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I'm back after a long time again!!! Will have to pick up this writing to catch up with other trips I made during the last 1.5 years.
It's October 2016 and after a 1 hour 20 minutes flight I landed on St. Maarten for the very first time! This was about 1 year before the category-5 hurricane Irma slammed St. Maarten with full force with the eye passing right over the island. The island, together with Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba and St. Eustatius (Statia) used to form the Netherlands Antilles together. Six islands, one country. Aruba stepped out in 1986 and in 2010 Curaçao and St. Maarten followed, which led to the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles. Although we formed one country, to me it did not feel like because the island is pretty far away, I did not have relatives living there and they have a different culture and language. Because Curaçao's relationship with St. Maarten, many Curaçaoans have family and friends living in St. Maarten. I often heard Papiamentu while in St. Maarten which confirmed that there are indeed several Curaçaoans there. I also met with a good friend and fellow-blogger, Riselle Celestina from Curaçao who has been
living there for more than 15 years now. A truly energetic and lovely person. Follow her on: https://thetravelingislandgirl.com/ . Because I've travelled a lot, many friends/acquaintances reacted like "What? I can't believe you've been to so many countries so far away but it's your first time in St. Maarten"! For everything there is a first time, right? It was my first visit but I was always curious about the island.
The island of St. Maarten is divided into a Dutch side and a French side. The French side has 53 square kilometers while the Dutch side has 34 square kilometers. Both sides have about the same amount of inhabitants: ca. 35 000. The capital of the French side is Marigot and on the Dutch side it's Philipsburg, both small settlements. So yes, the island is indeed very small and densely populated. The latter you can see and feel it especially on the Dutch side because of the constant traffic jams (sometimes terrible). The island is very hilly and there isn't much space left to built new or wider roads. The official language on the French side is obviously French and on the Dutch side it's
Dutch and English, but only English is the widely spoken language with a funny, Caribbean accent which sometimes can be a bit hard for me to understand.
My Bonerian friends who live in St. Maarten picked me up at the airport and I spent the first and last few days with them. I also spent a few days with a small youth group coming from Curaçao. First impression of St. Maarten: green, crowded and tight. St. Maarten is well known for its airport, Princess Juliana international, which has a runway starting just off a beach: Maho Beach. It's a magnet for tourists who come there to see airplanes flying overhead at a very low altitude just seconds before touching down. The real show is when KLM's Boeing 747-400 arrives from Amsterdam. I had a chance to witness this and it's truly an amazing experience! St. Maarten is a pretty touristy island with about half a million stay-over tourists and over two million cruise-tourists per year!
Of course St. Maarten has its beaches, some of which are stunning! Understand that I am not too crazy about visiting beaches since I come from a place where we
have them, but yet I visit some because beaches are always a nice place to be. Other than Maho Beach I also visited Mullet Bay and Orient Beach; the latter having a clothing-optional area too. During a hike I also visited another beach, more about that later in this blog-entry.
The capital of the Dutch side,
Philipsburg, is worth visiting and to wander through it's streets with many jewelries, souvenir-shops etc. I took advantage and bought some cheap perfume, since I rarely buy them in Curaçao. I really liked the Boardwalk, a pedestrian boulevard along the coast with several shops and cafes/restaurants which runs parallel to the main street in town: Front Street. There is also a nice beach right there along the boardwalk in the city centre, very convenient for those visiting by cruise-ship which you could see docked at a distance while on the boardwalk. In the evening the island has enough casino's and bars to entertain yourself. I went out one night to a disco in the Simpson Bay area which was great!
Marigot, the capital of the French side, didn't have that much in particular in my opinion. I might be wrong, but
that's the impression I got. The one thing definitely worth visiting is Fort Louis, located on the top of a hill overlooking whole Marigot and also the Simpson Lagoon. The islands Anguilla and Saba are also visible. The fort was built in 1789 on behalf of the French king Louis XVI to protect the harbour and his warehouses of salt, sugar cane, coffee and rum among others. On the French side you're "politically" in France and Euro is the official currency used. Every street sign is in French and they use the exact same signs like those you see in France and of course the licence plates of the cars are like those in France too..
The most beautiful part of St. Maarten that I've visited was the northernmost part of the island. We went there together with a friend of my Bonerian friends, who knew the route. After this, I took the youth group from Curaçao to do this same hiking trail since I already knew the route then. We woke up very early in the morning and drove to Cul-de-Sac, where we left the car near a secondary school and started to walk. First we had to
climb a very steep street which took us towards Anse Marcel, a little settlement with a few hotels and a beach. We walked further into the bushes on the hiking trail called "Sentier de Froussards". Then we started to climb and reached the top from where the view was absolutely stunning, overlooking the Baie des Petites Cayes: white sand, clear blue water, green landscape with hills. Picture perfect view! And the good part was: we were there early and there was nobody else! Once down I took a swim at this beautiful beach before continuing walking. The rest of the trail goes along the coast with other beautiful landscape views and it ends up at Cul-de-Sac.
It was a short but nice visit to the "Friendly island". I was happy it wasn't high season though because even like this I found the island crowded enough. I definitely liked the island, although I don't think I could live there. I would love to go again, stay longer and visit one or more of the neighbouring islands.
The next blog-entry comes from South America, do not miss it!
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Ake Och Emma
Ake Dahllof and Emma Holmbro
The airport is a must-see
I have heard of that airport and it is a must-see for sure. There is one more airport where you can see landing aircrafts almost touching the viewer, on Skiathos Island in Greece. I took some photos and a few films when I was there. You can see it in our blog from Skiathos: https://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/Thessaly/Skiathos/blog-893116.html /Ake