We said toodle-oo to Chester, wondering as always how he'd fare in our absence - 19-year-old chronically ill, curmudgeonly feline that he is. As is customary for me, I imagined all of the things I might have left awry back at the house: oven and coffee pot left on, refrigerator door left open, water left running in the tub, cans of turpentine in the microwave set to "high" - my imagination at such times is very fertile.
Apart from a construction detour leaving the Milwaukee area, we had an uneventful and speedy trip to O'Hare. After the post-Costa Rica debacle involving the broken-down terminal/parking tram, we decided to park in the main garage rather than the less expensive remote lot. Kiosk check-in and a typical wait at security followed, after which we sat down to breakfast in a sham pub near our gate.
We boarded the United Boeing 737 and took our seats, window seats one in front of the other (the flight had already been heavily booked when we purchased our tickets). A woman sitting in the row in front of me refused to move in order to allow a father to sit with his children. Eventually, I and the lady sitting next to me were asked to move instead and we readily agreed. People are strange. Now commenced the only significant delay (thank goodness!) in our travel plans. A series of technical problems kept us from rolling back for almost two hours (the baggage tracking system, navigation data transfer) - audible groans could be heard with each subsequent delay announcement. The groans may have been particularly loud in the area of our seats - I learned from my seatmate that she and fourteen fellow travelers were flying to Sint Maarten to catch up with a cruise ship whose departure they had missed because of airline delays leaving their home in Alberta province. Eventually, we were thanked for our patience (what was the alternative - a general uprising?) and the plane began to move.
My seat was at the trailing edge of the port wing so I had to crane my neck at an uncomfortable angle in order to see anything. There wasn't much to see until we crossed over the shore at Charleston and headed out over the Atlantic. The inflight magazine crossword and a few chapters of my Bond novel ("You Only Live Twice") kept me awake for a while. I eventually managed to nod off, snorting myself awake to see a cruise ship, tiny against the vast blue expanse of the ocean.
The downward angle of the fuselage and an announcement from the crew signaled our descent toward Sint Maarten. The towers of puffy white cloud through which we descended reminded me of Roald Dahl's description of the habitat of the Cloud People in "James and the Giant Peach" - glimpses of posh beachside resorts and stretches of impossibly blue water were revealed among the white walls and alleys. A blur of resorts, dazzling reflections of sunlight, the thump of the landing gear, and the howl of the reversed thrust and we were racing along the runway of Princess Juliana Airport.
Walking down the jetway onto the tarmac had a wonderfully retro feel. We boarded a bus for a laughably brief (100 yards?) trip to the terminal. The air felt wonderfully warm - it was delightful to feel a breeze that didn't cut through one like a refrigerated knife. The fact that both ATM machines in the terminal building were broken made us immediately regret not obtaining local currency stateside. We knew, however, that American dollars are accepted all over the island and we had enough to hire a taxi for the ride to Orient Bay.
We were the only passengers in a twelve-passenger van driven by a jovial gentleman. Reggae versions of popular songs blared from the radio. Five minutes into the ride and I decided that, for terror and craziness, this was the prizewinner - the Vancouver and Rome cabbies had met their match. Our driver swerved around slower-moving vehicles with inches to spare, often crossing into the oncoming traffic lane to do so. Unhelmeted, shirtless scooter riders wove in and out between us and oncoming cars. Pedestrians hurled themselves into the street, seemingly without looking either way. We screeched to a halt inches behind the vehicle in front when traffic stopped at one of the innumerable roundabouts. I had only a vague notion of gorgeous scenery passing by the windows - I could swear I allowed myself only three lungfuls of air during the twenty-minute ride over the hills and switchbacks to Orient Bay.
Patricia had told us that there was a little shopping area with a group of restaurants a short walk from the hotel. We made our way there after showering and dressing. After inspecting the menus among the palm trees and multicolored lights of "Orient Place", we selected "Le Piment" and were shown to a table under a canopy. Our energetically friendly server convinced Paul to get a seafood linguini which he very much enjoyed - I had a white pizza with mushrooms, bacon, and parsley. Delicious. Dinner was washed down with lashings of "El Presidente", a beer from the Dominican Republic. Throughout the meal, we enjoyed the warm breeze which was to continue unabated throughout the entire vacation. We walked back to the hotel with our takeaway boxes and rounded out the first day by reading in bed.
The Holy Grail of Maho arrivals is the daily KLM flight - a massive 747-400 in the bright blue livery of that Dutch airline. We weren't to see it that day - I can't remember if we'd consulted the schedule or not, or if we asked someone else on the beach, but it was not to be. That being said, even the smaller Boeings and Airbus jets were an awesome sight. A speck would become visible in the sky to the West and, as it grew in size, a flurry of exclamations would run through the crowd, and people who wanted to be directly below the approaching plane would scurry over to the stretch of beach opposite the center of the runway. As it neared, the wings and engines would become discernible and the type and size of aircraft would become more apparent - the bigger the plane, the more excited chatter it would generate in the crowd on the beach. Closer and closer, the roar of the jets would increase, the motion of the plane would change from simply growing larger, to lateral movement as it passed over the beach, the umbrellas, the perimeter road, fence, to disappear behind the huge warning sign and land in a screech of tires. It really was an awesome spectacle. We stayed on the beach for a couple of hours and watched I don't know how many planes land and take off. Most were smaller island-hoppers - I particularly liked the colorful liveries of the Caribbean Airlines and Liat planes.
