St. Maarten / St. Martin

We arrived back in Ormond Beach on Sunday. I wrote this several days ago. It already feels like a long time since we've been there.

Ports of Call

Marigot, St. Martin

We arrived in St. Maarten around 7 a.m. had breakfast and waited for the go ahead to leave the ship. Around 8 a.m. we decided to go investigate, since we had an 8:30 tour lined up. People were leaving the ship for the day so we followed. We later found out that the all clear to disembark wasn't given until 9 a.m. Had we waited we would have missed our tour departure. Just another example of the inconsistency of Carnival.
Our tour guide, Rafael (spoken with many rolling RRRRRRRs) was funny and genuinely appreciative of us tourists. He was not the only person to tell us how much the locals depended on the cruise ships. Here in St. Maarten there is no agriculture and no industry. It is only tourists that keep them going. Likewise, in St Thomas our guide told us that October to April was "lobster season", we being the lobsters. After April, he said, it's family time. In other words, they make babies.

We did the bus excursions on St. Maarten/St. Martin and St. Thomas both to save time and to get more of a flavor for the two islands. It is really a shame that the cruise ships do not put into port for more than a day. I haven't figured out the rationale other than to lock the passengers onto the ship for drinking and gambling over night. If they let us off into port at night we might spend money off the ship. Who knows, some of us might even get lost and not come back.

But if we spent a night in a port we would be able to take the quicky bus tour and then get a more in depth feel for the area on the 2nd day.

St. Maarten on left, St. Martin on right

St. Maarten/St. Martin is unique. As Rafael succinctly put it, "One island, two countries, one people". It has a remarkable variety of ethnicities in its population. He rattled off statistics from the last census that sounded amazing. If I am remembering correctly the population was around 102,000, divided roughly 60/40 between the Dutch side and French side. I think he quoted a figure of 100 different ethnic groups represented in that population. The reason is that the island's history is one of constant occupation, expulsion, re-occupation and settlement by various tribes and countries. It was originally settled by the Arawaks, an Amerindian tribe from South America. They were peaceful farmers, who got booted out by the more warrior like Caribe tribe, for whom the Carribean is named. Then there is a long history of the Spanish, French, Dutch and English, in and out and back and forth. Finally it came down to the French and Dutch each laying claim, and in 1648 they decided to split the island between them, but the boundary line was not finalized until 1815. Today there are monuments on the road noting the passage from the Dutch side to the French side, but there are no gates or guards. There are two separate governments, however. Separate police forces, etc. The French police come from France. Rafael's bus has two horns, a Dutch horn and a French horn. There was an accident on the French side and the ambulance that passed us had the typical European wah-wah type of siren.

The language on the French side is predominately French, of course. The language on the Dutch side is predominately English. We were dropped off at the market in Marigot where we had about 45 minutes to shop. About 10 minutes of which was spent finding and waiting in line for a rest room. Make that 20 to 25 minutes for the ladies. Marigot is the capital of the St. Martin and has many trendy boutiques and cafes.

One of the few pleasures of shopping in these markets is the chance to find a truly locally made, well made,  piece of art or craft. The market in St. Martin had several such vendors. Unfortunately I hemmed and hawed and didn't buy what I should have and by the time I decided that it would be nice to have a couple of hand painted tiles it was too late. We were back on the bus and Rafael was tooting the French horn to warn he was leaving.

By the way, the French side uses the Euro, and some places will give you parity with the dollar. Both sides accept the dollar. The Dutch side has its own currency and it may be the Dutch guilder, I'm not sure.
Rafael took us back to Philipsburg, the capital of the Dutch side, minus 3 people who didn't listen for the French horn. He warned us.

Philipsburg is much smaller than Marigot. It has 4 streets. It used to only have two, Front Street and  Back Street. They added two more streets to handle all the traffic. Rafael told us that Front Street is where all the tourist boutiques are, and Back Street is where the locals shop for all their daily needs. Nothing is grown on St. Maarten because there is no soil. Everything they eat except for some local fish is imported from nearby islands.

Salt Harvesters

This is a small but telling detail about St. Maarten. Most monuments that governments erect are of famous presidents or generals on horseback. St. Marteen has roundabouts, and in those roundabouts are statues of a beloved bus driver, a school teacher, and a successful butcher. Another has a Rocky like figure breaking the chains of slavery. Another is of the salt harvesters, one of whom was a woman who worked the salt fields for over 40 years. They were slaves, and when slavery was abolished in the mid 19th century the bottom fell out of St. Marteen's economy and stayed that way for nearly 100 years.