Travel Guides: All Countries / Caribbean / Bahamas
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| | | | Swimming with dolphins
From the Mail on Sunday
Should you interact with dolphins? From time to time I'm sent stern warnings telling me that places which offer 'dolphin encounters' are really a sort of dolphin sweatshop.
Poor benighted dolphins, you get the impression, are locked away only to be brought out from time to time to perform beastly tricks for humans.
There's a part of me that agrees with this - I'm a vegetarian, after all.
But another part wonders whether occasionally we mistakenly get too worked up about things.
I know that a lot of animals are maltreated, but a substantial number also live the life of Riley (our 19-year-old cat for one).
So on a visit to the Bahamas when a chance to swim with dolphins was offered, I was tempted. But nobody mentioned kissing.
Have you ever kissed a dolphin? Probably not.
They're bristly, blubbery and - let's not beat about the lagoon here - they suffer from very, very bad breath. It's like snogging a fishmonger's counter.
So when a dolphin rises out of the water in front of you and puckers up - what would you do? I winced.
'Hey, you need to go to kissing school,' scolded Marcie, the dolphin's minder, who was standing behind me.
Travel guide: Bahamas
Caviar and chips on Paradise
From the Daily Mail
On this Saturday night in the Bahamas, the air was balmy, the champagne as cold as ice and the super-models were walking on water. No wonder they called it Paradise Island.
Sol Kerzner, the gambling magnate and creator of Sun City, South Africa's controversial hotel and casino complex, had just spent $100 million (£70 million) renovating the super deluxe Ocean Club on Paradise Island, just across the water from the Bahamian capital, Nassau.
That worked out at more than a million bucks a room, so now Sol was aiming to get a return on his investment by hosting a party-cum-fashion show for the cream of American high society. He'd brought in the New York fashion house Halston to parade clothes aimed at the sort of woman who regards a sequinned gold swimsuit as essential holiday wear.
The place was packed with high-maintenance wives, who looked on while fabulous girls of improbable height and unimaginable thinness tottered down a Perspex catwalk suspended above the swimming pool, trying not to tumble from their 4in heels. There was no more surplus flesh on the female guests than on the models - just an awful lot of surplus cash. You could smell the wealth wafting around their husbands like a pungent aftershave.
At dinner, after the show, the complimentary wine was a 1994 claret, which normally sold at £200 a bottle. That was nothing. The most expensive item on the wine list - a 1982 Chateau Petrus - was priced at £4,725 a bottle.
By breakfast on Sunday, I had given in to the decadence of it all. As Jean-Georges Vongerichten, an international chef who has created the Ocean Club's new restaurant, Dune, wandered among the guests gathered at a beachside bar, I showed him my own culinary innovation: caviar and chips.
Just dunk a hot fry into a jar of caviar (delivered to our rooms the previous evening by personal butlers), let the warmth of the potato seep into the semi-molten sturgeon's eggs and pop it into your mouth in one. 'Mmmm', agreed Monsieur Vongerichten. 'Sensational!'
Travel guide: Bahamas
Julia Roberts loved my bedroom
One thing that I vowed never to do was go back to the Bahamas.
I did not like overdeveloped, over-American Nassau - and when flying above the outer islands ten years ago, they all looked flat and boring, lagoony and landscapeless, though it was interesting visiting San Salvador, where Columbus first landed.
Then I happened to talk to Chris Blackwell. He's the white Jamaican who founded Island Records, giving Bob Marley to the world. Amazing to think he created an international record company from a Caribbean island, not London or New York.
Since then he's moved into other fields, including hotels. His Island Outposts now has 12 sites in Florida and the West Indies. One of the jewels in his bijou chain, so he said, is Pink Sands. Where's that? The Bahamas. Oh no, not the dreary old Bahamas.
Ah, he said, but wait till you go, 'it's on the best beach I've ever seen'.
We arrived in the dark, so didn't see much of the beach at first, but we were most impressed by the artistry of the decor and furnishings, designed by Barbara Hulanicki. Remember her Biba days in Sixties London? She's now into Bali mode, judging by our villa.
I had to fight my way through about 150 highly ornate Indonesian cushions before I could find the bed. On the bed was a visitors' book. Most unusual. You see them at receptions, but never in individual rooms.
It was full of comments - including one from Julia Roberts and another from Tina Brown and Harry Evans, each saying what a nice time they'd had.
Pink Sands is very starry. Recent guests have included Elle McPherson, Gene Hackman, Shirley McLaine and Mel C from the Spice Girls.
While we were there, British actor Peter Bowles arrived with his wife - rather ratty after problems with his connections.
Then he got worried about the sun. He was going back to star in a play about Beau Brummel in which he's naked in a madhouse.
The director told him not to return with a Caribbean suntan. It could rather ruin the reality.
Travel guide: Bahamas
Back to Bond country
Nassau has long been one of the most alluring words in the traveller's vocabulary. Ever since the Bahamas became a fashionable destination in the Thirties, the capital has revelled in its image as a millionaire's playground - the harbour teems with sleek yachts, and the white beaches are the stuff of daydreams.
The reality of Nassau has, in recent times, been very different.
The arrival of casinos in the Sixties, following a decade or so on from the governorship of the Duke of Windsor, set the seal on Nassau's reputation as a Caribbean Monte Carlo, the sort of place where James Bond took his holidays.
Indeed, two Bond films were shot there - Thunderball and Never Say Never Again.
But gambling brought organised crime to Nassau and for 20 years the Bahamas was better known for drug smuggling and money laundering. The in- crowd took their jets elsewhere.
In the last few years, however, Nassau's attractions have undergone a substantial makeover and my aim was to see whether it had once more become a classy place to have fun.
It certainly remains an expensive place to do so.
Nassau has always been a high-cost resort, principally because the absence of income tax means the government raises money through hefty levies on everything from room rates to food, much of which is pricey because it has to be imported from neighbouring Florida.
You won't find many rooms for less than £150 per night and, as I discovered, hidden extras such as a 12 per cent resort tax, compulsory tips for room cleaning and even an 'energy charge' can soon add another £200 per week to your bill.
Even if your tastes don't run to caviar, a plate of the local grouper fish and chips will still set you back about £15.
Travel guide: Bahamas
Rebuilt and reborn
From what I understand the islanders have had a tough time over the past few years with the closure of practically all of the big hotels on the island simultaneously for renovations.
Now that the tourists are starting to return in significant numbers morale has been boosted but the closures left their mark.
On the positive side the renovations have meant some amazing new hotels with fantastic beach and pool areas not to mention entertainment and restaurants.
Other things not to be missed are the dolphin experience (although too commercial for my tastes) and duty free shopping with significant savings on perfumes and jewellery.
We went with our two kids (age three and one) who basically lived on the beach the entire time, with the clear shallow water and lack of currents and big waves it was ideal for even the youngest.
A thoroughly enjoyable experience which I would be glad to repeat.
Travel guide: Bahamas
Bahamas: More than glitz and gambling
From Teletext
It's easy to feel just one of the crowd in the Bahamian capital Nassau.
On most days, hundreds of cruise passengers are disgorged on to the streets, so don't go hoping for quiet.
Ritzy New Providence Island is truly the tourism islands' capital, with 70% of visitors landing there or on neighbouring Paradise Island. Yet try to see one of the other islands too - for peace and stunning beaches.
Linked by two bridges to New Providence, Paradise Island is a tourist enclave with several big hotels - including the incredible Atlantis resort - a few bars, restaurants and some dazzling white beaches.
It is ritzy and glitzy with lots of upmarket clothes and jewellery shops and a huge casino.
Yet walk up Cabbage Beach away from the hotels and you'll soon be on your own.
Travel guide: Bahamas
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| | | | Strange feeling of elation
With Marcie's encouragement, Blue the dolphin meted out appropriate punishment by digging his snout in the water and splashing me in the face.
Dolphin Encounters on Blue Lagoon Island - a 20-minute boat ride from Nassau harbour - is almost certainly frowned upon by dolphin conservationists.
In our 'Close Encounter' session, Blue was put through his paces - offering kisses and hugs, but also sticking out his flippers and offering to dance with each of us.
I'd often heard about the 'positive vibes' emitted by dolphins, and indeed being next to Blue encouraged a strange feeling of elation.
The extraordinary Atlantis Hotel on nearby Paradise Island offers close encounters with an even wider choice of marine life - 50,000 marine animals - housed in the world's largest tropical aquarium.
It's hard to know which is more impressive: the water park or the hotel complex with its casino and dozens of cafes and restaurants.
Even so, we were intrigued by the herds of lobsters that swarmed en masse across the aquarium floors.
Someone said it was a mating ritual. Now kissing a lobster - that's something I really couldn't contemplate . . .
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Virgin Holidays (http://www.virginholidays.com tel: 0870 000 0870) offers holidays at the Atlantis resort. A session at Dolphin Encounters (http://www.dolphinswims.com) costs $75 (£48).
Further information: http://www.bahamas.co.uk.
Pleasure island of the international jet set
Across the decking sat a slender, thirtysomething brunette in a blue denim micro-skirt. She had a melancholy air, and no wonder. For this was Juliet Hartford. Years ago, Huntingdon Hartford, her father, owned the whole of Paradise Island and created the original Ocean Club.
What's happened since, she said, is tragic. Huntingdon Hartford was the heir to an American supermarket fortune. He bought Paradise Island from a Swedish industrialist and converted the latter's mansion, then called Shangri-La, into a hotel, which he renamed the Ocean Club.
It opened in 1962 with a party attended by stars like Zsa-Zsa Gabor, the jazz genius Benny Goodman, and William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate who inspired Citizen Kane. Within months, Paradise Island had become a favourite hot-spot for the new international jet set.
'My father did everything really nicely,' said Juliet. 'He put roads in and hired staff from Eden Roc, the finest hotel on France's Cote d'Azur, to come and work for him in their off- season. It really was paradise.
'The James Bond movie Thunderball was filmed on the island, and The Beatles filmed Help! on the beach right below the Ocean Club. My mother Diane was in both of those movies. I've got pictures of my father with The Beatles. John Lennon wrote "Hunt, you owe me a million" on one of the photos.'
Juliet's memories are like other people's gossip columns. 'Aristotle and Jackie Onassis used to come and visit the island. Ari was a friend of Dad's and wanted to buy the island from him. President Nixon was a house guest. And Dickie Mountbatten and Prince Charles used to come down and stay with my aunt Jo, who was married to Ivar Bryce, Ian Fleming's best friend from Eton.'
But even Hartford's fortune was not enough to sustain his extravagance. He sold the island in the early Seventies (Richard Harris moved into his old house, a couple of miles from the Ocean Club), along with his two yachts, houses in New York, London and the South of France, and a 375-acre estate in the Hollywood Hills.
Three miles of perfect sand
The beach did turn out to be brilliant, three miles of perfect sand. I wouldn't say it was pink, but then I am colour-blind. It did turn a bit pinkish at sunset, as we all did, including Mr Bowles. We promised not to tell.
The manager, Count Clemens von Merveldt, was another plus, and it's not often you can say that about any manager. Despite his German name, he was brought up in Britain and was very charming.
I don't think I've come across a more visible, laid-back manager, in his shorts most of the day, prepared to walk along the beach with any guest.
I wondered who was looking after the shop, until I discovered his American wife Nancy was behind the scenes, doing all the nuts-and-bolts stuff.
Pink sands is on Harbour Island, a four mile-long island just off Eleuthera and one of the most attractive I've ever been on. It's a real, living island, not a man-made resort, with a resident population of 2,000 - all incredibly friendly.
You see a tough-looking teenager in the street, and expect to be ignored, but he'll smile and say good morning, then return to his scowl.
In a fruit shop, I was met by a sign saying 'We Love You' - and I hadn't even got my money out.
The little capital and harbour, Dunmore Town, is full of 18th Century clapboard houses, painted pinks and greens and blues, most of them beautifully preserved.
I looked in one little guesthouse on the harbour called The Landings, which has recently been decorated by India Hicks, goddaughter of Prince Charles. Very chic.
I asked if she was around, as she lives on the island, but she was off modelling, darling.
I attended a church service, in which hysteria was a vital ingredient, and watched a police chase - even more hysterical.
Diving and shark feeding
But one doesn't go to Nassau to worry about the bank manager. The principal draw of New Providence (the island on which Nassau is sited), and Paradise Island is still the world-class beaches and the balmy, translucent blue-green water that gave the islands their name (Bajamar means 'shallow waters' in Spanish).
The best of the beaches are those on the north side of Paradise Island (referred to locally as 'PI') facing the Atlantic Ocean. Paradise and Cabbage beaches offer long, white sands and exceptional paddling and snorkelling, with myriad types and colours of tropical fish visible in the shoals offshore.
You won't, however, have the place to yourself.
More than four million tourists now pass through Nassau every year, and although half of them are cruise ship passengers who spend only a few hours ashore, the rest soon find their way to PI.
A day at the seaside, nonetheless, didn't quite reflect my notion of what the Nassau of the rich and famous should offer.
Without my own speedboat to hand, I decided to take a day trip with Powerboat Adventures, who race down to the Exuma Cays in 1,000hp boats for a spot of diving and shark feeding.
Yet I quickly found that, even at £120 a seat, lots of people fancied a little of the playboy lifestyle.
The excursion was booked up three days in advance, and when I did get a ticket, the tour was cancelled because the water was rough.
I consoled myself with an ice cream (at £4) and decided instead to wander along Bay Street, Nassau's main thoroughfare.
But I soon saw that the town is not looking its best. Gone is the colonial charm of the days of the Windsors; instead there is a mix of shops aimed at the cruise trade, selling duty-free perfume and discounted watches.
The famous Straw Market, a sort of West Indian souk crammed with hats and bags, was destroyed by fire a year ago. In its place is a car park, although there are plans to rebuild it.
A hotel to top the lot
Atlantis in the Bahamas, has to be one of the world's most spectacular hotels.
Not only does it have dozens of slot machines - some of which start at US$25 per pull - blackjack and more, shops and bars galore, but it also boasts the world's largest open-air aquarium.
You can wander through beautifully designed habitats for shark, manta rays, turtles and eels. Oh yes, and one of its suites cost US$25,000 - a night!
Atlantis's water park is great fun - try out the almost vertical "Leap of Faith" waterslide. Only guests and those staying at the nearby Comfort Suites are allowed to use it.
You can catch a ferry to Nassau from Paradise Island for US$3. It deposits you at Prince George Wharf, where you can have a quick gawp at the giant cruise liners in dock.
For shopping head for busy Bay Street, but if you fancy haggling, try your hand at the hectic straw market.
Nassau is an attractive town with lots of pink colonial buildings, nice bars and a museum based on its pirate past.
Dolphins are big business in The Bahamas. Kids - of all ages - will love stroking, hugging and swimming with these incredibly appealing creatures.
However, it comes at a price: US$75 for a "close encounter" and US$145 for an actual swim. Of course, you can buy the video, keychain and even an entire albums of shots.
The Blue Lagoon Island features Flipper stars Jake, Fatman and MacGyver.
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| | | | From card sharks to the real deal
Huntingdon Hartford is still alive, aged 90, but his dream is not. These days, Paradise Island is a microcosm of the tourist industry, from the bottom of the scale to the top, with just about anything you can imagine in between.
There are mass-market hotels along the shoreline, clusters of timeshare apartments for sale, even a Club Med. A few hundred yards down the beach from the Ocean Club, you come to Sol Kerzner's other development, Atlantis. If the Ocean Club is a haven of upmarket luxury (even its gardens were modelled on those at Versailles), Atlantis is basically Vegas-on-Sea.
Painted chicken-tikka pink and topped by bronze-effect sculptures of frolicking swordfish, this enormous pile exists to provide arms to pull the levers on the one-armed bandits lined in military rows around its parade ground-sized casino.
A non-stop assault of size, noise and vulgarity, Atlantis's many attractions include a huge water-slide complex, built in the style of a Mayan temple. Screaming tourists zoom down Perspex tunnels that pass through a shark-filled aquarium (the world's biggest) which also forms one wall of the main restaurant.
Examining the elephantine Americans waddling around Atlantis, I realised why the ground on which it sat was originally called Hog Island. But perhaps I just wasn't in the mood. Atlantis has been created with a relentless attention to detail. If you want a brash, high-energy, high-decibel holiday in which boredom is never an option, this is absolutely your place. If you want peace and quiet, you'd be better off in the central reservation of the M25.
Me, I yearned for a secluded cove - a Caribbean hideaway from the outside world. So one day I started walking up the beach in the opposite direction from Atlantis. I was looking for restful solitude; what I found was a building site - the starting point for a golf course and a development of 121 luxury homes.
They say that stars like Ricky Martin and Tiger Woods like to hang out at the Ocean Club. But I can't help thinking of another, older star, Joni Mitchell. You may remember her hit song Big Yellow Taxi, in which she sings that 'They paved Paradise/ And put up a parking lot'. Yes, and a whole lot more besides.
No bloody jet skis
On Harbour Island, they drive golf buggies, which do 15mph, tops. The only police car passed me at all of 20mph, peeping its horn.
I thought it might be my lime green swimming cossie frightening the horses, but it was to lecture a golf cart driver about a broken light.
Another day, I came to a street corner and saw a sign saying 'Poor, black and famous'.
I looked into the garden behind and realised it was filled with mottoes and sayings, hand painted on what looked like bits of driftwood.
'The older I get, the better I was.' 'Work like you don't need money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like no one's watching.'
'Lord, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they pissed me off.'
People in the West Indies do enjoy aphorisms.
Jamaica's paper The Daily Gleaner always has a column of pithy remarks. Is it connected to the fact that they are such strong church-going people?
Beside the garden was a simple wooden house, so I knocked at the door. After a while a tall, burly man of about 45 appeared, wearing a bandanna.
I congratulated him on his collection of signs, and asked how he'd started.
'I was living in Miami,' he said 'and someone came out with the remark, 'Poor, black and famous.' When I came home, I painted it on a bit of old wood and stuck it in my garden.
'Since then, people have come along with other sayings. I paint them on bits of wood or get them to do it.'
His name was Uncle Ralph and he works as a house painter, plus a bit of fishing. Every afternoon I went to read more of his signs - and discovered the ruder sayings written on the backs.
On any holiday, there are only two things I really want - a beach I can walk along for as far as I like, ideally with no bloody jet skis, and a town to walk to in the late afternoon for a drink and poke around. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find these things, and gawd knows I've tried.
Even in the most expensive hotels you can feel trapped in a ghetto.
That's why, up to now, my favourite hotel was Cobblers Cove in Barbados, with ten miles of the West Coast beach to explore, plus the little town of Speightstown to wander round.
Now Pink Sands has become my joint favourite. Thank you, Mr Blackwell.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Elegant Resorts http://www.elegantresorts.co.uk (tel: 01244 897999)
Bahamas' version of Disneyland
At night, Bay Street is deserted, with visitors being pushed in the direction of the casinos and floorshows at nearby Cable Beach or on PI.
I was beginning to suspect that Nassau has - like Las Vegas - reinvented itself as a destination for the better-heeled but mass end of the market.
The new approach will doubtless bring in more visitors, but it remains to be seen whether the surrender of its cachet of exclusivity will damage its appeal.
There are many places that offer sun and fun, and a lot of them do so at a lower cost.
The principal force behind the change in Nassau's identity does not so much stand on as rear up from Paradise Island, just across a narrow channel from the harbour front.
Atlantis, built for £600 million in the mid-Nineties, is a behemoth among hotels. It has 2,400 rooms, a casino, 38 restaurants and 34 acres of swimming pools and slides, including the world's largest man-made marine habitat.
The fantasy architecture owes more to Mayan pyramids than Mickey Mouse, but it is the Bahamas' version of Disneyland.
Aimed at appealing to the well-off businessman, who doesn't want his children to have to wait in line at the Californian theme park (although there were long queues for the waterslides when I was there), it has been a considerable hit with American tourists.
It has also created 5,000 jobs and is now the model for the rest of Nassau's resorts.
A world of difference...
Grand Bahama is second most touristy island, but a world away from Nassau and Paradise Island.
It is incredibly green and empty once you leave Lucaya and Freeport. The 40-acre Lucayan National Park features shady mangrove creeks you can kayak down - apparently very like the Florida Everglades, but minus the alligators.
Nearby is the secluded Gold Rock Beach - miles of icing sugar-fine white sand.
Grand Bahama Island has undergone something of a renaissance over the past two years - largely thanks to the $400m Our Lucaya Beach and Golf Resort.
Its 1,350 rooms are broken into three sections - families, business travellers and honeymooners. There are two championship golf courses and restaurants serving sushi to burgers.
Infinity-edge pools sliding into the sea and hot tubs add to the appeal.
Week-long packages to Our Lucaya on Grand Bahama cost from £940 all inclusive. Hotel rooms at Paradise Island's Comfort Suites start from £125 per night.
British Airways flies direct from about £500 (about eight hours).
A hotel tax of 12% is charged on Grand Bahama and Nassau. Expect to pay about £4.60 per person per night for service and environmental costs.
More details: Bahamas Tourist Office 01483 448900
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| | | | Sean Connery lives there
A room with breakfast at the Atlantis starts from about £200 per night, a price that shouldn't deter the rich, although I didn't see many big boats in the hotel marina.
However, if you try, you can still find a little stardust in Nassau. I thought that standards at Compass Point, the hotel near Nassau owned by Chris Blackwell, discoverer of Bob Marley, had slipped since my last visit, but Sean Connery still eats there.
Rather better is Ernie Els's local, the Ocean Club, a former private estate on PI with gardens modelled on those at Versailles.
It is also run by Atlantis but aimed at the kind of big money that used to frisk in Nassau; an ocean-view room will set you back up to £1,000 per night.
I decided to play millionaire for the evening and, tucking into my peekytoe crab salad and spiny lobster at the Club restaurant, asked the personal butler provided for my table whether there were any celebrities staying. 'Oh yes, sir,' he said, 'but I couldn't possibly tell you who they were.'
I raised my glass to him and to the moon rising over the ocean.
Discretion, a decent drop of Pouilly Fume, and a bill with lots of noughts on the end. Look hard, I thought, and you can still find a little bit of class in Nassau.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
British Airways flies from Heathrow to Nassau five times a week. See www.ba.com or tel: 0845 77 33377
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