Airport face-off

Now, the question on everyone’s lips, which is my favourite airport? The answer is definitely not Panama. I got stuck there for hours and hours, and the internet wasn’t working there, so I couldn’t do any work, but instead of just giving up, I just sort of pretended to do work for ages. And in my desperation I kind of groveled to some airplane stewards to access the special lounge with internet, who then said they might if I stood there and waited so I was just standing there waiting for 30minutes and then they eventually kind of shooed me away. How embarrassing.

Guyana and St kitts airports charge you to get out, and nobody ever has the right change, which in my books is pretty desperate way to keep tourists in, so they don’t do well. Miami airport is efficient, but too big, bit maze like. I also missed a connection there thanks to panama delays so it’s a little tainted in my memories.

Moving to the good ones, Jamaica had awesomely friendly taxi drivers at the airport. Barbados let me go to the business lounge once – which was very exciting. But I think the winner is St Lucia. Despite having a waiting room the size of a large bed, it wins because it’s on the beach. I mean, the xray machine was probably 30 seconds walk from a beach shack selling rum and fishcakes. You could hear the waves.

So now that question has been resolved, and you can sleep at night, here are some photos of the rest of Panama (which is great once you leave the airport).

Panamanian Art Attack!

Panamaniam road (I just like saying 'Panamanian')

Panama Canal - looking kind of spooky

GIGANTIC boat in background on canal. They often have less than an inch either side of the boat at the moment, and have little trains that pull them along. They're thinking of doubling the width.

Impressive skyline - they see themselves as the next Singapore. Along with shipping, someone told me their other major industries are apparently offshore banking and money laundering. It's kind of the gateway from S.America to US, it comes in Panama dirty and goes out clean. The observant of you will see one of my bosses heads floating in the sky.

Industrial canal type stuff video, check out huge containers

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Panama city waterfront/skyline. Unfortunately just out of shot there were pelicans flying about and vultures

It's not all skyscrapers. Other people live more like this.

Iguanas, kites, explosions and turtles

So, it's pretty exciting, the other day in Trinidad, I was in the taxi, and I saw this huge bright green leaf move slowly across a yard. And then I realized it was a lizard. A huge lizard. My taxi driver got pretty excited too, but not because it was an iguana, apparently, they’re all over the place. But because nobody had eaten it yet. Apparently, if an iguana that big touches the floor, any trini in their right mind would kill it and cook it. I hope it got away.

I also saw a kid flying a kite next to a pylon, which worried me a lot, but the taxi driver said on the bright side at least he didn’t attach video tape to the end as tassles, as most kids do. Apparently if the tape hits pylons the electromagnetic-something-or-other in the tape short circuits the wires and it literally explodes and knocks out electricity for the whole block.

Oh, and finally, I saw a turtle (not in the streets of Trinidad, this was underwater in Barbados). In fact, I saw several! Luckily for you, you can see it too, because I had an underwater camera. Click on the video below. Amazing. The underwater camera later proved to be not quite as water proof as I hoped, and now is in camera heaven, but not before I took quite a few photos. I will now have to return to my pink mist camera (arg), but in the meantime, enjoy some underwater animal action.

(note that a girl kicks the turtle in the head twice...)
(Baby tortoise)

(slightly more mundane, every time I come back drunk after a night out this toad is by my doorstep and I cannot stop myself from taking photos of him and probably traumatising him. he's massive)

Skittle

St Kitts is little. Went there the other day for a conference and there are like 35,000 people on the island, barely would count as a town in England, let alone a country. Their main industry was sugar, like almost everyone else in the Caribbean, but they couldn’t compete with the big guys like Guyana and Brazil with masses of space, so the government closed the industry down. So now they've less debt, but lots of empty fields and a fair bit of unemployment. It's all about the tourism now, which now obviously isn't such a good thing with the recession. In Barbados, they subsidise the sugar industry and lose millions each year on it, but are afraid to shut it down in case the empty fields put off tourists, which would be lose them much more.

Anyway, St Kitts was still pretty beautiful on the one day I managed to get out of the conference and see the country, despite some empty fields. Lots seemed like scenes out of films, which is definitely good thing- you've got jungle, fortresses, pirates…

(Indiana Jones and the temple of doom)

(Jurassic Park - random diplodocus in foreground)

(Pirates of the Caribbean)

(Another pirate)

( This place is actually called 'Picadilly Circus'! Amazing eh? Complete with Rasta on bike.)

(Empty sugar fields and a sign from the government to remind them that the country 'is working')

A tale of two pretties

Ok, the following photos are an entirely unfair representation of two countries. My temperamental camera, which I have now replaced (huge relief), decided that it liked St Lucia but hated Trinidad. Also, I spent most of the time in Trinidad in its capital city (5 points if you know what that is without cheating), whereas in St Lucia we stayed by a picturesque harbor. So apologies in advance to Trinidad.

I’m now in a Trinidad in this strange hotel that has a kind of luxury/dormitory thing going on. There is this gorgeous swimming pool with palm trees in the courtyard, but then the furniture in the rooms looks like it’s been assembled from Argos in the 1970s and the blinds are warped like prison bars after an escape. Then there are the room's giant windows overlooking the courtyard, giving a lovely view for you, but also for everyone else in the courtyard of your room. No wonder someone tried to escape out of the blinds. A kind of luxury panopticon, with lovely council flat type walkways joining the rooms together. Anyway, look forward to better quality photos in future and no more pink distortions.
(Lovely st Lucia - where our taxi driver had in fact given a lift to Amy Winehouse during her stay)

(Still so lovely. And slightly frenchy too - maybe they left their aesthetic mark on the place)

(Trinidad from a hill in pink mist courtesy of my camera)

(Trinidad in fact has quite a high crime rate, and the highest kidnappings per capita last year, but it does not have cars with fangs as my camera suggests)

(The view from the windscreen on the way to the airport...)

Neighbours...

I am slowly meeting my neighbours. There is Ned, the biscuit king, 80 years old and 6ft 5. His house is great - full of chintz and amazing old things. He comes from a long line of bakers and invented the recipe for one of the major biscuits in Barbados (indeed the Caribbean) and has an umbrella holder made out of a biscuit cutter roller thing.

Then there is George from upstairs. He was the first guy to say hello to me and is friendly and warned me that people in Barbados are polite but keep to themselves, which is a shame he said. Apparently, if there is anything he can do, I just have to let him know. I suggested a drink but he kind of pretended not to hear that and has kept to himself since.

There is Carmen, the French artist, who has lived here for 20 years but still doesn’t think the food is up to much. There is Lianne, who is half Trinibagonian (yes, that is a word) and grew up in Harrogate of all places! She went to school across the road from my house there, although before I was born. She is attending cooking classes and her and Carmen chat in water regularly to keep their bones good. I really like them.

Then there are the peripheral characters who I don’t quite know yet. The irish teacher, the lady in the water (I always see her in the pool when I’m not there, but she’s never there when I am), the coy Geordie lady, naked guy (yikes), kind lady who hung out my washing, and most intriguing - 3 people my age who I am secretly stalking but haven’t managed to talk to yet. I am hoping one of them will become a friend. I have however, made friends with some lovely people outside my neighbourhood so all is well. And with a sparrow and a pigeon who share my breakfast each day (see video)

This is my neighbourhood - the view from my front door.

The pool, I can check my emails from here.

My house - living room straight ahead, kitchen to my left, office to the right, bedroom behind

Breakfast with the birds - and my dying camera (hence the shades of pink and distortion), no different from english birds I admit, but still nice

Ready? Jet? No.

I am tired in my hotel room. I know I am tired because I keep forgetting things even more than usual. I forgot the power cable for my laptop today when we went to work and my computer died while we were busy preparing for a meeting. I’m tired because I didn’t bring my shaving kit, and then forgot to nip out from work before meeting to get a new one as planned. I’m tired because my eyes are sore and I haven’t read the right document and because I said something stupid in the meeting. And I’m tired because I’m letting it all get to me.

And now I have another 5.30am taxi to the airport tomorrow.

The bonus of all this is, however, that I have some kick ass plane window photos…

(Miami...)

(Mystery island - 10 points if you can identify it)

(Long thin mystery island)

(I'm pretty sure this is St Kitts)

Natural disasters

It's hurricane season in the Caribbean. Though Barbados hasn't had a bad one for over 20 years, they still put emergency water supplies in my fridge, just in case. There have been no weather problems yet, but other more mundane disasters seem common. Like the fact that my camera is broken. And the fact that when I was shopping for a new one in duty free, I heard my name and the imminent gate closure announced on the speaker system, and found myself sprinting across the crowded terminal with people giving me righteous looks. I will never give a righteous look again.

My camera does work a bit, luckily, but has turned the several of the beautiful countries I've visited into strange post-apocalyptic wastelands. Pink apocalyptic wastelands. But I like science fiction so I wanted to include them.

Let’s do Guyana today, where I went last week for work. Will upload St Lucia and Trinidad at a later date. Hopefully will have new camera from next week...

(In Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, everything is made of wood. It strangely reminds you of the wild west. And this is apparently the largest wooden structure in the world. It was white before the apocalypse)

(They have loads of these in the city, they are essentially very picturesque open sewers running aside the roads, with little oriental trees lining the banks - like a sewer equivalent of a boulevard)

(Can you guess what it is yet? Ethnically, Guyana is really mixed, with about the same number of people of Asian heritage as African. On the way from the airport, there were loads of mosques, temples and churches. And I think these three bovine beauties belonged to one of the Hindu temples)