Note: This blog post is one of four about a visit to Grand Bahamas Island in January 2016.
Travel can be hard work—the long lines, constantly ignoring other people being rude, sitting in extremely uncomfortable positions for long periods of time and hurrying up just to wait—but most of the time your efforts are worth it when you reach your destination.
The photo bomber.
When we stepped off the airplane, our first steps in the Bahamas, the warmth put a smile on both of our faces. It was time to strip off the sweatshirts and warm up or winter skin. While others booked it into the terminal to work on getting out of the airport, we took our time, took some selfies and waited for the lines to die down.
Then the adventure started. As we exited the airport, we asked for a taxi and we were presented with J and his dilapidated version of a taxi. I knew not to expect the finest vehicle, but was hoping at least the door handles worked without some sort of magic trick. Alas, we had to wait to be let into the vehicle as well as to be let out of the vehicle. Ok, tolerable. But the driving antics of this “professional” left much to be desired. He was all over the road, even with oncoming traffic in the very near distance. There were several times that Corey looked at me with the “this guy is going to kill us” look, maybe even followed by a slightly different “what did you get me into?” look. The best I could do was plaster a smile on my face, ignore the terrible driving habits and try to think happy thoughts about the beautiful beach I couldn’t wait to explore at our resort. Later I found out that Corey had a better view of our driver and his broken steering wheel. I guess the thing moved in all sorts of directions—in and out, up and down, not just left and right.
The stormy shore
The sun was out briefly as we meandered our way from the airport to the hotel, a 20-minute ride. We unloaded at the hotel around 1 p.m. and had two hours until we could officially check into our room. We left our bags at the front desk and headed for the bar. We grabbed our mojitos and walked toward the beach, getting the lay of the resort. The wind was absolutely terrible, blowing sand in our eyes and ears (what a feeling!). We weren’t exactly dressed for the beach, having flown out of Madison at 5:30 a.m. in below-freezing temps with some snow flurries.
We were able to do a little shell collecting in the afternoon, after getting into our room, and were chased back to the resort by a storm cloud. The rest of the evening was rain showers or downpours off and on. The next day featured more of the same. We were able to roam the beach just in front of the resort before another storm rolled in. It was worth it; we found a great shell collection.
The hotel