This year's annual Caribbean Christmas Escape is to the island of St. Martin (containing the Dutch "constituent country" of Sint Maarten and the French "overseas collectivity" of Saint Martin).
Our southbound flight was this morning just before 9 AM (originally scheduled for 8:10 AM) from Philly, so we gathered at the Marriott airport hotel last night to avoid having to wake up around 4 AM and fight traffic.
After getting something to eat, we retreated upstairs to divvy up snack bags for the trip.
We returned some items to one of the cars, and collectively took the opportunity to coach Lauren on how to park (while also moving the car closer).
This morning, we had a lovely view of the Philadelphia Airport before sunrise, as we met at 7 AM to walk across the pedestrian bridge to the terminal.
There was a bit of winter weather, but we weren't significantly delayed, arriving around 2 PM local (it's 1 hour ahead of EST). After enduring a fairly painless, if slow, customs and immigration process, we found the rental shuttle over to Europcar where the adventure began.
Despite having reserved (and prepaid) a van on August 15th, the SXM Europcar did not a van for us. After much patient negotiating and a litany of excuses, the best we could come up with was getting a shuttle to another car rental place (Sax) that had a van for us. It was not at the same price as our 130-days-ago reservation, so I can't wait to fight them on that.
Having watched many people not get their reserved cars every time we've been to the Caribbean, it was only a matter of time before our luck ran out. Given that it's the busiest tourist season of the year, I'm thankful we were able to get a suitable replacement. Also, it's the first rental car we've had that came with cold beer for everyone.
It was about 4 o'clock by the time we finally got transportation. The traffic around the airport was ridiculous, with Google Maps estimating that we'd need 50 minutes to drive the not-quite-5-mile trip to our Airbnb, so we drove in the complete opposite direction in search of a view and something to eat.
Once we escaped the congestion, we stopped at a very local beach bar, just before the border between the Dutch and French sides toward the western edge of the island, called "Dany's".
We spent a solid hour enjoying cultural exchange with a local guy named Mikey ("or you can call me Mickey") while we waited for the food. We were definitely on island time by now, ready or not.
Mikey convinced us all to try a round of the local guavaberry rum, which is a seasonal drink (apparently) enjoyed around Christmastime.
After regaling Mikey with the tale of our recent rental car woes, he gave us his number and told us to contact him next time we visit, and he'd have a car waiting for us when we arrive.
Rudy got conscripted by a group of cornholers who needed a fourth; I believe his team won.
The sun finally dipped into the water around 5:45 PM, right around the time our food was ready.
After scarfing down the food (which was much better than we expected, but somewhat messy and difficult to deal with in the wind), we said our goodbyes and left Dany's.
Still needing more to eat but not in the mood to wait another hour (to say nothing of the lack of bathroom facilities), we followed signs for "dining" across the street to the Porto Cupecoy marina/shopping/condo complex in search of a food.
We ended up with a lovely outdoor table at an Italian restaurant named "Mama".
I have no idea what we're doing tomorrow, but I think we're going to need some time to ease back into 85F-and-humid.
After dinner, we stopped at the Carrefour Express (sort of a mini market, still in Porto Cupecoy) just before they closed for some basic supplies to hold us over for a day or so.
It was around 8 PM as we carried our haul back to the car in a cardboard box, at which point the traffic was mostly abated. It was still heavy around the airport, however, so we continued over to the French side to do an end-around part the worst of it.
It still took about 30 minutes to cover the 8 or 9 miles toward the outskirts of Philipsburg (the capital of the Dutch half) in search of our Airbnb.. After a few switchbacks to get most of the way up the hill, we encountered a rather-steep driveway up to the house. The minivan wasn't quite up to the task of conquering the incline, even after several rubber-burning attempts. I did an awkward five-point turn in the narrow road and tried again in reverse, eventually succeeding in navigating the dark driveway with the help of the backup camera. All passengers were simultaneously horrified and impressed.
We unloaded all of our luggage and groceries, requiring several trips up and down the stairs, explored the Airbnb, and settled in the for night.
The view in the (very) dark isn't very impressive, but it looks like it will be promising.
Normally I'd propose going out to explore the map, but the main part of the island (not counting the loop around Simpson Bay Lagoon that we did today) is only about 5 miles by 7 miles, so we'll see almost all of it organically just be driving to the various things we plan to see in the next few days.
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