When I found out a couple of days ago that there would be a chance to explore the other side of St. Vincent that I hadn’t seen earlier, I was definitely very interested in the opportunity, and as it was very modestly priced that was something to take advantage of, which was something most of the people at the Feast site agreed with.  The end result was a trip that lasted around 5 hours and provided the chance to come to some insights about the nature of St. Vincent as a country in terms of its tourism infrastructure as well as its general state of economic development and what the country has to offer from the point of view of an observant traveler, except for that time I took a nap on the way back to our hotel.

Our trip this afternoon went from Villa, where our hotel is located, up to Sandy Bay and then back.  For the most part, that would appear to be a straightforward trip, by no means as complicated as my previous journey.  Yet there were complications.  For one, I managed to arrive after writing a blog entry and was not able to speedily locate some of the people I would have preferred to travel with and I ended up choosing perhaps the least ideal of the three buses, even though it ended up alright anyway because I have plenty of friendly people to chat with whatever option I chose.  Our first stop was at an overlook into the Mesopotamia Valley, which is the breadbasket for the country and the source of a great deal of its contemporary agricultural wealth and its ability to export food to other countries, like Trinidad & Tobago, that have a much higher population but not nearly the same amount of fertility.  Even so, the tour guide commented that for various reasons bananas and other crops are becoming increasingly unprofitable and that St. Vincent is seeking to increase tourism in order to provide for the well-being of its people, even if the destination is still extremely obscure at present.

After that we went to an interesting tunnel at a national park that bordered a wild ocean.  The tunnel itself was dark and had a rockslide blocking its ocean exit, but it made for a compelling historical site and also included some find bird viewing, which was certainly interesting as well.  It was here where the travel infrastructure problems of St. Vincent reared their ugly head in that the tour simply did not have enough food for everyone.  A stop that was supposed to last half an hour of quick eating of tasty food ended up taking about three times as long because three rounds of cooking were required to provide chicken and various fixings as well as drinks (including bottled water) for our group, which is especially lamentable when one realizes that the amount had been known for a period of some days.  The caterers even made the basic mistake of not counting the tour guides/drivers as part of the people it was necessary to cook a lunch for, meaning that not enough food was made even after three rounds of cooking, and the rest of the people got free rotis to eat, which is by no means a bad option.

After that we went up to some geothermal areas, but found our way blocked and we had to turn around once we reached the place where the volcanic trails began and the road ended.  From there we made our way up the windward coast of St. Vincent into the Carib and Garifuna settlements, where it was clear that while some people were making enough money to build nice homes that a great deal of infrastructure, including headquarters for both of the island nation’s main parties, was left to go to seed without renovation or demolition and re-use.  In addition, there were a lot more shacks in the Carib villages than in most of the towns and villages I have seen so far, some of which include some very nice housing.  It appears as if the Carib settlements have much less economic savvy than the rest of the country, and it is possible that this comes from the same limitations that prevent Indian Reservations in the United States from showing much economic dynamism.  All of this was possible to see on a straightforward trip along the coast, for all too soon it was time to return home back to our hotel and relax and ponder what it all meant.