“Friends don’t let friends go to the Bahamas.” That’s what I jokingly say to my friend, Kim, when she asks
what island I’m going to, and I’m on my way to the Bahamas. It’s a short 50-minute flight from Miami, the
Bahamian island of New Providence (the Bahamas consists of over 3,000 islands,
islets, and cays!), and 3 of my largest hardware stores are there. The capital of the Bahamas is Nassau, the
main city in New Providence. I don’t really
know what it is, but I was rarely in a good mood on this island in the
beginning. The traffic is insane,
everybody lets everybody in, everybody cuts everybody off, and it’s hard to
avoid potholes and stray dogs. You never
get above 35 mph. It’s a fairly big and
busy island…lots of business there…but it’s just chaotic and it took me over 5
trips to not have to use my map. ANYWAY, I don’t want to bash it too much, and
when I really think about the situation, it’s just some cultural differences…some
that I see on other islands too. I like
to think I have an open mind because I LOVE culture and the differences and get
plenty of travel to fill me, but I clearly gotta shake this negativity toward
the Bahamas. While, like many other
islands, it is not wealthy nor has a strong infrastructure, there are still
blue waters, beautiful beaches, and loving, happy-hearted people. There’s a
sense of order that takes a different meaning on the islands – it’s more like
an organized chaos. Now, with all the
travel I do across the Caribbean, I am
aloud to be a bit of an island snob, right?
With that said, I still would not
take a personal vacation to the Bahamas.
From what I hear (I have not actually been to them), the beaches are nice,
and I see really blue water driving by in my rental car. There’s a section of the island by Nassau
called Paradise Island, and it’s really nice with casinos, Starbucks, Dunkin
Donuts, and fancy steakhouses. It also
has complete tourists, music coming from little speakers in the bushes and
workers constantly sweeping the streets…as if you were in Disneyworld. If that’s what you like, well then go, but
personally I prefer a place that may be a bit out of my comfort zone but where
I can experience some culture, some differences, observe, eat local food, etc.
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| The Bahamas upon landing. Blue, blue waters. |
I do have one highlight of Nassau, Bahamas, that took place
on my last visit which reminded me to appreciate the island. One of my customers, FYP Ltd. (Fix Your
Place), has a fire truck parked in the parking lot. Mark, the owner of FYP, bought it from the
states and had it shipped down. He
wanted a fire hose for I-don’t-know-what, and when he realized it was cheaper
to buy a full fire truck than just a hose (I have no idea why), he bought the
whole dang thing! Mark is really
involved in the community, sponsoring kids’ baseball and soccer teams, and he
puts that fire truck to good use! He
drives that thing around town to grab attention and go to sporting events. Well, 2 months ago he suggested I had a
banner made that says “Milwaukee Supports Bahamian Athletics,” one that he
could put on the truck and park at the baseball and soccer fields during the
games. I had his 12-foot banner made,
and on my last visit I got to ride in the fire truck to a baseball game with
our 12-foot Milwaukee/FYP banner hanging from the side. It was 4:30 pm and traffic was heavy in Nassau,
but that didn’t matter—we had sirens and horns!
We seriously would blare the sirens to get people out of the way. Until you looked in the cab and saw 3 people
in t-shirts and jeans (one being a young white girl), it looked as if we were
on our way to fight flames somewhere. I
do not know how this is legal, but I guess stuff like this can slide when you
have a country with a lesser-developed infrastructure. They let a lot pass. The thing is registered as an F-150 (I’m
guessing he paid them off or has connections with the government), and he can
cause quite a ruckus with it on the narrow streets of Nassau, making K-turns
and barely fitting on the roads. Here is a 45-second video I took in the fire truck...
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| There it is! The fire truck! |
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| The Avengers t-ball team, sponsored by FYP Ltd. and supported by Milwaukee Tool. |
Most of the time I don’t experience big delays or craziness on my flights, but the bumble bee problem that delayed us 2 hours back in April is one for the memory book. We had all just boarded a flight in Miami, flying to San Juan, and they announced that there was a bee problem outside so the ground crew could not load the luggage. There were swarms of bees I could see from inside the plane and they wouldn’t leave. They tried spraying the bees and plane with some sort of foam (my first glance out the window and I thought it had snowed in Miami – no joke!), and after realizing the foam was corrosive, they then sprayed the Boeing 757 down with water twice more…to no avail. You know how when there’s a medical issue on a plane, there always seems to be a doctor or nurse? Well a man walked up to the front and said that he was a beekeeper and asked if he could help…too funny! Too bad he didn’t have his gear in his carry-on to be able to go outside and move the bees. Anyway, after about an hour, the bees moved away and we could take off. I had a flight to catch from San Juan to the island of Tortola, as did the older English couple next to me. They were concerned we were going to miss the connection, but –since I travel all the time and have learned not to fret about the ‘small stuff’—I assured them we would have ample time, and if not then there was a later flight to Tortola. They said they wouldn’t want to wait, so they would charter a plane for the 20-minute flight to Tortola and that I could join them. We ended up making our connection on time…dang it – a chartered flight wouldn’t have been too shabby!
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| Random photo of a meal in Grand Cayman Island in April. Banana soda and roti (almost like a burrito filled with pumpkin, garbanzo beans, spinach, potato, curry and other spices) from a Trinidadian restaurant in Cayman. |
Finally, my last random topic in this email is about a sales
rep I met on a return flight to Miami last month. I meet a lot of sales reps on planes and on
islands, but this guy stands out in my mind.
His name is Luis Felipe, a Spanish-speaking Latin American from Miami,
probably about 55 years old. I really
feel like you will get a crack out of these stories, so I’ll briefly share two
of them.
We got chatting in English and then in Spanish (as I
prefer!), and he asked me what was the craziest thing that had ever happened to
me in my travels. I really didn’t have
one solid answer, but I told him a few stories that go along with the “never a
dull moment on the islands” theme. Then
I asked him the same question and for the next hour he had me captivated with a
few stories. He has been traveling for
his job for over 20 years. One was an experience
in Mexico, where he had to travel to Valladolid from a coastal Mexican
city. He was in his rental car and it
was getting dark and he had to find a hotel.
He drove and drove and drove, hoping to find a place before Valladolid
to sleep at. He drove through towns that
he said were out of a movie. In Spanish
he said, “it was a dusty, old, main road of a town that was almost
deserted. There was an old cathedral on
one side and on the other side was a store with a bench outside where 3 old men
in hats sat, slouched over. And what’s
the name of that plant that blows around?”
I said, “tumbleweed?” Yep. He
kept driving and finally after 9pm came to a really nice-looking hotel. He pulled in, relieved, and asked to stay one
night. They asked him, “and where’s your
partner?” He said “what do you
mean? I’m traveling alone for business.” They told him it was Club Med – you had to be
there as a couple! He assured the lady
that he just wanted to go to his room and sleep…he wouldn’t go walking around the
resort alone or anything. Per Club Med
policy she still would not let him stay, so he got back in his car and kept
driving. It was 10pm by then, and he saw
a car pulled over on the side of the highway.
He slowed down and peered in to see 3 children sitting in the backseat
with the 2 adults outside. Feeling bad
upon seeing the children, he pulled over.
It turned out they had a flat tire and did not have a spare. They were Mayan Indians, complete with
traditional face paint and headbands. Luis
got out of his own car to look at the flat and while he was bent over checking
it out, he thought to himself, “what am I doing?! I’m a foreigner here and my laptop and
passport are sitting in my front seat with the car wide open.” He said there was no other solution but to
take them to the nearest town. They said
they knew people 5 minutes up the road, so into his rental car piled 3 Mayan
children in the back and the 2 adults in front with Luis. Just picture this! And he said to calm his nerves and the awkwardness,
he’d ask them how to say certain things in their indigenous native language
(Luis spoke Spanish but these Mayan Indians spoke their language and some
broken Spanish). He’d say “how do you
say ‘car?’ and they would answer “carro,” or whatever the word was…and that was
it. Well after driving 20 minutes, they
directed Luis to exit, and they proceeded to climb up and up an old road on the
side of the mountain until they finally got to where they knew people. It was a Mayan village with traditional teepees
and everything! They got a spare tire
and Luis drove them back to their car.
He continued on and reached Valladolid by midnight, and crashed for 5
hours on a rock-hard bed before he woke up to meet his customer. When he told his Mexican customer the story,
he couldn’t believe it. As Luis already
knew, he told him it was not really safe nor wise to stop on the side of the
road in the middle of nowhere in the countryside of Mexico. Luis couldn’t believe he did it either, and
was extremely thankful to be alive. What
an experience. Don’t worry Mom and Dad –
I have no stories like that nor do I stop on the side of the road at night.
One other quick and CUTE story from Luis was when he was
stuck in Peru for a weekend. He was in Lima,
the capital, for business, and when Friday came around and Luis was waiting on
a major customer to close a huge order, Luis’ boss informed him not to leave
Peru until the order was closed. So as
he sat eating dinner alone in downtown Peru, wondering who he should call of
his Peruvian friends to hang out with, he saw a newspaper with a picture of
Macchu Picchu, the old Inca village in the mountains where tourists flock to
because of its grandeur and adventure in getting there. He booked a trip for Saturday and
Sunday. The next day he met a young
woman at the group lunch who was in Peru for business from Spain. They hung out until their separate tour
groups parted ways. Later, when Luis was
at Macchu Picchu ready to do the climb, he met a young Mexican man who was in
Peru for business as well. They were
walking around Macchu Picchu chatting together when they ran into the Spanish
woman! By the end of the trip, the 3 of
them had become friends, and for years they stayed in touch and tried meeting
up in Miami (where Luis lives) or somewhere in Latin America where they all
traveled for work. One day a few years
after meeting, the Mexican guy called Luis and said he was in Miami. They planned to meet for lunch, outside of
Luis’ office, and when Luis walked outside, there stood the Mexican man with
their Spanish friend! They told him they
had news – that they were engaged and wanted Luis to be the best man! Awwww, what a story, right? Luis is by far the most interesting person I’ve
met on a flight thus far. We then
proceeded to wait in the longest customs lines we had ever seen when we landed
in Miami, so we chatted some more. He
had a couple other stories for me, but those were the top two.
Thanks for reading! I
need to close my laptop. I’m on a plane,
wedged in the middle seat between two larger men and my arms are cramping. Happy weekend, y’all!!!
