Travel By Train - The Adventurer Next Door - My Friend Leslie in Antigua

Here's her story: She managed to get in a few adventures off the beaten track and explore the island in her own ways, although on a package deal. My good friend Leslie recently had a chance to go on a trip to Antigua.

How did that come up? You went to Antigua very spontaneously. 1.

) I could, (Apparently! This same friend appeared at my elbow on the Thursday evening to say that she had just seen an incredible "last minute deal" and could I leave on Monday, the first week of Feb? We briefly discussed travel time frames and agreed that Mar/April would probably best suit us both. And wondered if I might be interested in joining her on the trip, who lives in Antigua, a coworker friend approached me one day in late 2004 to say that she was thinking of visiting her mother. The decision to go to Antigua was perhaps not as spontaneous as was the timing of our departure.

Main towns and landscape, what is the island like in terms of size? What was your first impression of Antigua? 2.

In about five hours, complete with lunch and "locations of interest", it takes about an hour to drive from north to south across the island and we did a four-point tour of pretty much the entire island. The terrain is hilly boasting a rain forest area and 365 (I can only assume from the handful I experienced) beautiful beaches! The island was just lush; one of my initial impressions of Antigua was an unusually green one as the country had received a high volume of rain in recent weeks!

Had a visitor's core but was a little confusing once you ventured outside the main tourist area (an area seemingly designed to persuade the many cruise ship passengers that dock there to part with their vacation money), johns. St, the main town.

Is not really representative of the rest of the island, although very luxurious, the area/ architecture / impression. ) who is purchasing large portions of the island. Directly around the airport has been built up by an American (? Was of the area surrounding the airport itself, perhaps unfortunately, my very first initial impression of Antigua.

Did you go on a package vacation? Where did you stay? 3.

We backed on to the service area of an adjoining resort, where our room was located was very noisy; unfortunately. The rooms at the hotel were very clean and the front desk staff was extremely friendly. Which we frequented for the rest of our stay, called ironically enough "The Beach", we were just turning back from an unsuccessful search when we found a tiny store and a fabulous beachside restaurant. ) and a place other than the hotel to eat. Etc, pop, we stumbled around a bit looking for a convenience store to buy some supplies for the room (crackers, ) Our first evening. (Rumour had it that the food at the resort was uninspirational anyway. No meals, our package included flight and accommodation only. We stayed in Dickenson's Bay at a resort called Rex Halcyon Cove.

Please tell us more about that. You mentioned that your trip felt almost like 3 vacations in one. 4.

John's and roamed our resort area. We explored St; the first two days were very touristy. The trip seemed to have multiple components to it based on the activities we enjoyed and the company we kept.

Our final days were spent in English Harbour sleeping on a sailboat and communing with all the ex-patriots living around Nelson's Dockyard, lastly. He offered to take us along to hear his brother-in-law's band play at another resort down the road from our hotel, for lunch and then that evening, on one of those gorgeous Antiguan beaches, he took us to his sister's restaurant. Young Antiguan man, we (just my friend and I at this stage as grandmother and granddaughter had gone off together) made some connections with the locals and fell into a wonderful tour of the island with a sweet, the next two days.

How did that come about and what was it like? For a few nights you stayed on a boat as well. 5.

Accommodations were a little tight to spend too much time on the sailboat particularly as it rained for the better part of our stay at the harbour, although fully equipped with galley and head (toilet). Two-man dinghies to paddle to and from the shore each morning and each night, we used little. My coworker's mother has been living in Antigua for 14 years now and her boat is her home. Two cats and a dog all in a confined space, one child, living on the sailboat for a few days was a very unique experience - three adults!

Modesty went pretty much out the window! Closing the door once seated simply became optional given the warmth (and sorry but toilets and heat virtually always equal smell) of the tiny cubicle and the lack of knee space - it was simply easier to leave one leg dangling out the door. I am not as monstrously tall as that might make you imagine me to be, this process caused me to knock my head on several occasions on the inside roof of the toilet and at 5' 8"! I would automatically be swung accordingly to 'take a seat', ) to step up and in with my left foot so that when my right foot followed suit. I was instructed (and good advice at that! The toilet was a tiny closet that you had to step up into from within the cabin of the boat. The head on the boat was an experience in itself - happy thing I am not claustrophobic, now!

It was a fantastic experience, torpedoed or not! What was a little harder to ignore was the accumulation of drizzle that began to drip off the rigging and torpedo my head. I didn't even much mind when it started to drizzle in the early hours of the morning. It was fabulous to sleep under the stars! I slept snuggled up in a sleeping bag on the back bench in the cockpit of the boat, with not much persuading, my first night on the boat.

It was a lovely sight. My coworker's mother was so excited when she discovered this view that she ran around the boat and woke us all up to see it. The harbour waters were so still that night that the lights from the other boats around us could be seen as near mirror images on the surface of the water. We also experienced a rare treat, that first night on the boat.

What did you learn about life in Antigua? You also had a chance to interact with some of the locals. 6.

The locals seem to know almost everyone, on such a small island. The stories I heard while staying in English Harbour were often about the community rallying together to do good by one of their own or about local business men and their successes. One of the most interesting things that I learned about Antigua was the closeness of community.

What is your favourite memory of this trip to Antigua? 7.

Sunny feeling I experience when I remember all the things that we did and the people we met over the course of our stay, it is a warm. There are many very good memories of my trip to Antigua but my favourite remembrance of my holiday is a feeling.

) . Good luck for your next adventure (one of which will be our kayaking weekend this summer. For sharing all those pleasant experiences with us, leslie, thanks.