Ralph Oswick: Looking forward to Caribbean adventures
My lecky bike gets me almost everywhere and consequently my OAP bus pass has literally faded away in my pocket.
Which is a good thing in that the photograph thereon was probably the grumpiest, most doublechinned serial killer look-alike version of me ever seen.
With the safety of other passengers in mind, it’s a wonder the drivers ever let me on the bus!
I say my bike gets me almost everywhere, but no airline will carry an electric bike at the moment. Something to do with health and safety and massive batteries.
They are out of date as the latest batteries, even on my bottom end of the market steed are compact and very safe. Mine is no bigger than a can of lager, and far less likely to explode.
This is annoying, as having won a holiday in the Caribbean in May (Jammy is my second name) I was hoping to pootle round the palm tree lined lanes at my ease.
Caribbean taxis are expensive and may as well display the sign ‘Saw You Coming’.
The drivers seem to have a hidden radar as having dropped you at your chosen destination, they just happen to pass when you emerge several rums later.
And then you belong to them for the rest of your holiday.
One such chap in the tiny island of Carriacou last year developed this technique further.
He seemed to know exactly where we ended up each night and would send in his twelve year old daughter who would lurk doe-eyed holding up a laminated taxi sign on a stick.
Once we were waiting at a bus stop miles from anywhere and we suddenly realised she had materialised on the opposite side of the road, sign in hand, staring at us like a Midwich Cuckoo.
Taxi man was parked in a layby round the corner.
In May I’ll revert to using the dirt cheap island buses.
Most tourists avoid this as it involves hailing a speeding mini- van emblazoned with names such as ‘Praise Bee’ or ‘Helta Skelta’ and actually having to converse with strangers. But I love it.
No matter how full the vehicle, they will try to squeeze you in, resulting in some pretty physical juxtapositions.
There’s always yet another little folding seat just big enough for one buttock and off we go at a terrifying rate, white knuckles clamped to the seat in front.
On one occasion in Dominica this little seat was at the very back of the bus.
Approaching my hilltop stop, I did the statutory bang on the roof to warn the driver, who instantly applied the brakes halfway up the practically vertical slope.
Try as I might, crammed in and bent double, I couldn’t get out of the bus.
Eventually, every single passenger got involved with pulling, pushing, shouting instructions and unloading bags and boxes and even themselves onto the verge in order to extricate this stout party, much to the amusement of the ever-gathering crowd of onlookers.
The number four to Larkhall it is not!