KBTV

Jazz, Jasmine & Joyous

(…continued from November 13th)

I arrived in Anguilla with the usual clichés mired in my brain of how vacations should look and feel in the Caribbean. Beautiful sunsets like rainbow sorbet, bright-white toothy smiles from men in white dressed in white linen with even whiter fluffy towels, steel calypso bands humming in the moonlight, and lazy naps nestled in hammocks with a dog-eared yellowing Michael Crichton thriller.

This, however, was not my experience on this particular visit to the Caribbean. No fault of Anguilla, mind you, nor the Anguillans. This beautiful 35 square-mile island (16 miles long by three miles wide) is the most northerly of the Leeward Islands. It’s a short 25-minute ferry ride from St. Marten and just to give you a rough idea of its size … the population totals just 12,300 residents.

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I traveled there to meet my Managing Editor, Rachael Joyner, who was covering the Tranquility Jazz Festival for Jazziz Magazine. I arrived a day late to find Rachael just coming back from a day on a boat tour with a bunch of other journalists. She looked perfectly rosy (sun kissed,) refreshed and enthusiastic about our adventure. So was I.

I think we were both relieved to quickly discover that this Eastern Caribbean island has been somewhat overlooked as a “hot” destination spot, historically anyway. One theory floated by the local cab driver who ferried me in from the airport was that it’s flat and tourists prefer the mountains of St. Marten – just nine short miles away. (I later learned that the sparse rainfall contributes to the “crêpe look” – as he described it – because all that grows are small trees and shrubs.)

Rachael has a knack for choosing shot locations for the KBTVonline “standups.” She chose our backyard – one of the most desirable beaches I’d ever seen … think untarnished and tranquil.
Also, I thought it was interesting that Anguilla is known as the wreck diving capital of the Caribbean. It advertises wrecks that were sunk intentionally to satisfy the curiosity of divers.



But what emerged for Rachael and me – first and foremost – were the people of Anguilla - the locals. They all seemed to possess an ethos of quiet confidence, a mixture of wisdom and humility, which permeates every encounter. From our chat, with a classically French trained chef, an Anguillan native, to Auntie Bee,



the weathered woman who sells handmaid jewelry on Shoal Beach, to our taxi driver/tour guide, who turned out to be a local politician. I felt blessed and relieved to not be so deeply steeped in the underlying resentment that I often feel when I travel in the Caribbean. The tension between the haves and the have-nots, those who serve and we who are served. Instead the experience felt collaborative – dignities in tact.

posted by Jason Parsley @ 5:57 AM