Tag: Ile-a-vache

Oh my goodness, I have fallen in love this weekend! I went snorkeling for the first time at Íle-á-Vache, a small island off the western end of Haiti, and I absolutely loved it. It was so amazing. Who knew there was so much to look at on the bottom of the sea? The colors of the coral and all the fish were mesmerizing. I could have stayed out there all day.

We had a fantastic time at Íle-á-Vache. It was the most perfect vacation. It was one of those experiences that totally reaffirms my love for Haiti. There are parts of it that are just unspeakably beautiful. I am so glad I am getting a chance to see these places while I teach school here. It also makes me really look forward to wherever I go to next in my teaching career.

We left on Friday and drove to the national airport, and after a short half hour flight, we were on the ground in Les Cayes, a city I had never been to. The plane we took over there was the smallest I’ve ever been on, seating only eight people and the pilot. Really small! We got a boat to take us over to Port Morgan on the island of La Vache, and were amazed at the hotel we stayed at. Tom and Sue had the room next to mine, and our friends Jeff and Denise went as well.

Also there that weekend was a group of International Red Cross workers, a few of whom I had met while we were out dancing at Dolce Vita recently, in Petion-ville. We arrived at lunchtime and immediately sat down to try some of the best fish I’ve ever had. After lunch we walked around a bit, swam in the ocean and talked to the guy in the dive shop. We met a couple, Steve and Linda, and their sixteen year old son, who have been boating around the world for the last twelve years. We sat and talked with them for quite a while, enjoying their stories of their adventures. After enjoying the view, and laying in our chaise lounge chairs on our front porch we ate dinner and then sat in our chairs again and drank a bottle of wine we had brought with us.

On Saturday we took a short hike to the most beautiful sandy beach I’ve ever been to. The thing that made it so beautiful was that aside from about four tiki huts, there was absolutely nothing there. On the whole beach was just the five of us, and then about four of the Red Cross workers showed up. That’s it. It was a beach just as beautiful as Turks and Caicos, but with absolutely nothing there to spoil it. We swam in the water for hours and laid on the sand. I went for a little hike and found a small cave and checked it out. Finally it was time to head in, as the sun was quite intense and we all had sunburns. We had an amazing lunch of quiche and salad, and then took naps. That night we all gathered for dinner, and we were invited to a party on a nearby island. A bunch of the Red Cross people were going, and Brian, the dive instructor, said he’d take us over on a boat. So we said what the hell, might as well go, and we all piled into this tiny canoe from Jamaica, and boated over to another island. You really know you’re in Haiti when you have fifteen people in a canoe, and a guy riding up on the bow with a flashlight in his hand for a light (at least we had a motor).

It took us about 40 minutes to boat over to the island, and I chatted with Mark and Onah, two Red Cross guys from Belgium. Finally we made it to this island and we show up at this huge tent made of palm branches woven together and bed sheets and who knows what else. It was like this big Bedouin celebration. There was no electricity on the whole island except this one tent, powered by a generator. From inside we could hear a DJ playing kompah music, and so we paid our 25 gourdes admission price and headed in and danced for the next two hours. They were selling Prestige beer and lakay (homemade) rum and it was quite an interesting night. Apparently they have this party every year on the night before Easter.

On Sunday Tom and Sue and I took a kayak out and rowed over to a point where we were told there was a lot of good coral. Tom and I kayaked and Sue towed along the back in our green air mattress that always goes on beach vacations with us. We snorkeled around for more than two hours and I was enchanted. Tom and Sue kayaked back and I swam, which was a good idea until about halfway across the harbor when I got really tired. But I made it across and snorkeled the whole way. I managed to pull myself out of the water, exhausted, ate some lunch, and we all went to take naps. At lunch, the amazing chef, Alan, invited us to another island party for that night. We said sure, let’s go. Alan is from Spain and he told us the whole story of how we wound up being a chef in Haiti. A very adventurous person.

So that night Denise, Jeff, Tom and Sue and I, along with a couple of the Red Cross people, and Alan and a couple Haitians piled into the same canoe and headed over to another island. Unfortunately the weather was a little rougher, and we couldn’t sail all the way around to the far side of the island so we had to beach the canoe and walk the rest of the way. The guys lit a big palm tree branch on fire and led us over to the party. Instead of a DJ, they had some live Kompa musicians singing, playing guitar, bongoes, drums, etc. Everyone was dancing and drinking warm Prestige beer (no generator this time). I climbed a tree and sat on a branch about six feet off the ground and had an excellent view. There was singing, dancing, some “Haitian smoke”, if you know what I mean, and we had a pretty good time. Of course we were the only blancs there, as we had been the night before. But everyone loved coming over and talking to us and asking us questions. I don’t know if the party was for Easter or what, but we were glad we went to a true island party, out in the middle of nowhere. We left sometime after midnight and made it back to the hotel.

It was tough getting up for our flight home to Port-au-Prince the next day, but waiting at the airport in Les Cayes for two hours under this tree gave us plenty of time to relax and recover from the night before. Ah, Haiti. Who knows what adventures you will bring us next.