5 a.m. Fuck I’m going to be glad when I don’t have to wake up based on a flight schedule. I know that with buses I’m going to have to do similar, but its not going to be imperative that I get there. If I don’t feel like it, then oh well I sleep in and try again next time. Not with plane flights, and also not when you are dependent on these flights to get you to your starting point.

I did shower today because being stuck in a flying fish bowl would not be fair to others if I did not. The back pack was all packed and ready to go so it was a smooth morning. It was about ten minutes after the pick up time that I figured Busta Rhymes had failed me so I started the walk into town to hopefully pick up another ride. Just as I was to set off, he pulled up. There had been a lot of rain that night and there were many land slides where he lived. He was almost not able to get me. We drove and drove, for a hour and fifteen minutes. I had moved up to Portsmouth to reduce my drive time and hopefully cost to the airport, but apparently having to drive the coast line made it about the same equal distance. When we got there, he gave me the bill, $120 E.C., Shit!!! Another $40 dollar hit. God these fucking taxi costs are killing me. $100 U.S. for two taxi drives. Thank god for Bam and him hauling my ass all over the place. Freaking killing me

I hung out at the airport just relaxing. It was another old style building with standard concrete brick walls and 12 layers of crusty paint. The plane finally was ready and we loaded up into my favorite little fish bowl planes. Man, how I love how technology can move so far and were still using airplanes without digital instrument panels. I saw why they had two pilots on these flights because it took two of them to hold the accelerator handle down far enough to get off the ground. The gardeners leaf blower sounded healthier than these fish bowls. My flight path took me to St. Lucia which is the island on the other side of Martinique, which as you might have read in one of my other blurbs is one of my pet peeves. I hate back tracking. It’s like just taking a bit out of my precious life and flushing it down the toilet. At least these flights take only 15-20 minutes between islands. We all shoveled off and waited in St. Lucia’s brick and mortar building. Our next flight came quickly and we were added to a larger plane with people also going to Martinique. After another 15-20 minute flight we landed in Martinique.

Martinique is a little slice of France dashed among the French Indies. It is regarded as the most Cosmopolitan society in the Caribbean. Martinique and the other French islands are considered an overseas department of France. I guess that makes them similar to the States and the Virgin Islands. It is a huge French vacation destination with the whole town being run as if in the center of France. A large portion of Martinique is funded by mainland France, so it receives huge subsidies versus all the other islands.

Immigration was a little bit more of a hassle because the lady just wouldn’t believe me about where I was staying. She asked me in French which I understood, and told her. She said no, don’t understand. I showed her the name on the immigration form. No, she didn’t understand. She gave me another pen and paper for me to write it down. No, she didn’t accept that. I had to dig out my Lonely Planet book and show her the information on the Hotel, and even then she turned the book over to look at the cover. By that point I knew she was just being a bitch, but what ever. The bags still had not arrived at the carousel, so I could care less how long she wanted to play around. Finally, she gave me a stamp and off I went. I grabbed my Back pack and headed to the inspection area. The guy gave me a slightly less of a hassle by only asking me three times if I were bringing anything illegal with me. Uh, no. Still no. I’m sure, no.

Once that was all finished I walked out into the terminal. Now coming from brick and mortar type shacks that most of the Islands called an airport terminal, Martinique’s was kick ass. All fancy with floor to ceiling glass, marble and shiny chrome everywhere. All the fixtures were new and sparkly. It was the fanciest airport that I have ever been in. Everything was just spotless.

I had already assembled a plan of attack. It did help that it wasn’t night time, however, it was surprisingly quiet in the airport. My plan was to deal with the money issue and change to some Euros right away (I was prepared for the ass kicking on that one,) speak to the tourist office about a place to stay, and then grab a taxi. Well, the plan went to hell before I even started. The cash exchange was closed, the tourist lady gave me a magazine with a number to call for reservations, and the only place to get a phone card was at the money exchange. There were three of us off the flight waiting until the guy finally showed up. He helped a south american couple first. When he got to me, the south american couple were having a problem using the phone card so I stood and listened to a non-french speaking couple speaking to a non-spanish speaking guy. They weren’t even close to translating to each other. Finally, the guy just gave up and told me to help them. With my average spanish speaking skills I was able to figure out that the phone number that they were trying to call had too many digits, so I had the French guy figure out which number did not belong. With that the guy exchanged my money. Fucking Euros. I got .79 euros to the dollar. Just fabulous. My $300 US turned into $237 E in a matter of seconds. I bought my card and gave the tourist agency a call. I told them I needed a place for that day and they came back with “we cannot help you if you are there now. We only handle reservations.” Great. I headed back to the tourist office where the lady was just getting off the phone with the tourist agency. She handed me a few brochures with Hotels ranging from $50- $300. “Lots of help”, I was thinking. I knew that she was going to be useless so I grabbed the brochures and headed out to grab a taxi. The first guy I met, I explained to him I needed a cheap place . He said sure no problem, so we were off. The drive was just like being back in the states. Nice and new 6-lane freeways. Tons of brand new cars toiling along. This was not like any island that I had been in before. After about a twenty minute drive we hit the capital of Martinique, Fort-de-France. I had shown the taxi driver my Lonely Planet guide so he took me to the spot of where the cheapest one was at. It was closed, “great,” but I had seen four other hotel signs around that area so I figures I could find one easy enough. I asked for the bill and he said 24 Euros. “What??” Fucking taxi drivers. Just killing me.

Fort-deFrance is the capital of the island and is considered the largest and most Cosmopolitan of the whole West Indies. The city is made up of a pretty harbor-front setting with the Pitons du Carbet rising up beyond. There is a mixture of ordinary offices, turn of the century buildings, French Cafe’s, and designer boutiques.

I grabbed my pack and hit the streets. The first place I hit was nice but they wanted $55 E a night. Out of my price range. The next place was also listed in LP as a very inexpensive place. The door was open but nobody was watching the front desk. I stood there for ten minutes before a café worker on the other side of the street noticed me about ready to take off when he shouted to someone upstairs in the building. A guy came down yelled at me in French and then pointed at the price list. $40 E per night which was okay. I asked to see a room so he gave me a key. The room was very basic, and for about $50 US, it was not worth it. I hit two other places which were more expensive and two others that were closed down. I was bummed. The Hotel area bordered the shopping streets so I ended up wandering up and down the boutique streets thinking I would run into something. I was wrong. All I did was look like an oddity in my double pregnant pack suit bumping people off the sidewalk. At least the people were not rude to me, or at least I couldn’t understand it. I headed back to the Hotel are and noticed a really dilapidated skinny hotel at the end of the main street. There I met a nice lady who spoke some English. She told me that the rooms went for $25 E for three hours. “Oh shit,” I thought, a freaking sex motel. She did perk my interest when she said that she could give me a great deal. I could get the place now for $45 E, but if I waited until 5:00 pm, I could get a room for $32 E. The best rate in the city. She told me that I could leave my bag there and wander the streets until then. I told her I wanted to check out one of the rooms. She gave me a key and up I went. The first thing that hits you is the smell of anti-everything cleaning agent. Next is the bed covered in plastic. Not the thin, Timmy wets his bed plastic, but a quarter inch think layer of nothing is going to penetrate this cover plastic. Even the tube shaped pillow was covered in plastic. The next squeezy thing was the toilet in the shower. No toilet seat mind you, and no shower head. Just a hose coming out of the wall. The room was so small, that the door hit the bed after opening only about a foot and a half. I took a deep whiff, looked around, and decided, Home. I told the lady I would give it a shot and dropped off my back pack. I kept my bookbag which contained all of my electronic items, and weighed the same as my big pack. I decided to tour the city. It was only about 11am when I started walking. I walked up and down the streets not giving a crap about the ten thousand shops of clothes and jewelry. For a female who liked to shop, this place was probably heaven. For me, it was like a vegetarian walking past the butcher department of the grocery store. It was good for only one thing, air conditioning. After a couple of hours of that, I stopped and grabbed a bite. $10 E for a chicken pita. I was starting to dislike this place. It started to rain so I stood under a tree for another hour. Things were starting to get painful. My pack weighs like 30 pounds with all the electronic crap. I had a grand in cash in my pocket, and the streets were covered with your usual big city bums and scammers. If I had gotten hit, I would have lost everything except my clothes, which I had entrusted to someone who worked at an illegal prostitution hotel. The next grudge on my mind was that I needed to pee. I wandered around trying to take my mind off of it, but it was now hot, humid, I was all sticky from sweat, and I had to pee. I decided that I would give one of those automated toilets a try. The sign said $.30 E, so I figured no problem and dug through the ton of change that I gotten. I dropped in a $.50 and it fell through. I looked at the sign again and it said only takes .5 and .10. Fine, I dug out my wad of change. I had probably $15 in change, but a total of $.25 in .5 and .10. Just freaking beautful. I figured I would just wander around some more. I hit pretty much the whole central area, twice. Finally, I could not take it any more and I found a tree in the park and took a whiz. It was nice, except that I was standing in the middle of the park, peeing, hot, sweaty, being rained on, and I had no clue if my stuff was still at the hotel lobby. Finally, with an hour to go, I decided I would hit a little café and just relax for a while. I grabbed a soda $2 E and just sat, and sat, and sat. With ten minutes to go I could not take it any more and figured they would let me slide for the last ten minutes. The guy at the desk told me she was cleaning up my room and would be done in a few more minutes. Damn! I just walked back and forth across the street until she finally came down and handed me the keys. I dragged my packs and headed up to my new home. Even with the trash bags full of trash bags full of who knows what outside my door, the bucket and mop with who knows what kind of human fluid stew, the over powering smell of disinfectant, the plastic covered bed with the thin white sheet, the broken toilet in the shower, it did not matter, because I was home and I was happier than I had been in a long time. I know I could have just dropped another $20 and got a room, but I knew that this trip was going to be full of places like this, so I had better get used to it. The rest of the night I went out and grabbed some pastries and drinks, which I did eat in my disinfected love shack, and played “Oh gross I actually touched that,” game. None the less, I slept well that night.