Driving on St Barts

No one prepared us for driving on St. Barths either. After grabbing your bags, you will proceed to the open air portion of the terminal. The car rental companies are all to your right, past the ticket counters. As daunting as the prospect of driving on narrow roads winding their way up and down volcanic mountains with very few guardrails may be, you have no choice. As noted above, there are no all-inclusive resorts on St. Barths, and you must therefore drive virtually everywhere. Moreover, many of the best restaurants and beaches are accessible only by car. In addition, once you master it, it is truly exhilarating, and the vistas around each (very sharp) turn are spectacular.

There are essentially three choices of vehicle: the classic but soon to be extinct Mini Moke (an open-air dune buggy affair which rides very low to the ground); a more conventional jeep albeit on a much smaller scales than jeeps in the U.S.; and a very colorful and chic newcomer to the roads of St. Barths-- the Smart car which is the result of a joint venture between BMW and Swatch. In addition to being very stylish, the Smart car also comes equipped with automatic transmission which can save you from having to get arthroscopic surgery on your left knee upon returning home from all of that clutch work going up and down the mountains. Despite its obvious appeal, however, we have always taken a pass on Smart cars and rented jeeps or Vitarainstead. We do this for one very simple reason: four-wheel drive, a very comforting feature on the not infrequent occasions when, while navigating a hairpin turn, you need to position yourself so that your outside wheels are on a dirt or gravel shoulder, just inches from a vertical drop of hundreds of feet, in order to make room for an oncoming vehicle. And as noted above, the French on St. Barths, like daredevil trapeze artists who scorn safety nets, seem to prefer driving without guard rails.

Don’t even think of renting a motorcycle. These are reserved for the impossibly young, tan and good-looking residents of the island. The young men race around, often just inches from your rear bumper as you scratch and crawl your way up a steep hillside (just learn to ignore them and let them pass), with a lit cigarette dangling from their lips; the young women traverse the island in miniskirts and bikini tops looking like they have just ridden out of the pages of Vogue. On more than one occasion we have seen a motorcycle rider with a dog standing with its front paws on the handlebars. You cannot imitate these people as they are superior beings from a superior place. Instead, just observe them and savor the moment.

The first time we arrived on St. Barths, it was pouring rain (it really doesn't rain that often although we have found the weather in December to be a little unpredictable), and we naively set out on what for St. Barths is the very long drive to our hotel in Grand Cul de Sac. The first thing we noticed was that the jeep-- ours was a Suzuki Samurai-- had almost no acceleration. This became immediately relevant as we attempted to exit the airport parking lot with a steady stream of cars and motorcycles bearing down on us from the hill which makes landing on St. Barths so thrilling. We quickly realized that neither the cars nor the traffic patterns were for the feint of heart and switched to driving habits that we normally reserve for cities like Boston and New York. The challenge of driving is heightened by the lack of power steering (at least in the jeeps). No need to bring the Bowflex machine from home-- in just days you will add inches of rock-hard muscle to your chest and arms. Guaranteed or your money back!

The trip to our hotel took us through the towns of St. Jean and Lorient. St. Jean is a very bustling place with lots of hotels, shops and restaurants. There are no parking lots to speak of, so it is frequently necessary to snake one's way through a gauntlet of cars parked on both sides of the road. Signage is very small, which adds to the aesthetic appeal of the island to be sure, but inevitably leads the newcomer into making innumerable wrong turns. Not to worry. Remember that the island is very small-- no more than 8 square miles -- so you can never be that far away from your intended destination. Lorient is less congested but is the start of some very exciting climbs and switchbacks en route to Vitet, Pointe Milou, and the Petit and Grand Cul de Sacs.

In addition to the rain we encountered on our first drive on St. Barths, there was also road construction on one of the steep hills outside of Lorient. Road construction and repair is a very casual affair on St. Barths with work on the same relatively short stretch of roadway often spanning, say, a winter visit and a return trip in the spring. Perhaps the road crews are merely perfectionists striving to make each repair just so, but to the outsider there is a marked lack of urgency to their efforts. There is also a lack of organization.

Accordingly, we were essentially left to our own devices in deciding how to navigate a steep uphill climb where the already very narrow road (the widest roads on St. Barths are no wider than a single lane on a typical American highway and most are significantly narrower with well worn ruts on the shoulders providing the margin necessary for two oncoming cars to pass one another without incident) had been reduced to one lane. We sat at the foot of the hill for several minutes, frozen by our confusion and mounting fear, without receiving any kind of signal from the men working on the road. When it became obvious that no signal would be forthcoming, we made a run for it, gunning our Suzuki up the hill and to the relative safety of the road where it returned to two lanes. Miraculously, we made it to the hotel a few minutes later and vowed never to leave, but of course we quickly broke that vow and were glad we did.

The point about driving in St. Barths is that is it very different from driving anywhere else and takes getting used to. Truth be told, we were a little wimpy on our first trip and did not go out at night nearly as much as we do now preferring the safe confines (and the excellent food) at our hotel. This was a mistake. Navigating the roads in St. Barths is an easily acquired skill and well worth the effort. Most of the drivers you encounter are very polite. The roads are particularly quiet at night so there should be no concern about driving to the myriad restaurants scattered throughout the island. You will never achieve speeds in excess of 40-45 kilometers an hour (you do the math-- that's approximately 25 mph) even though it feels much faster than that. The advantage of driving up and down mountains is that there are awe-inspiring vistas at almost every turn. Most importantly, learning to drive in St. Barths is a little like the first time you swam to the raft at the lake where your family took vacations when you were a kid, or any other kind of initiation rite. Once mastered, there is a sense of exhilaration and belonging.

The "average" day in Paradise

My wife and I have a routine when we arrive in St. Barths now which consists of getting our Suzuki and driving immediately to the beach at Saline (which is accessible by climbing and descending a very steep hill behind St. Jean). It takes us no more than 15 minutes after landing to be on the beach. We are careful to pack our suits and towels at the top of our suitcases for easy access. We then walk to the left side of Saline (the sun sets to the right of the beach as you face the water producing a shadow which runs from right to left), plunge into the water, and savor about an hour of sunshine before setting off for our villa or hotel, covered with salt and sand, and completely at peace.

 

Our typical day on St. Barths follows a fairly predictable pattern. We usually try to start with some exercise to eliminate any guilt about the indulgences which follow. We make two trips to the beach a day -- in the middle of the morning and afternoon respectively -- and each for no more than an hour or two. We eat out frequently (how else to sample the extensive array of extraordinary restaurants?). We read a lot. We sleep a lot. If we feel particularly energetic and motivated, we go to Gustavia or St. Jean late in the afternoon for a little shopping or to check out some art galleries. We make frequent trips to local shops to maintain a constant supply of cheese, bread, wine and rhum in our villa or hotel room which we consume each evening at sunset on our deck or terrace. Sometimes we get an in-room massage. Sometimes we will go to a club like Le Ti after dinner for a little music and dancing (be forewarned: the music and dancing at Le Ti are frequently anything but “little”).

Sound dull? Maybe it is, but we are never bored and never want to leave, as the magic of St. Barths is what it does to you internally which is far more profound and lasting than any kind of external stimulation. We have a running joke on St. Barths which consists of an imaginary dialogue between our two Golden Retrievers who observe our daily activities with mounting anxiety as we wrestle with such weighty decisions as whether to go to Saline or Gouverneur or hike to Colombier in the afternoon and whether to eat at Andy's Hideaway, Maya's or La Langouste in the evening. Truth is that worry and anxiety, like chiens mechants, have no place on St. Barths and dissipate quickly upon arrival. There are no bad choices in terms of how you spend your day.

It brings to mind a story told by an acquaintance from Georgia about vacationing on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. He returned to the same house each summer and set up a rocking chair on the porch which had sweeping views of the ocean. He explained that he would sit there for a couple of days, doing absolutely nothing but staring at the ocean, until the chair began to rock at which point he knew he was on vacation. Similarly, you will know you are on vacation in St. Barths when after a couple of days—or even hours!—you succumb to the rhythm of the place and reconnect to long dormant emotions, passions and, most importantly, the person you are with.

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