Bahamas - Keep on running!

The Bahamas! So many beautiful things to see! The Bahamas consist of over 700 islands, of which only 30 are inhabited. We spent most of our time on the island New Providence, which also includes the capital Nassau and the international airport. New Providence’s circumference is only 32km – not enough for a marathon! – and has about 250’000 inhabitants. Let’s start with the good stuff:

The turquoise colour of the water! It was breathtaking. The islands are surrounded by very shallow water (hence the original name for the Bahamas was “baja mar”). Apparently, the colour comes from the white calcium carbonate (found in sea shells) which reflects the sunlight through the shallow water:

2. The people! Bahamians are the warmest, friendliest and hospitable group of people I have ever met. During our stay we never once experienced an unfriendly or annoyed Bahamian (although they have enough reasons to be sick to death with tourists – more on that later). Their laughter, their big smiles and their laid-back attitude made us feel very relaxed.

3. The weather! It was warm, but never too hot. We walked a lot in the sun but there was always a refreshing, gentle tropical breeze to cool us down.

4. The bus system! Absolutely perfect. You just stand by the street and hold up your hand to stop an oncoming bus. Whenever you want to get off, you just simply yell “bus stop, please” and the bus driver stops the bus. It costed USD 1.50 per person per ride and it was completely hassle-free. We never waited more than 5 minutes for a bus.

In the beginning, we used the bus stops, but we soon learned to ignore them

5. Small, beautiful boutique-style hotels! Below is one of the hotels we stayed at. It is the home of a dentist couple. Since their kids moved out, they only use the top floor and rented out the rooms in the lower floors as hotel rooms. We were the only guests there so it really felt like “our” villa:

Now for some of the complainy-pants stuff…

1. Outdoor walking, running, cycling: unless you feel suicidal, it’s hardly possible. Having said that, we were determined to get our daily 10’000 steps done, so we doggedly walked on the sides of the road, always careful to be facing the oncoming traffic. On average, we did 15’000 steps a day, but it was risky. Somehow the concept of having a pavement never materialized on the island, which made me wonder how people here get their daily walking/running done. Doing that on an indoor treadmill on such a beautiful island just doesn’t sound right.

2. Cruise ships! Every morning at 9am, Nassau is flooded by gazillions of tourists coming off the cruise ships. We were enjoying a peaceful breakfast at the port (specifically, a banana from the local supermarket and a cup of tea from the local Burger King) and from one moment to the next, we were swamped by tourists. Within minutes the serene, quiet little town of Nassau was in an uproar, with the locals clamouring for clientele and advertising their boat rides and bus tours at the top of their voices. It was surreal.

Before:

Note the English post box and the cruise ship in the background.

After:

3. Ugly hotels! I knew from the websites that there are a couple of big hotel structures. But the magnitude of their ugliness only became apparent to me when I was actually there in person – below the BahaMar and the Atlantis on Paradise Island:

4. Trash everywhere! C’mon, Bahamas, you can do better than this! You have the 3rd highest per capita GDP in the western hemisphere, after the US and Canada. Surely you have the money to get your waste management organized… Let’s hope it was only a temporary glitch.

Okay, let’s stop the whining. After all has been said and done, it’s still an amazingly beautiful island with fantastic people.

Let’s talk about food. I prefer a plant-based diet and it wasn’t easy to stick to that in the local restaurants. I usually ended up with a Caesar’s salad with no chicken (yes, I compromised on the parmesan). For Kai, this was a welcome opportunity to try out ALL his favourite food which made him happy.