next page) aboard a 49-foot sailing sloop called Beauty.
WHERE: Tel 800-654-9326 or 954-963-7401; www.psvresort.com. COST: cottages $1,050 (off-peak), $1,350 (peak), all-inclusive. WHEN: closed Sep–Oct. BEST TIME: Nov–Apr for nice weather.
Idyllic Waters and Castaway Cays
SAILING THE GRENADINES
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Lesser Antilles
Revered by yachtsmen and wannabes, the 32 islands and hundreds of dotlike cays that form the Grenadines archipelago enjoy near-constant breezes and a reputation as one of the world’s best sailing grounds.
Strung like a necklace of gems across 40 miles of pristine waters between St. Vincent and Grenada (see p. 1084), they’re blessed with powdery white sand beaches and gorgeous coral reefs. Many islands are uninhabited and accessible only by boat. Some (such as privately owned Mayreau) have tiny populations, mostly descended from African slaves, while others, like the larger Bequia (see p. 1104), are quietly awakening to tourism, with a small-town ambience that has drawn a thriving ex-pat community.
Daily schooners, ferries, and passenger-carrying mail boats sail from St. Vincent (locally known as “the mainland”), serving the half-dozen populated Grenadines. But the ideal way to go, for those in search of a different picnic-perfect, beach-ringed island every day (and who know their main from their genoa) is to charter a self-skippered bareboat through the Moorings in Canouan. The nonsailing set can book a cabin aboard a luxury catamaran (or round up a group of friends and charter the whole yacht) with their own private captain and chef.
Luxurious suites and two- to six-bedroom villas spread over 300 acres at Canouan Resort at Carenage Bay. One of the Caribbean’s most elite retreats, its major draws include lovely beaches, challenging golf at the Jim Fazio–designed 18-hole course, and a spa with treatment rooms literally over the sea. The more casual Tamarind Beach Hotel, with 32 beachfront hideaways, is the only other place to stay on this unspoiled island.
Sailors head for the Tobago Cays, five uninhabited islands that form the heart of the Tobago Cays Marine Park, which offers superb snorkeling and diving and excellent anchorage. If you saw Pirates of the Caribbean and wondered where Johnny Depp was marooned on an island too beautiful to be true, this is it.
Many consider this chain of islands a sailor’s paradise.
HOW: Charter a bareboat or book a berth via the Moorings. Tel 727-535-1446; www.moorings.com. Cost: weekly bareboat accommodating 4 from $1,970 (off-peak), from $2,400 (peak) per person. Weekly berths on crewed yachts accommodating 4 from $3,300 (off-peak), from $4,200 (peak). CANOUAN RESORT AT CARENAGE BAY: Tel 866-589-2450 or 784-458-8000; www.canouan.com. Cost: from $1,250 (off-peak), from $2,000 (peak); greens fees $220 (guests), $300 (nonguests). TAMARIND BEACH HOTEL: Tel 784-458-8044; www.tamrarindbeachhotel.com. Cost: from $300 (off-peak), from $430 (peak). BEST TIME: Nov–Apr for pleasant weather.
Eden’s Aviary
ASA WRIGHT NATURE CENTRE AND LODGE
Arima, Trinidad and Tobago, Lesser Antilles
Sitting on this former plantation’s screened-in veranda is like sitting in an enormous aviary. From your ringside seat you can see toucans, squirrel cuckoos, tufted coquettes, and ten types of hummingbird—and that’s all before breakfast. Visitors are in seventh heaven in this nature and wildlife sanctuary known to birders around the world, located on 1,500 acres in the island’s Northern Range, rich, rain forest-covered coastal mountains believed to be the northernmost edge of the Andes Mountains.
Trinidad and sister island Tobago are home to a cornucopia of South American flora and fauna unknown elsewhere in the Caribbean. Approximately 460 species of birds are found on these two islands thanks to their proximity to Venezuela. You can see hundreds of species here in the Arima Valley alone—not to mention innumerable varieties of mammals, reptiles, butterflies, and flowering plants that make you feel you’ve found the Garden of Eden.
The sanctuary is named for Asa Wright, who, with her husband Newcome, moved to Trinidad in 1946 from England to buy what was then a coffee-and-cocoa plantation. She helped create the sanctuary in 1967. Day guests are welcomed on guided tours or for lunch, but only those staying in the simple guest rooms of the large, airy 1912 plantation house or in cottages scattered around the grounds get in on all the activity at dawn and dusk. Experienced guides take guests birding on a network of rain forest trails, always on the lookout for the most coveted sighting—the rare oilbird. This large nocturnal bird feeds on the oily fruit of a variety of palm (hence its name), and a sizeable nesting colony is found in a cavelike grotto in the sanctuary.
Adding to Trinidad’s renown as an ornithological wonderland is the sunset spectacle when thousands of scarlet ibis return to their roost in nearby Caroni Swamp, a 40-acre wetland and mangrove preserve. For years their flaming red plumage was so prized for hats and Carnival costumes that they nearly disappeared, but they have made a comeback. Boats pass slowly through the swamp, also home to herons, egrets, and 150 other bird species.
Naturalists trek to Trinidad’s northern shores, the beaches of Matura and Grand Rivière, the western hemisphere’s best place to spot leatherback turtles as they clamber out of the ocean, dig a nest, and go into a trance as they lay their collection of precious eggs.
Green honeycreepers favor the tropical forests of Trinidad, which they often match in color.
WHERE: 24 miles/39 km east of Port of Spain. Tel 868-667-4655; www.asawright.org. COST: rooms from $300 (off-peak), from $430 (peak), inclusive. HOW: Caligo Ventures in the U.S., tel 800-426-7781 or 305-292-0708; www.caligo.com. BEST TIMES: Jan–May for dry weather; Mar–Sep for ibis in Caroni Swamp and leatherback turtle nesting.
A Riotous Celebration Where Soca Is King
CARNIVAL
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Lesser Antilles
You can’t really understand Trinidad unless you come for Carnival, or mas (for masquerade), as it’s locally known. Trinidad is a melting pot of West African, East Indian, Chinese, South American, and European, which has influenced both its music and Carnival itself. The country’s West African roots gave birth to the steel pan (or steel drum, origin
ally made from empty oil barrels), calypso music, and its more recent souped-up version, soca (“soul-calypso”), which makes this Carnival the loudest and wildest in all the Caribbean. It’s the national obsession, with Port of Spain at its heart.
Bands and masqueraders begin their preparations a year in advance. Things start to hum after Christmas, gradually building to a crescendo of rehearsals, concerts, open-air fêtes, and calypso duels. The final 2-day explosion of color, music, and unbridled excess officially kicks off at 4 A.M. on Carnival Monday with the “opening day” parade called J’Ouvert (pronounced joo-VAY). Fueled by copious amounts of beer, revelers covered in mud, grease, body paint, and chocolate form a mass of happy humanity as they follow trucks blasting soca and “chip” (dance) until sunrise.
Monday (“old mas”) continues with bands and dancers along a 6-mile parade route. The glitter and glamorous costumes of “pretty mas” are saved for Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), the day before Ash Wednesday. Tens of thousands take to the streets in costume (often sequined bikinis and feather headdresses), with groups as large as 3,000 in identical costume following flatbed trucks carrying steel bands competing for the title of “Masquerade Band of the Year.” Getups are at their most extravagant for the Kings and Queens Costume Competition—some can weigh up to 200 pounds (and are attached to wheels for mobility) and incorporate fog, fireworks, and other special effects.
“Pan” bands with as many as 100 musicians perform nonstop in a riotous celebration of King Carnival. Each band has a headquarters, or panyard, and rehearsals and preliminary playoffs are worth searching out. The pinnacle of the steel band competition, the Panorama Finals, is staged at Queen’s Park Savannah (ground zero for mas) the Saturday before the parades.
1,000 Places to See Before You Die Page 174
