(Curaçao)...The Southern Caribbean island of Curaçao, poking out of the continental shelf of South America, 40 miles north of the coast of Venezuela, is part of the Netherlands Antilles, six West Indian specks that also include Aruba, Bonaire, Sint-Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius. Americans know well of Curaçao’s most famous son, baseball player Andruw Jones.
The main gripe heard here is how Curaçao, the largest of the six, ends up paying for all the others (it’s probably a little more complicated than that, but that is what one hears time and time again from the grumblers), especially in the years since Aruba became an autonomous province still linked to the parent country, The Netherlands, but not to the other five. As of this October, Curaçao will copy this administrational formulation, leaving the bills for the remaining four very small islands on the far larger lap of Holland.
The island’s built-up area is in the middle, around capital Willemstad, and there can be traffic. For peace, tranquility and flavor, head to its far southeastern and northwestern tips (the island is tilted, so that its westernmost and northernmost points and, likewise, its easternmost and southernmost points are very close to each another).
Southeastern Curaçao—Curaçao comprises two islands, Curaçao itself and Klein, or Little, Curaçao, a sliver that it is possible to amble around in a very, very slow hour. One person owns all the eastern portion of the “mainland” island, which remains unsullied and results in Klein Curaçao being unsullied, too. To get to Klein Curaçao, passage on a boat is needed from any of the harbors and inland bays closer to Willemstad. I caught one organized by Ocean Encounters (oceanencounters.com), the diving outfitters affiliated with the 350-room Hyatt Regency Curaçao (curacao.hyatt.com), which opened on the formerly empty Santa Barbara Beach, east of Willemstad, in April, with two restaurants and a large spa. Our two-deck boat had space for approximately 40 people and was fairly stable, but if you suffer from seasickness, you might remember to pack the Dramamine, as the channel between Curaçao and Klein Curaçao, like many channels all over the world, can be choppy. Usually is it possible to unfurl the sails in one direction, which provides for a slightly more comfortable crossing. It took us two hours to get there.
Klein Curaçao has no permanent houses, merely a small row of fishermen’s shacks. Some are in ruins, even though one still sported a framed painting on a tatty wall open to the elements. No fishermen were around, although maybe they had already finished for the day. A couple of shelters have been built for the sun-lovers, snorkelers and scuba-divers who come here. The scuba-diving is drift-diving along the island’s reef with one diver towing a surface buoy so that the boat captain can keep an eye on the position of the submerged. There are two interesting things on the island. A ruined lighthouse, with a red roof and peeling dusty-rose walls, was built in 1850 and again in 1879 and 1913, which might be testament to the winds and storm surges hereabouts, though Curaçao officially is outside the hurricane belt (Hurricane Omar brushed it in 2008). This really is a desert island, with pure water, views of only sea to every direction and abandoned buildings that suggest, quite reassuringly, that not every speck on earth is meant for habitation. The white beaches and cerulean sea evoke gasps of happiness.
Northwestern Curaçao—The area around Dorp Westpunt seems tailor-made to assist relaxation. Its beaches—Forti, Grote (Large) Knip, Kleine (Small) Knip, Jeremi and Lagun—are pocket handkerchief-size strands wedged between coral coasts that reveal amazing snorkeling yards from the shore. If you had not enough imagination to realize the forces of nature over millennia, you would swear that the tourism bureau had cut these minute playgrounds right into the coastline every mile or so for the express benefit of tourists. Usually at each beach are a small concession shack and five or six upturned rowboats. Wake up early enough and you might have one of these beaches to yourself. My base was the Lodge at Hura Kolanda (kurahulanda.com), close to the spot called Nordpunt, or North Point.
The hotel has 74 accommodation units in either rooms or suites that all sit on a bluff with private patios. Thatch-roof and waterside bars and restaurants lend the requisite tropical feel, and steps lead down to Kalki beach (its stony composition helps make for clearer water) and the dive shop affiliated with the property. Even if you do not scuba-dive, visit Ocean Encounters West (oceanencounterswest.com), which has the nicest diving set-up I have seen, with its own bar-restaurant right by the pier that allows divers to avoid having to be away from the action. It can also take you to the amazing Blue Cave, where snorkelers swim beneath a ridge that clears heads by less than a foot into a cavern where, bobbing on the surface or with mask submerged, awaits a glorious subterranean world of dancing, blue-white light and, if lucky, as I was, large lobster and gorgeous drumfish.
A drier world awaits at the nearby Shete Boka National Park. (“Shete Boka” is an interesting introduction into the world of Papiamento, the language spoken in Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, as well as Sint Eustatius, a combination of Portuguese, Arawak, English and Dutch. I speak Spanish to some degree, and as I was told the name Sheke Boka means “Seven Mouths,” I can quite easily see the Spanish words “siete” and “boca” and (I’ve looked this up) the Portuguese words “sete” and “boca.”) There are seven mouths here, but the northern coast, literally right around the corner from Dorp Westpunt, is not for swimming, the waves crashing through eroded, rocky inlets with the occasional blowhole. Up on the arid shelf are views of cacti, thorn scrub and Curaçao’s highest point, Mount Christoffel, which rises 1,230 feet.
A couple of other local spots should be sought out. The first is St. Peter’s, the church in Dorp Westpunt, that has a painting on it of St. Peter holding an oar, which caused me to do a double take when I drove by it, while the second is Jaanchie’s a restaurant that is notable for bird feeders (outside) that attract Yellow orioles, Troupials—colored orange and black—Rufous-collared sparrows and strange-looking Bare-eyed pigeons, the black circles around their eyes reminding me of old Hanna-Barbera Tom & Jerry cartoons in which hapless Tom is tricked by wily Jerry into looking through an ink-stained telescope. The restaurant is also colorful, and a whole afternoon spent here is an afternoon not wasted. The food has received mixed reviews, but I loved the conch, a usually tough dish that here is very tasty. The shrimps looked like the frozen kind, however, and if you choose the iguana (yes, it tastes like chicken) as a soup or a main dish, you will undoubtedly be rewarded with a visit from the restaurateur himself who will explain with a wink in his eye it supposed aphrodisiacal qualities. (They do not serve keshi yená at Jaanchie’s, but if you can find it, choose it. Literally translated as “stuffed cheese,” this dish has its origins in the days of slavery, when the slave owners would import Dutch cheeses and leave to their slaves only the rinds. The slaves would secretly reheat the rinds, which still contained a little cheese, and fill them with whatever was on hand. Today only a small handful of restaurants prepare this dish, and the recipe has been updated for more civilized times, most notably in that the filling is wrapped in larger amounts of cheese, which also now is soft. I ate a curry-flavored one at the Restaurant & Cafe Gouverneur De Rouville, which is on the Otrabanda side of Willemstad and looks out at the city’s famous riverfront, filled with chicken and vegetables. Here is a recipe—kuminda.com/viewrecipe.php?id=1051952295.)

(Grenada)...Sitting up to my waist in water in the azure, cerulean and turquoise waters of Grenada’s Morne Rouge Beach, not another soul in sight, the edges of the bay arcing green and proud, I realized why until lately I had never been utterly enamored of the Caribbean: Many of its beaches are too straight of line and the countryside lacked green and topography. St. Lucia bucks that trend, and Grenada completely destroys it. I am eager one day to discover Dominica, which I am told offers similar delights.
Grenada is far to the south of the West Indian archipelago. Thus, it receives fewer tourists. The island, in turn, does not seem obsessed with tourism, although it is its largest industry. All 100,000 Grenadians have access to every beach, and no hotel or building can be—this is not unique to this island—higher than the tallest palm tree. The beaches tend to be small and postcard-perfect. The largest beach, Grand Anse, is a little over two miles in length but still does not get inundated, although when the cruise-ship season starts in late October (it ends in late March), it must be a little more busy. Another plus: Both Morne Rouge and Grand Anse are 10 minutes by taxi from the international airport at Point Salines (the fare is Eastern Caribbean S19 ($7)).
St. George’s, Grenada’s capital, is a picturesque port of 20,000 people that some call the Portofino of the Caribbean. Praise indeed, and it is very pleasant, Wharf Road leading around its harbor, called the Carenage. Parts of it have been dubbed San Francisco for its very steep streets, and dominating the skyline are several churches (the Anglican ones bear large clocks) and Fort George, where in 1983, political bickering ended with the execution of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, an act that led to the American invasion. Bishop’s name now graces the airport (the building of which he instigated), and snippets of graffiti still thank the United States for its intervention.
Today, that is old history for most, although the introduction of a sales tax, where before there never has been one, ensures that politics here remains heated, although much, much, much less prone to serious consequences. Tourism is a joy here, and the population is very educated.
A drive to Grand Etang Forest Reserve is a perfect alternative to the sublime beaches. Call hiking guide Telfor Bedeau (everyone knows him), a 71-year-old whose fitness will put men half his age to shame. One popular walk is though a volcanic crater of farms, through the rainforest and on to Seven Sisters Falls. At times the walk is steep, but the reward is great, two dramatic waterfalls filling your sightline. Adventurous holidaymakers can walk for 30 minutes up through the rainforest and jump down all the falls. Bedeau explains the fruits and spices seen along the way. This is done with a young man who calls himself Super Butterfly. He will tell you how to jump and where to jump, and I was told the whole experience is exhilarating. I was content swimming in the warm river water at the base of waterfall number six, and it really was warm in the September sun. A perfect picnic spot is a short drive away at the lake of Grand Etang (the accent that should be on the “E” I never saw used), whose name means Great Pond.
Grenada is, of course, called the Spice Island, known for spices, herbs and fruits such as cinnamon, ginger, all spice, cloves, cocoa, bay and, most importantly, nutmeg. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan destroyed many nutmeg trees (it smashed everything else here, too), and only now are farmers beginning to again make money from this iconic plant, and it is testament to the strength and versatility of Mother Nature that the island again looks luxuriant. Another attractive waterfall is at Concord.
A culinary tour is well worth doing. Start at Dougaldston Estate, near the small town of Gouyave, where Clifford Bridgeman, an elderly Grenadian, will show visitors that nutmeg contains two spices, the seed, which we call nutmeg when grated, and the seed’s thin reddish covering, known as aril, which we call mace. The long drying building at Dougaldston is wonderfully old. Outside, large trays covered with brown cocoa beans perch on heavy iron train tracks; inside, everything is equally ancient with dusty shards of sun shimmering a century of smells.
Perhaps some of these cocoa beans end up at the award-winning Grenada Chocolate Factory in a colorful, small building in the St. Patrick’s Parish village of Hermitage. It makes only a few types of chocolate (the cocoa content is between 60 and 82 percent), all of which are delicious. I loved the bar called Nib-alicious.
To wash all of this down, aim next toward the Rivers Antoine (pronounced “Rivers Ann-Twayne) Rum Distillery in Tivoli. It is the island’s oldest distillery, dating to 1785, and absolutely nothing looks as though it is any younger. Crumbling walls with 18th century graffiti surround and open up to working waterwheels, heavy machinery made in then-empirical Germany and England and huge piles of sugar-cane husks. A sip of its 75-percent-proof rum is, like the Seven Sisters Falls, for the adventurous. Flu will leave you! Flavored rums cut the potency. None is exported.
Back in St. George’s, dine at the very informal Patrick’s, run by a culinary magician called Karen Hall, who cooks all the food—which just keeps on coming—on eight stovetops. Dishes include locally caught crab, seasoned pork, spiced plantains and callaloo soup made with coconut milk. Callaloo is a green leaf vegetable that some might know as amaranth.
Nature buffs will want to visit Mount Hartman where the national bird, the very rare, reclusive Grenada dove, clings on. Current estimates put its numbers at no more than 200. At certain times of the year, whales glide by.
Hotels range the gamut. Modest but very comfortable, Caribbean-infused and delightfully low-key spots include Cinnamon Hill (Grand Anse Beach) and the new Kalinago (Morne Rouge Beach), while upscale roosts include the all-inclusive Les Sources (Pink Gin Beach) with a spa and upscale restaurant.

(Barbados)…I arrived in Speightstown at 8 a.m. because the bus from Bridgetown was going there, and there did not seem to be another bus waiting to go anywhere else. I was happy I did so.
Speightstown has a laid-back feel of a forgotten, perhaps colonial gem that had its hey day when business was far less regulated than it is today. As my bus curled around the west side of the island—though communities such as Batts Rock Beach, Oxnards, Lascelles and Gibbes Beach, I wondered if this circular island could rightfully be considered part of the Caribbean. Bermuda certainly isn’t, but Barbados also is outside the natural arc of the West Indian archipelago that stretches all the way from Cuba to Grenada. Shamefully I did not have a map, but I rectified that situation by visiting the Cloisters Bookstore, before walking down to a church that stood in the middle of a cemetery and was populated solely by a sleeping Rastafarian.
The town, an inviting mix of friendly locals, peeling pastel paint and fading grandeur, was the site where Admiral Sir George Ayscue, a navy man in the service of Oliver Cromwell, could only defeat the Barbadians, who chose to be loyal to King Charles I, by paying for the services of a Barbadian turncoat and tricking his way onto the island’s soil.
No one was fooled. Seeing what a generally incompetent admiral he was, the locals agreed to charter that technically saw them realign their allegiance but which in practice gave them incredible benefits unheard of in England’s dealings with the “native races,” including the oath that taxes would not be increased without the express written approval of the Barbadians’ representatives. Ayscue proved no more capable later, when his flag ship ran aground and he was forced to surrender and be imprisoned to and by the Dutch.
The only battle he won, according to my research, was the capture of the Scilly Isles, a handful of beautiful rocks off the extreme tip of Cornwall. He was the 17th century equivalent of a modern-day CEO who runs his company into the ground, produces huge savings by the wholesale sacking of his staff, destroys most of the benefits of the formerly healthy pensions scheme and then gets a massive golden handshake and a new job within a fortnight.
Pronounced “Spites-town,” Speightstown has a gentle feel that I instantly liked and reminded me of Falmouth, Jamaica; it once enjoyed a regular boat service to Bristol, England. Barbadians are wonderful people. Walking up steps at a back of a building leading to second-story bar might not be everyone’s choice, but I wanted to go to the balcony that I could see from Church Street, as everyone on it looked like they were relaxed, and within five minutes of being seated, two locals bought me a beer, the first one just appearing from the waitress without the buyer announcing himself. Good people. I returned the hospitality, and it was convivial right to the very last moment I really had to be back on the bus to Bridgetown.
It perhaps wasn’t always so friendly there, the term “Speightstown flattery” being slang for a backhand compliment. I took a smaller bus into the interior, and the bus driver went half a mile out of his way to drop me off at a spot—Pleasant Hill—that was much nearer to my goal, Farley Hill.
This is an interesting, little-visited place that is home to a troop of Green monkeys. Their fur perhaps might be construed as green, and there they were, swinging around the trees over the heads of Tropical kingbirds. The site features a ruined manor house, with gardens, built in the early 19th century by an Englishman called Sir Graham Briggs (with a name like that, I hardly have to say he’s English, do I?). The ruins, which feature in the 1965 film An Island in the Sun starring Sidney Poitier, burnt down in 1966, and then Queen Elizabeth II opened it all up as a national park, which seems curious, as royalty of England rarely is asked to open perhaps still smoldering buildings, but anyway, that year also was the year of Barbados becoming independence, so maybe such trivialities were overlooked. That said, Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert and their son, the future King George V, did stay there, so maybe she just felt like following in their footsteps. In Poitier’s film, it was called Belle Fontaine, for another reason lost to knowledge.
I walked back to Speightstown, some five miles, and then stopped for lunch in a low-key little place called the Fisherman’s Hut, which featured black-and-white photos of former cricket stars (see photo above). In bustling Bridgetown, I made a beeline to the Jewish synagogue for its oddity value, and then to a very strange statue purporting to be a likeness to Horatio Nelson. It is covered in bird excrement.
Supposedly, Nelson saved Barbados from the French, but many here see no relationship to him and want it removed from its prominent site and replaced by a worthy Bajan. Maybe he is looking so rough because the statue now is two years short of being 200.

(Southeastern Anatolia)…The bazaar in the small city of Şanliurfa was a revelation, a time capsule that is both 11,000 years old (so scholars believe) and modern and vibrant. It is a Kurdish town, and immediately noticeable were the mauve scarves decorating the heads of both men and women. Some boast filigreed patterns in silver thread. The bazaar is the usual maze of alleys with shops, and into one a tailor invited us.
He sat cross-legged on the floor (probably had done since early that morning) and sewed thick sheep fleeces into jackets and waistcoats, whole ordering us tea. The “getting of tea” remains a joyous mystery to me throughout my travels in beautiful Turkey.
Hospitable Turks asked you to join them for tea, and therefore tea was summoned. It would come quickly, with accompanying sugar and spoons, but at no time did I see money exchange hands or anyone come back to collect the tulip-shaped glasses and trays. I was certainly not asked for contributions, and I rather think I would have offended if I had asked.
Perhaps there is a monthly charge? Who knows? Şanliurfa—its name was lengthened with the addition of Şanli, which means “glorious” in Turkish, in recognition of the city’s contribution to Turkish independence against the French—is famous for it being the birthplace of the prophet Abraham, who hid in a cave from the King Nemrut, who wanted to kill every child due to some unfavourable prediction. The cave can be walked to from an attractive area of plazas, mosques, gardens and pools, visitors crouching low beneath a green cloth (separate entrances for the genders) to sip the water that kept the prophet alive. The pools contain hundreds of carp, around which surround legends: If you see a white one, you will go to heaven; if you eat any one, you will be poisoned, for this was the site where Abraham was sentenced to burn by Nemrut but where the fire turned to water and the wood pile turned into fish.
Behind the pools—called the Balikligöl—are restful, idyllic caravansaries where old men talk about the past. The Second Crusade (1145-1149) also started when Islamic forces recaptured the city. It is a fascinating place, with patios opening up to reveal domino-playing, old men and an area of honey-coloured houses where I bought a grapefruit that was the sweetest fruit I’ve ever eaten.
One dinner was had sat on very low, backless seats (better to feel, perhaps misguidedly, that somehow you belong there and can watch the scene unfold without being seen yourself) outside a döner kebabı restaurant, a small hole in the wall, where the jolly proprietor sat outside with us and chopped the ends of and nibbled hot chilies to make sure they would not blow our “foreign” heads out of the bazaar. After hearing horror reports of travellers being mobbed in small, dusty, brown Harran, about 30 kilometres south of Şanliurfa, it came as a wonderful surprise to hardly seeing anyone. Where were they all? Where were the children? In school, it seemed, wearing blue uniforms.
A few residents shepherded sheep in the shade of the ruins of Harran’s university, which is the oldest Islamic university and thus perhaps the oldest on the planet from any faith or nation. Camels plodded around, and hoopoes and Burrowing owls swooped and hopped. Harran is small and poor, which must differ greatly from the 8th and 9th centuries when scholars flocked here to learn about astronomy, religion and medicine, some decades before Islam’s greatest university in Baghdad was even conceived. Beehive-shaped houses dot Harran, but most are used now for storage or tourism.
Numerous tarmac’ed but equally dusty roads crisscross the desert that after not being totally sure where we were continues across the border with Syria to forlorn places such as Büyük Çayli and larger Ceylanpinar. We ate honey on the comb while watching a Lebanese ground agama (Trapelus lessonae), a lizard that almost was indistinguishable from the sandy ground around it. Agriculture has started, thanks to the controversial GAP (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi) reservoir and dam project that seeks to tame the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
We span northwards to the glorious mountaintop town of Mardin. Essentially, at least for tourists, Mardin consists of one street, Cumhuriyet Caddesi, which contains the very comfortable Artuklu Kervansaray hotel. Walking beneath an arch, we admired an ornate doorway, only to be invited in by the owner, an old woman, who introduced us to her son, his wife and their daughter. More tea was served, and more lost-in-translation but heartfelt conversation was swapped, followed by an invite to climb on their flat roof to see the view of the Mesopotamian plain stretching from Mardin all the way, perhaps, to the Golan Heights of Syria and Israel and the crusader and Knights Templar castles of Lebanon. Several restaurants also have rooftop perches, and an antique shop had two kitschy watches bearing former Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein’s face that it would not sell for any price.
The next morning we visited its twisty bazaar and a Syrian Orthodox Church (the Kirklar Kilisesi) for which the keeper of the key suddenly appeared. This interests me, the word “kirklar.” In Scandinavia and Scotland, churches have a similar etymology. Atatürk wrote out a Roman-style Turkish alphabet on a napkin in the 1920s, but presumably the word for church had a pronunciation in the Ottoman dialect of Arabic. Answers, please. We were told that Pope John Paul II visited. We had the dark, dusty place to ourselves. Carved above the entrance is the church’s date of formation: 569.
Paintings of the church’s holy fathers, the earliest ones quite comical, line the walls. Approximately six miles away along a thin road is the far larger Syrian Orthodox monastery of Deyrulzaferan, that is, the Saffron Monastery, so named for its yellowish hue. Until recent years this was the seat of the Syrian Orthodox Church’s patriarch, who now lives in Damascus. Obviously, Damascus is in Syria, so that fact speaks volumes concerning this area of Turkey’s links to the religions and peoples of wider Mesopotamia. Deyrulzaferan has a large courtyard, two floors, a church and two remaining brothers who speak Aramaic, the language, supposedly, of Jesus Christ. There are also nuns. One room contained the crumbling remains of two small sedan chairs in which the patriarch was ferried. A mountain with caves stands behind.

(Martinique)…Looming high over Martinique is Mount Pelée, which is in the record books as being the third worst volcanic eruption in history. Perhaps there have been worst since, but as—generally—mankind is better able to predict, avoid and plan for such disasters (perhaps), maybe the death tolls have been reduced.
When it last erupted in 1902 (it blew its top twice that year), it killed more than 29,000 people, a tragedy only dwarfed by two 19th-century eruptions in Indonesia, including legendary Krakatoa. I drove up to St. Pierre, the town right beneath it that was swallowed whole.
Tour guides here tell delighted crowds that the only person to survive was a rum drinker who due to intoxication was inside a cell that protected him. Thus, their argument goes, rum can save your life…please buy a bottle in duty-free.
The truth is that this lucky man, Louis-Auguste Cyparis, who went on to be a star attraction in P.T. Barnum’s circus, was in jail because he had inflicted a wound on a friend with a cutlass, a less romantic tale; in fact, a second man survived, too, who was fortunate enough to live on the edge of town.
Today, fewer than 5,000 people live in St. Pierre, and the volcano is deemed one of the world’s most likeliest to yet again explode. I had arrived in the island’s capital Fort-de-France on a Sunday morning, and all was closed, except the large cathedral, the Cathédrale Saint-Louis de Fort-de-France, which was built in the 17th century but has been repeatedly set up again following fires, volcanoes, earthquakes and indifference.
Another more interesting church is just up the inland road on the way to the botanical gardens of Balata. Modeled on the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur in Paris, the Sacré-Cœur de Balata is smaller than the original but to the same scale.
Back in St. Pierre, there are still reminders of that fateful day. An amphitheatre lies empty with scorched walls, inoperable cannons stand facing a sea that provided far less threat than the land behind it and a statue remains headless. In his 1903 book, Mont Pelée and the tragedy of Martinique: A Study of the Great Catastrophes, Angelo Heilprin, who visited in May and August of the fateful year writes that “The landscape was barren as though it had been graven with desert tools, scarred and made ragged by floods of water and boiling mud, and hardly a vestige remained of the verdant forest that but a short time before had been the glory of the land. Great folds of cloud and ash hung over the crown of the volcano, and from its lower flanks issued a veritable tempest of curling vapor and mud. Lying close to its southern foot, and bathed in the flame of a tropical sunshine, was all that remained of the once attractive city of Saint Pierre—miles of wreckage that reached up from the silent desert of stone and sand, showing no color but the burning grays that had been flung to them or that had formed part of mother earth.”
Looking down at the town, the first thing I noticed was a toy train shuttling tourists along the front. Small grey waves lapped at the shore, and a local in a short-sleeved white shirt stood inside a school building and conducted an unseen orchestra. Everything seems normal, but scientists studying this peak—translated literally as Bald Mountain—say that it remains one of the most active volcanoes on the planet, despite not having blown its top for more than a century.
Climbing up the side of the volcano, everything looked green and idyllic. The landscape has names here such as Le Morne Rouge, Le Morne Vert and Gros Morne, monikers that speak of beauty, power and natural colour from the bowels of the planet.
Just before St. Pierre is the seaside village of Le Carbet, where supposedly in 1502, four centuries exactly to the date of the disaster, Christopher Columbus landed on his fourth voyage to what he still might have thought was Japan. A little farther towards the looming volcano are the Pitons du Carbet mountains on which grow ferns reaching more than 30 feet.
Everything is large here. A fantastic—awesome is a better word, in its true meaning—idea of the power of this volcano was that its ash enveloped, destroyed and sunk a ship out at sea called the Roraima, and there were survivors from that, too. One of them described the scene on Martinique—which has a really wonderful flag, by the way, four snakes twirling around staffs on a blue background with a white cross—saying “No darkness was ever like it. Imagine the darkest night you ever saw, imagine it a thousand times darker than that, and then you may get some idea of that the air was like for fifty miles in every direction from the harbour of St. Pierre.”
I walked around St. Pierre for a couple of hours. It does not feel like a town in imminent danger, but what town would? A grey stone house had been made pretty with a thin staircase of the same material bordered with a postbox-red rail, lush, green potted plants, wooden shutters and a mauve door; the main street curves by prim houses and shops of white, blue and yellow.
Only the sight of wetness on the ground (this is the only place in Martinique where the rains fall steadily, the clouds forming over Pelée and dropping their loads on St. Pierre) and a twin-towered church with flaking stone and rusty, squat steeples give a wider picture of any potential neglect that stems from the always possible futility of nature and the idea of the pointlessness of civic pride in the face of sweeping, sudden cataclysm. Bananaquits and Purple-throated carib hummingbirds flitted around, oblivious to the danger but first to leave if conditions change, wondering why the humans cannot pick up on the differences in the atmosphere and the conclusiveness of the catastrophe to come.