Day One - January 26, 2007

Our plane landed at the airport are large Bahamian about 10 am. A few minutes later a minibus had picked up us to the Resort Viva Fortuna ", which stretches to the ocean just 15 miles from the airport. The road wound along the thickets Bahamian jungle. I've never seen such a forest. High, dry, completely naked poles of pine with long, thin needles at the tops looked like the neck dinosaur, c tiny heads on the tops. Pine (here referred to as the Cuban) stretched along the road, like a palisade. Below growing dwarf palms. Occasionally trees with needles in a very thick long firs. Quickly registering and receiving the keys to the room, lock the safe and enter the code in the free Internet, went to look for your hotel. He was in neskolkimh meters from the beach and near the main entrance of the office building and restaurants. Resort, our attitude to the chain, which are called "all inclusive". It consisted of two desyakov two-storey houses, connected by a bridge that pozvolyalo very easy to move from one hotel to another and get straight to the beach or in a restaurant without going outside. On the territory of the Resort, two swimming pools: one large and one small, as well as a Jacuzzi. For sport is gym and two tennis courts. It was one of those rare instances when the words do not racxodilis with the case. It says "inclusive" - so on. Absolutely everything. Including delivery from the airport to hotel and back. Lunch and dinner can be in two restaurants: the Chinese and Italian. Cooked in them perfectly. Also excellent cook and the restaurant, which operates on the principle of a buffet. They are also called buffets. This diversity, as here, I have not met. Nothing in common with the traditional Chinese buffets. In addition, round the clock run small bars with snacks, juices and cocktails. And all this for free. If the course does not take $ 2000, paid for all the fun. Actually cocktails - is another story. Drinks available to guests around the clock, which creates an atmosphere of euphoria, harakterizuyusheysya, as is known, the state of quiet joy, complacency, serene bliss, and slowing of mental activity. Travelers almost constantly in a state of drunk. Bars await you at every step: at the beach near the Jacuzzi, in the tourist center, a billiard room. It is impossible to see at least one person, regardless of sex, without a glass in his hand: whether they are sitting in the Jacuzzi, play chess there, whether sunbathing on the beach - in the hands of the continued drink. We also did not want to be the exception and set an almost unattainable goal: to try everything cocktails. Since gaining experience, allowing to take part in the TV show "Alcoholics Anonymous". Even if you're not a fan of cocktails, stay sober you is unlikely: in restaurants you are served a bottle, print, and when you poured. The buffet are two barrels of wine: one white - under the fish, the other with a red - under the meat. Here crane to pour the beer. The room is updated daily and filled bar fridge. So hold on, advocates of temperance. You will need a remarkable strength of will, not to sacrifice principles. Leaving behind their belongings and dressed, we ran to the beach. Not one person in the ocean was not.

The sitting in a pool or hot tub, lay in deck chairs or playing chess. Chess tables stood here. The beach was stretched mesh, and a few pairs were playing volleyball. A few people under the guidance of instructors were learning the native dances. Nearby is the boat station. Could hire a Kayak, surfboards, sailboat or catamaran. Also, the mask, aqualung, and full equipment diver diving. Here you are taught how to apply all of these. Also free. Again, given the already paid two thousand. Seeing the players, her husband joined them, and I went into the water. The water was teplyuschaya, white sand, soft as powder, the ocean floor flat, but shallow. I had to go pretty far, until I put her in the reefs. To stand on the coral reefs is strictly forbidden, but I stood there, watching the shoals of striped fish with sharp noses poked into my swimsuit. Fishes were so many that they could collect his hands, but I did not do it, but, after crossing the reefs, swam in the ocean. Heat for the red balloons, caps, I lay on his back and lay down a bit, rocking on the waves ... bliss interrupted by a guy on a water scooter: for buoys to be impossible - it is a violation. And in general better to spend time in the pool. I thought that for him, of course, is better - no need to follow the drowning, but turned back. On the shore was greeted judgmental attitudes fans wallow in the pools. It is not like those who violate the rules. Well, yes I sama do not like them. Approaching the bar, I took a cocktail for myself and one for my husband My husband was rather good at playing chess: at home, he was a candidate for the master. I have never seen him somebody loses. And now he busily made short work with some guy, at first glance rednekom. I waited until the end corporal punishment and went to the table. My husband introduced me to his rival, who was not rednekom, and a pilot from Pennsylvania - Paul. Paul terribly upset because of the loss, and all demanded satisfaction. My husband assured him that one more satisfaction he gets in the evening. We said goodbye to Paul and walked along the shore towards the Spit, which limits our Resort on the part of the channel, which is called the Grand Lucayan Waterway - Great Lukoylsky Water Way, Grand Bahama and divides into two unequal parts. We walked along the deserted shore. To our right was the Atlantic Ocean, on the left - the villa. Nekotorye cost of $ 10 million and stood directly on the beach. There were no fences or other barriers. On the road we met a couple, are walking a dog. They were English and lived in one of the forks, which was built immediately after the hurricane swept over the Bahamas three years ago. Cost them about two million dollars. When asked whether we should be building a house, knowing that storms are raging every five years, his wife said: "The house is insured." I remembered the time when I was about a year lived in southern Alabama where hurricanes and the tsunami is as commonplace as rain in the suburbs. My friend Jenny - owner of a small two-story house, she had received in inheritance waiting for hurricanes, like manna from heaven. She was asleep and saw that the next cyclone finally destroy this ruin, which was impossible to sell, and throw a pity.

If the house has collapsed as a result of the hurricane, she said, getting a decent insurance, could move, finally, to a safer state and buy a new house there. But, ironically, her shack, in spite of all the elements, and contrary to conventional wisdom, standing perfectly still on his rickety foundation, even when around the house littered up the rhizomes ancient pines, and all buildings within a radius of ten kilometers were removed from the face of the earth. ... But to pay 2 million, hoping to get health insurance ... Yes-ah ... life is always a place of heroism ... there is a will ... And I thought that I was already hard with something to surprise ... one of the forks near the Negro, I would even told the Afro-Bahamian, cut off from the towering coconut palms. In his hands was a long stick with a machete at the end, something like a scythe, which peasant mowing the grass in the Russian countryside. Negro deftly cut the fruit, and they fell to the foot of six-meter palm trees. Coconuts were yellow and smooth, like hazelnuts We asked him whether they could have. - You can drink juice, - answered the Negro. - You will become stronger, and the flesh is not. We found a low no man's palm, hung with fruit. I podnapryaglas, sorvala few and breaking a coconut on a stone, easily otorvala cap. Inside was a translucent whitish liquid, quite unlike the usual coconut milk. Husband refused to drink it, and I drank all the content and become stronger. The taste of a drink was slightly sweet and cool. I wanted to become even stronger and others had brought along as a reserve. The husband demanded to throw this poison. Therefore had to bear itself. After reaching the spit, we have not seen anything except a pile of stones - the result of the tsunami. Far away in the ocean, where ended Xhosa, rose stele. Scrambling over the rocks, we hardly got to her. It was a temporary lighthouse standing on the bank of the precipice. Below, on the rocks jutting out of the water was black and fished. Hearing our voices, he did not look back. Fishing is not for tourism in the Bahamas is prohibited. We did not disturb him poachers and turned back. Go back, we decided not to shore, and through the forest, which stretches along the canal, and come to our Resort on the part of the national park, which was supposed to be somewhere nearby. Even coming out of the undergrowth saw the ad, warning that go into the forest is forbidden - is dangerous. We walked along the deserted highway. On the road does not meet a single machine. At the spot where, according to the advertising, was to be "one of the most beautiful botanical gardens of the Caribbean» - Garden of Groves, was a wasteland. Three years ago here fountains, streaming waterfalls, the zoo of exotic animals roamed. Already getting dark when we came to the Resort. On the beach the people photographed the setting sun. Sunset is unusually beautiful. However, it is beautiful everywhere. In the theater stage began with a concert. From the disco was the sound of Latin American music. People reached out to the beach. My husband went to find Paul and I went to the bar, took a drink and returned to the room.

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