TORTOLA DRIVING

I have found heaven. And it is called the British Virgin Islands.

After twenty-four and a half hours of traveling (we drove away from the house at noon on Monday and arrived on 4:30 Tuesday, but they are 4 hours ahead) I along with Shonah my daughter, and Amy the wonderful makeup girl that I often work with and call my on-set daughter (who had jumped at the chance of an all-expenses paid trip to the Caribbean in exchange for doing hair and makeup for the bridal party) arrived tired but very happy on Beef Island. Beef Island is connected to Tortola with a short bridge and houses the airport and a lovely stretch of beach called Trellis Bay where my daughter and I would later take the North Sound Express ferry to Virgin Gorda for the second week of our get-away.

The last flight of three connections was from Puerto Rico in an 8 seater Cessna. When we checked in we were told that the flight was overbooked but, not to worry, they would bring in as many pilots as needed and made sure everyone had a seat on one of their many aircraft standing by. We collected our checked-in luggage from the flight from Atlanta and handed it over to the agent for Cape Air. As she tagged those bags she asked for my carry on luggage, the piece of luggage containing all of my clothing for the trip except for one swim suit, including my outfit for the wedding. It also contained various elements of decorations and favours for the reception; ribbon, a wax seal kit, place card holders, some of the little white sand pails to hold the goodies at each place setting, and some of the goodies such as tiny bottles of maple syrup (representing Canada) and tins of tea (representing England)... that sort of thing. I had joked earlier that, should anyone try to force me to check it, they would have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands. Now this agent was looking at me and expecting me to just hand it over.

"Oh , I won't be checking this," I declared, "it contains very important items for a wedding and I cannot risk it getting lost."

"Well you are flying on a Cessna and there is nowhere for you to stow it in the cabin. It has to be checked and go in the back of the plane with the rest of the luggage. " She said with some sympathy.

"I'm sorry, there has to be a way I can keep it with me." I said as I gripped the handle tighter, not sure why - just in case she tried to snatch it off of me perhaps?

"It has to be checked."

I looked at my daughter for help and she shrugged. "If it has to be checked, mom, then it has to be checked."

I very reluctantly handed it over and watched her every move to make sure it was tagged properly. She then placed it alongside Shonah and Amy's bags and assured me that it would get on the plane just fine. With a longing look back at it, I tried really hard to believe her as I walked away.

Amy boarded the first of the three flights it would take to get everyone booked over to Tortola, and Shonah and I waited another 20 minutes for the pilot of the third overflow plane to arrive. When we climbed aboard, we were just three passengers.

After a breathtakingly beautiful flight across the azure Caribbean Sea dotted with lush green islands circled with white beaches, we landed at Beef Island Airport and made our way into the small terminal. Amy was waiting for us with our luggage piled at her feet. We were to meet my son Christopher and his girlfriend Izzy there as they had arrived on their flight connection from Dallas about two hours earlier and so, in a hurry to get going, I grabbed my big case and as my daughter grabbed hers scanned the pile for my smaller carry on. It wasn't there.

"Your carry on didn't come with my plane." Amy said.

"You have got to be kidding me." Was all I could say. I didn't want to think about the possibility of it having been left behind or put on the wrong flight. "Let's get through customs and then we can talk to the agent for Cape Air. Maybe it came on my plane."

We breezed through customs; and I will mention here that the Immigration Officer hit on my daughter saying something about the first pretty face he had seen all day - this after checking me through not 3 minutes before, the nerve of him!. It became a regular occurrence for her throughout the entire length of our stay, no matter how brief the encounter. She found it flattering at first, then amusing, then tiring and finally downright annoying. She doesn't get that sort of attention from guys at home, so it was funny for me to observe. (And yet Amy, who has to knock the guys off with a stick at home was virtually ignored the whole week. Maybe it's Shonah's blond hair, fair skin and the fact that the girl has some serious curves? I don't know.)

I headed to the Cape Air desk while the other two went off to find my son and Izzy, and it was there that I got my first taste of Caribbean laid-back, 'no problem' attitude. I did my best to calmly impress upon the happy fellow the importance of finding and retrieving the luggage ASAP - without allowing the huge well of frustration, panic and some anger that was forcing its way up my throat from a churning stomach to influence the words I used (such as 'There were THREE of us on the plane. How could you imbeciles lose luggage when you had just THREE passengers??') or resorting to threats (such as 'Look Buddy! I realize this is the laid-back Caribbean and all but if that luggage isn't here in time for the wedding you'll be laying DOWN for a long time), as that just gets you deliberate indifference. So I kept a smile on my face and even managed to crack a joke or two. He responded very well and assured me it would be on the next flight over from Puerto Rico which would be in half an hour and that he would put it in a taxi to our villa the second it landed. I told him I would call from the rental car office in half an hour to make sure it had arrived.

Meanwhile, Christopher and Izzy had been located and everyone was loading all of the luggage in a courtesy van which then took us the 30 minute drive to the car rental agency. When we arrived, there were only three cars parked in the lot and none were the one I had reserved. Turns out, it was still being used and wouldn't be ready until tomorrow so we were given a small SUV and a compact car. This meant I would have to drive, something I was hoping I could put off until I had a chance to experience the challenge of driving on the left side of the car on the left side of the road up and down steep hills with killer switch-backs from the comfort of the passenger seat. No such luck.

Once we had sorted out the cars I called the airport. The bag had not arrived. He assured me it would be on the next flight. Amazingly, I kept the frustration out of my voice as I told him I would call again in an hour.

The car rental agent asked if we knew where we were going and I told her I had directions to our villa but only one set so the two cars would have to stay together. She offered to have the fellow who drove us from the airport lead us in the white van. We gratefully accepted and piled into the vehicles. Just as we were setting off, I realized that she had said she wanted both cars returned with full gas tanks. I hopped back out of the car.

"We have two vehicles through no fault of our own," I explained, "so I won't be filling both back up. I will return this one full and the other will be whatever is left." I had read about the steep gas prices on this tiny island and so wasn't falling for that. She agreed and I jumped back in the SUV. The white van and the compact car with my son and Izzy were nowhere in sight. I put the car in drive and headed down the road, remembering to stay to the left, as fast as I dare go on the narrow street. To no avail. They were gone and so we were on our own. "Pull out the directions." I told Shonah, who was riding shotgun. The owner of the villa had sent us very detailed written directions from the airport to the villa and I had them in a folder with other information we needed on this trip.

The girls were fascinated with the Caribbean architecture and the bright colors of the houses. "I am judgmental when I see a house painted these colors in East Vancouver." Amy declared. Here, they were charming. They were busy snapping pictures as I tried to stay calm, stay left, and not think about the killer hills ahead of us.

I don't like the unknown. If I am to go into something or somewhere I haven't been before, I do a lot of research. I get a lot of grief about it from my kids. But it's just the way I am. So, in the months before this trip, I had spent hours on the internet and had Google Earthed the place until I knew every road. I had seen YouTube videos people had taken while driving the roads [that should tell you something about them right there], I had studied maps and read accounts. And what I had learned was that the terrain on all of the British Virgin Islands but one goes straight up from the beach. Even some of the beaches go uphill. And the roads were in poor repair for the most part with pot holes, speed bumps and, it bares repeating, killer hairpin turns. Residents drive at dangerous speeds going up and down the hills and sometimes even overtake other vehicles on blind corners. I had read of the many accidents that occur, some leading to death. I was informed. And freaked out.

We got to the one big roundabout in the main center of the island, Road Town, and counted the exits till we got to the third one and veered left onto the main thoroughfare. After a couple of blocks we came to a T intersection and turned right, the girls yelling 'KEEP LEFT' as I made the turn. The next direction on the sheet said 'turn right up Joe's Hill'. Only thing was, the hill was on the left. We came to a road that had a street sign but half of it was broken off and it just read '...Hill'. "That's it!" I cried and made a sharp turn left. "NO!" Shonah cried out, "You're supposed to turn right. The directions say right."

"They're wrong." I said. "There is no hill on the right, and the sign said '...Hill' so it has to be this. Besides, I recognize this turn from Google Earth and it leads up to the ridge that will take us across to the other side."

"I don't think so mom. You're gonna get lost."

That freaked me out. That and how steep the road was and the blind curve ahead that looked like it went straight into a jungle.

"Ok, I'll turn around." I said and took a narrow, steep road on the left that looked more like a driveway. I could see there was a house or two up ahead and figured I could turn around in their driveway. When I got up there, there wasn't much driveway and the road was even narrower. I pulled into the bit of space and could see right away that I didn't have enough room to back up and turn around. "I am going to have to back all the way down this road." I wasn't happy.

I started backing down the steep, narrow road and hadn't gone far when a car came down the hill right at us. Daughter stated the obvious, and I said that he would just have to wait. He came right up onto our bumper and stayed there as I slowly backed down about a hundred yards of narrow road bordered by a rocky face on one side and the tops of trees down a very steep drop off on the other. When I got to the end, I was afraid to back onto the '...Hill' road because I had to back across both lanes to get to the left and I couldn't tell if there was anything coming down the hill from around the curve. The girls yelled to go and that it was all clear, so I just trusted them and gunned it. The car on my bumper screeched around me as soon as there was room and took off down the hill.

It didn't take long for us to realize that the road WAS Joe's Hill and now I had to circle back around somehow and that meant driving through town again from a direction I had no map for. At some point I went to make a right turn at a T intersection. We were on the straight through road. There were three lanes for cars at the T with one car in the middle. Looked like he was on the left to me. Looked like normal Canadian sort of set up to me. So I turned right, into the right lane.... and a car came right at us. I screamed. I think the girls yelled that I needed to stay left. Thoroughly rattled, I backed up - on a busy street mind you, with a LOT of traffic - and drove to the left side and turned. The guy in the middle who had confused me was really angry but the guy who I almost hit just laughed. In the BVI residents cars have a yellow license plate and rental cars have light blue ones. He knew what the problem was. Stupid tourist.

We managed to make it back to "...Hill Road" and once we made the first terrifying hairpin turn, we had no trouble the rest of the way. When we found the road the house was on and I made the turn, a loud "You have GOT to be kidding me!" came from Shonah. And I could see why. The road, again looking more like a single lane driveway, rose up before us at such an steep angle, it was almost like looking at a wall. I floored the gas pedal and the SUV (all 8 cylinders) groaned it's way up and around the sharp bend. The parking area for our cars was immediately on the left after the curve and I pulled into it and shut the ignition of with a huge sigh of relief. Then I realized that the Christopher and Izzy's compact car wasn't there. They set off before us; one could assume they didn't get lost as we did as they had an islander leading them.... so where were they?

To be continued...

LIVING A DREAM

Ask anyone of my kids what my idea of heaven on earth is and they will answer (probably in unison); a white sandy beach, warm aqua blue water, a hammock under palm trees, a good book, and an unending supply of cold fruity drinks (preferably brought to me at regular intervals by a hot 30 something guy with a mop of unruly curly black hair, a Spanish accent, and a look in his eye that clearly says ‘I don’t care if you are 49 and overweight; I want you”). Ok, that last bit they won’t say because no one knows I have thoughts like that, until now that is, but you get the idea – I have dreamed (aloud apparently)about this for a long time. Dreamed, wished, moaned, whined, – whatever.

This past year I FINALLY got to experience it (well - not the Spanish hottie part) and it was as close to heaven as I have ever been. Speaking of which, do you think there will be white sandy beaches in heaven? I sure hope so or eternity is going to seem endless if I can’t go to the beach.

It came about like this: I was sitting in a local café with another script supervisor, we were working on our respective shows scripts, both of us near exhaustion as a result of a long season on episodic TV. Sixteen hour days and then working all weekend on the upcoming episode had taken it’s toll. I happened to mention to her, as we were slaving over our laptops, that my show was going on hiatus for a week. She said hers was as well. Turned out it was the same week. We looked at each other and at the same time said ‘Want to go somewhere?’ Scripts forgotten, we began searching the internet for a good deal on a vacation - somewhere hot with a fabulous beach. And palm trees.

We ended up buying tickets to an all-inclusive resort in Playa del Carmen, the dream vacation that I always wanted. I was beyond excited. I started counting the days.

It was August. When we got off of the plane I thought the wave of heat I felt slam into my body was from the plane’s engines. Nope. That was the temperature outside. I had NO idea how hot Mexico was in August and, in the one and a half minutes it took to get from the airport exit to the waiting coach, I thought I might pass out from the heat . We did say we wanted somewhere hot. Climbing onto that bus, never had air conditioning felt so great. So delicious. So necessary.

On the drive to the resort I couldn’t stop looking out of the window. All the trees were short and thick, a jungle started where the roadside ended. The highway was surprisingly wide and modern, not sure what I was expecting – a dirt road? The cars and trucks whizzed by in various states of disrepair. I saw a truck loaded down with bricks and five men sitting on top of all of the bricks as it sped by. I shook my head. So crazy.

When we pulled off of the highway at the large stonework gate that marked our resort and started down the long, winding drive I could hardly contain my excitement. Taking in the luscious green gardens resplendent with flowers, palm trees, deep green lawns and – as we drew closer – a huge building that had no front wall, just open to the warm air, my excitement began to build. I could see that it was the main building and was two stories high with a red tile roof and honey colored marble floors. When we left the cool of the bus and walked inside I could hardly watch where I was going as I dragged my suitcase. There were Mayan-type carvings high up on the walls, deep cushioned rattan couches and chairs arranged in groups all around a large glass sculpture, and a long mahogany bar with cute bartenders busy keeping patrons lubricated in the far corner just before the entrance into a large dining room. Lush. Exotic. Luxurious. Fabulous.

We checked in and then headed through the main building and down the pathway to our room. We passed more beautiful gardens with a man made waterfall spilling over golden rocks. The grass on the lawns was thick and coarse and when I stood on it to test it out, my feet sank far down into the prickly leaves; definitely not for walking on. Identical square cottages were spread throughout the grounds, all painted a bright yellow-orange with red tiled roofs. We found our cottage close to the main building and climbed the tiled stairs to the second floor. Our room was large and cool and so …Mexican. There was even a tiny gecko on the wall near the air conditioner. We named him Hector and he made an appearance almost every day.

We changed into our swimwear, stuffed our valuables into the tiny safe in the closet and headed down the winding pathway to the pools and beach. The heat and humidity in the air was heavily perfumed with the blossoms on the bushes everywhere. I know my flowers but I had no idea what these were, they were so vibrant and exotic looking. The sensation of breathing in the dense scented air was like nothing I had ever experienced.

The pools were spread out at the end of the pathway, one for children on the left and the other for the grown ups to the right. There were white chaise loungers surrounding each pool and the grown up pool had a swim up bar with a thatched palm roof. Just beyond the pools was the whitest powder sand beach that anyone could ever dream up, the kind I had only seen while drooling over travel magazines. The water beyond was all shades of the most gorgeous blues and greens. I think this is what Enya called Carribean Blue. And this was the Carribean Sea.

Putting my toes into the soft white sand for the first time rates as one of the best experiences of my life. I think it falls somewhere between becoming a mother and eating turkey dinner at Christmas (which are not as far apart on my scale as one might expect). As I stood there in the blazing sun under a tall palm tree that was blowing gently in the warm breeze coming off of the ocean and wiggled my toes in that softest of sand, I wanted to cry. I actually had to fight back the tears. I never thought I would live to see the day. I thought this would always be just a dream. I know it probably sounds superficial but this moment had been one of my most treasured dreams, something I had imagined and lived over and over in my mind when I needed something wonderful to think of. And now here I was, actually living the dream.

It happened again the first time I walked into that azure blue sea and felt water as warm as a bath surround my body. I looked down and saw a school of pure white angelfish swimming in a circle around me and had to fight back tears. Was I really here after all these years of dreaming? Yes I absolutely was.

A dream fulfilled is a miracle.