This is the sight I woke up to every morning while I was on St. Croix island in the USVI
I learned a lot about myself on my most recent vacation. This vacation was the biggest, most expensive, and exotic vacation that I have ever done in my life. This vacation that I took in April of 2007 took me from Seattle, Washington to Charoltte Amalie on St. Thomas island in the U.S. Virgin Islands to Christansted on St. Croix island to Key West 150 miles south of Miami then back to Seattle, Washington again. Yeah, I went BIG, by my own standards. Though I saw a lot of interesting on my vacation, I learned a few key truths about myself:
I prefer to build rather that to play
I am a builder at heart, and relaxation does not come easy for me
I am driven
O-kay so I got that off my chest. Now lemme explain.
Going into this trip I was predispostioned for it to go a certain way. I wanted to see what I had preconcieved to be all these pristine, white sand beaches. I thought that the aqua blue water indicated an extended shallow area in bays. After actually going to these beach and going out into the water I can honestly say, that doesn't exist. The beaches in the Caribean slope into deeper waters as normally as they do in other places. YES, the water is a little warmer and easier to swim in, but its not as pristine as I thought it would be. Not even in Trunk Bay on St. John's island. Yeah at Trunk Bay at a couple others there was sand so soft it was like pillows on your feet, but even in the most lauded beaches it wasn't as awe inspiring as I went in thinking it would be. Don't get me wrong, the tropical beaches I saw in the U.S. Virgin Islands were cool, but there was something lacking...
For starters lemme get of my chest that the roads in the U.S. Virgin Islands--especially on St. Thomas--are a JOKE! I think a lot of this has to do with the history of place, and the fact that may of these road have been in existence since the 1600s. But this 2017, folks, time to mature, time to evolve. Even in the middle of town in the capital city of Charolette Amalie I was going up steep grades, doing immediate switchbacks and finding fissure trenches a foot a half deep--in the middle of the road! Not good.
I would have to say the piss-poor quality of the roads all over the U.S. Virgin Islands was the biggest eye-opener for me. And if you saw the local's cars your jaw would drop. Dents on nearly every bumper. Peeling paint on the hoods. Just a travesty. Here you are in a tropical paradise of sorts and the traveling environment is like Nazi Germany--during the Allied bombing runs of World War II! I'm not kidding, it's bad, real bad. So bad that if you ever go there you better opt in to get the rental car insurance. Because not only roads bad, but you're always driving on the left side of the road and the locals all drive like a band of maniacs on cocaine! I got passed a lot of times by people who were driving 15-25 miles above the suggested speed limit, all on hairpin turns where the neighboring guard rails were all dented and pushed over.
O, btw, the roads there lack cross streets too. Most destination driving is done by pre-knowing what landmark to turn at. The featured attraction on St. Thomas is Coral World, but guess what, it's off an unmarked, pothole ridden dirt road. Me and my mom drove past it the first time and never knew it was there. The whole island is like that. Wanna drive in a rental car? Good luck. Even the locals purposely give you misleading information, so you ending finding places by trial and error.
If I sound a little down on the U.S. Virigin Islands it's because I am. Though I did see some beautiful sights, I cannot forgive the locals attitude and upkeep of that area. There is garbage everywhere, and people lounging around everywhere. Where is the work ethic? Paradise doesn't maintain itself on its own. Besides there there a premium made on booze. It's everywhere, and people are drinking everywhere: most locals locals are just as complicit as the tourists.
E.C. on the deck of a room at Bluebeard's castle hotel which overlooks the bay in Charolette Amalie
As me and my mom went from place to place, I did a lot of writing in my down time. I found myself more interested in writing than relaxing. Sorry, but that's the way I'm wired. Even when I got home, though it took me like three days to reacclimate because for the week I was gone I never slept more that 4 hours a night, and one night at Bluebeard's castle in Charlotte Amalie after a dirt bike and two black youths sat in front of my rental car and stared at it for over five minutes I slept about 1 hour.
Now when we arrived at St. Croix, I made sure we had GPS with us, but even there that didn't help. Heck when I put in the address of the hotel were staying at it led us out into an upper-crust neighborhood up in the hills where no one was home, about 4 miles from our hotel which was on the ocean. One of the locals then informed us that the GPS don't work so well on the island, presumably because its not fully mapped yet. Sigh. Sometimes you can't win for losing.
E.C. at the place he stayed on St. Croix. Fun in the sun, though it was usually quite windy there
I liked St. Croix MUCH, MUCH more that St. Thomas. While on St. Croix we stayed at the Tamarind Reef Resort, and it was awesome! It had a nicely laid out reclining section of hammocks amidst the coconut palm trees. There was very little beach, it was more of a rustic reef: lots of shells in konces in progress of formation. A konce is a sea horn, the kind where you hold your ear up to and listen to the sound of sea. Sure the Buccaneer Resort which is the next resort down the road was nicer, but it more touristy than the Tamarind. If I ever go back to St. Croix, I'd stay at the Taramind Reef Resort again. I loved that place!
Like I said, and is the crux of this post. I learned a lot about myself on this vacation. First and foremost, I'm more a worker than a party animal. Even if I was totally rich I would not live out on a beach and be lazy for an extended period of time. Sure, there's a time and place to recharge your batteries and relax, I just don't wanna ever get in the practice of making that my life-long ambition. On this trip I ran into people who left the U.S. in favor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Most of these people were from the East Coast. Most of the tourists we ran across were from the East Coast as well. But as for me, I don't wanna live on the islands. And I don't want that LAZY mentality that I saw in some of these people to ever take hold of me. I'm a worker at heart.
I would rather work on my novel than visit another tropical location. If I never make it back to the tropics, I'm cool with that. I now have a taste of it, and wasn't overly impressed by it. I love writing. I love creating. I love building. Love it more that the tropics. Love it more than relaxing on beach sipping a Corona or a pina colada. I gave the tropics a fair shake and found they need to shape up and starting living up to their beautiful surroundings. It's like a third world country over there, seriously. The U.S. Virigin Islands needs someone like Donald Trump to go over there and start cracking some skull. Those people need to get out of the 16th century and modernize their slice of paradise. Sorry, I don't have rosier things to say about the U.S. Virgin Islands. I did meet some people who had good hearts and were trying, but many of them are lazy and need to work on their work ethic.
As for me, post-trip, I feel more grounded. More confident in what my core character is: I'm a writer and a hard worker who prefers to create rather than act like a beach bum.