Stepping off the plane at Queen Alia Airport in Jordan, it struck me immediately that I had significantly underestimated the heat. I'd read the forecasts, of course, but they'd seemed quite abstract until I was actually marinating beneath a sun intense enough to weld my T-shirt to my spine before I’d even reached passport control.
So, after sixteen days cruising the Caribbean, we found ourselves back on the sunlit shores of Barbados, the island where our colourful voyage had first begun. With our flight home not until the evening, it seemed entirely fitting—indeed almost compulsory—to dedicate our remaining hours to the pastime most famously synonymous with Barbados: the enthusiastic consumption of rum.
By the time we reached Dominica—our final new nation of the trip—levels of ‘cruise fatigue’ resulting from too much food, too little sleep, and an endless supply of Heineken were at an all-time high.
Following the serenity of Sint Maarten, we arrived in a far more energetic Saint Kitts, one half of the Caribbean nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. The first impression from outside the cruise terminal was a curious blend of Britishness in the tropics—red phone boxes, iron lampposts, and Georgian-era facades painted in sorbet colours.
We arrived in Antigua in a state best described as “recently embalmed,” courtesy of the cruise ship's rather ridiculous all-you-can-drink policy. There was a hopeful yet thoroughly unrealistic belief between us that the fresh Caribbean breeze might magically erase last night's liquid excesses.
After a week merrily hopping around the southern Windward Islands, our second began further north among the Leeward Islands, landing first at the intriguing—and delightfully perplexing—Saint Martin.
After a whirlwind week exploring the southern reaches of the Caribbean, we found ourselves back in Bridgetown, Barbados—our basecamp, if you will, and not at all an unpleasant place to pause while a fresh influx of pale, enthusiastic British cruisers replaced those departing.
Another day, another island—although, unusually for this trip, one still firmly tethered to Europe. Unlike many British Overseas Territories, which enjoy a comfortable distance from Westminster and significant autonomy, Guadeloupe is an official department of France, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Paris, Rhône, and Hauts-de-Seine.
Saint Lucia, our fourth Caribbean country in four increasingly consuming days, offered something a little different from the usual island-tour-and-rum-punch routine we'd lavishly grown accustomed to.
Before European explorers inevitably blundered onto its shores, Saint Vincent went by the considerably catchier name "Youloumain," given by the indigenous Carib people.
