Giant mounds of red and golden Sargassum seaweed carpet the beach for as long as the eye can see. Your driver is pointing at the drab hillside in the distance. “That is where we used to play,” he offers in a thick Saint Lucian accent. You provide several conversation starters to fill the awkward silence but they all dead ends after a line or two. Staring out the window, you watch the shrubbery and small houses pass as you drive along Saint Lucia’s southern coastline.
“Here,” he says as he makes the left hand turn into the driveway.
“I don’t think so.” You stare down at your directions. You hadn’t passed the final landmarks and this just seems wrong.
“Yes, dees eez okay,” he nonchalantly responds, the car making its way slowly over the dirt path. A house comes ever closer as a middle-aged woman with European features comes out.
“Can I help you,” she asks as the car comes to a halt. You explain what you are looking for, and that you think you have the wrong address. “Yes, this isn’t what you are looking for. This whole plot of land used to be part of a large estate but now there are different sections of it. However, we have something for the owner of your rental house if you could wait just a minute.”
She calls out to her daughter who comes out with some packaged up item which you have the driver place in the trunk. She explains the directions to the driver who sighs that he has another two minutes added to his journey.
…
The path down to the beach cuts through a new construction lot and across a field of swaying grasses and chirping birds. If the large newly installed gates and walls are any sign, this path will cease to exist, or require legal assistance in the future. But for now, you walk through the stiff breeze which cuts the strength of the hot Caribbean air.
A snaking path cuts through the trees down a slope. Some of it is washed out and you lose your footing easier than not, grabbing onto small saplings and hearty grasses to slow your descent. At the bottom, you snake around a bend and out onto a desolate beach with rock cliffs at either side. Powerful waves crash into a steeply sloped beachhead. Just beyond are the giant piles of golden seaweed.
As you observe the area, one of several helicopters flutter by, most likely honeymooners taking advantage of activities offered by their none-too-Saint-Lucian all-inclusive resorts.
…
The night air is warm, peppered with a mixture of mosquitoes and howling dogs. As the sky darkens, the bugs and barks lessen, leaving the soft breezes—and a handful of petulant mosquitoes¬—floating in through the wood slatted windows.
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