Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
Originally posted 1/28/26
We are still in St. Maarten’s, a lovely island that is home to two different governing bodies, (France and Holland) cultures, languages, and monetary denominations. We didn’t know much about any of those things, so we decided to take a tour and the tour guide showed up almost on time. He introduced himself as Glen. He owns a taxi service, and knows everything about the island, so much that he calls himself “Doc,” Doctor of St. Maarten’s Information. Cool. Then, he said he was one of 15 members of Parliament on the Dutch side. Even cooler. Fancy that, a member of Parliament driving us around to see the island. It would be like one of our Montana senators, chauffeuring us.
First stop, or more of a traffic jam, was at the airport, or rather the end of the landing strip. St. Maarten’s is an island, meaning landing an airplane can be tight. Doc drove us to the beach/landing strip to see what we could see. The end of the runway starts at the beach, maybe 50 yards inland behind a fence. A small corporate jet airplane was taking off, but the thrill of the moment was the thousand or more people standing on the road, waiting for the exhaust blast. People in bathing suits and sandals, cameras and iPhones, police, watching one of the multi-million-dollar airplanes take off, with the possibility of blowing one of the watchers off the island or maybe blasting a bikini off a watcher. A sign read “Caution. Jet blasts can knock you over, can cause death.” Maybe not the exact words, but you get the gist.
Doc gave a great tour, talking about anything and everything and spoke so fast I was sorta left behind. The roads in St. Maarten’s, either the French roads or the Dutch roads, are hilly (and I mean hilly, up and down, all around the town), mostly in some stage of disrepair, but I’m not complaining. Their main industry is tourism, with 25,000 tourists at any given time. The Dutch started out mining salt, but that has gone by the wayside. They use the octagon signs in red as suggestions, not rules, and we had a few close calls, but he is a member of Parliament, so it probably didn’t matter and we got back to the hotel unscathed. As we toured, Doc emphasized the many rock walls and historical buildings which were “slave walls.” Slavery ended in St. Maarten’s in 1886, about twenty years after the USA.
Our meal was wonderful, nothing fancy, but the atmosphere made up for it. He pulled up in front of a beachfront restaurant, crammed with people and a line outside. Doc stopped in the middle of the street in front of the restaurant, and yelled, “Rosie! Hey Rosie, these folks are mine. Take care of them.” Rosie gave him a nod and shoved a whole lot of people out of the way and in a jiffy, we were seated at table, not too clean, not too dirty.
Smoke filled the open-air café with pungent odors of meat being cooked over a charcoal fire and Cowboy grabbed the menu obviously hunger crazed and pointed at the first thing and said “one of these, a order of Plantains, Cole slaw and wine for the lady.” Before I had a chance to even sit down. “Easy Cowboy, they aren’t going to run out.”
Our hotel is on a protected bay with a deep-water port and the boats rolling in and out made our day. Twenty or more huge yachts are docked along with five cruise ships that replaced the three that were docked yesterday but left last night. We went shopping with a few thousand other people and found treasures galore. I replaced my Apple watch with one like Elvis Presley wore, so I am good to go, except for the guitar, Rock & Roll songs, and blue suede shoes. Cowboy also bought a watch, which does nothing but tell time…no photos, blood pressure gizmo, not even an alarm or the date. Can you imagine?
Warm weather, sandy beaches and gorgeous sunsets framed our days, long walks while holding hands and talking about nothing and everything consumed our time and soon our days wound down, it was time to go. Goodbye, St Maartin, we will be back, God willing.
