The Virgin Islands

Virgin Islands Walking along the quay of the port of St Croix, I ask a local where you rent cars to tour the island; he points me to a nearby Avis office. Thank you, I say, and run over there, but unfortunately all the cars have already gone. What bad luck, I think. But the woman tells me that if I take a taxi to the nearby airport, where there's another office, we have a chance. So with a taxi, in the blink of an eye, here I am at the airport. There's only one person at the counter, and once he's done, the lady rents me the last available car. What luck. So all five of us get in, Vanni, Mamma, Fali and Rosa, and we set off for a fine tour of the island. The roads are well surfaced; here wealth reigns. The Virgin Islands are the only ones in all the Caribbean that can be called developed; the independent ones are generally poor.

In fact the tourists who go there enjoy the beauties of nature, that is the beautiful sea, for far less money. We stop at a beach that's incredible, off the tourist routes; in fact it's deserted. We take a walk and discover it's full of those shells weighing a kilo, so we try to take some away, well knowing that at customs they might tell us we can't, but with hindsight everything went fine: they let all those shells through, they were on the list of those that could be taken without problems. In fact they're now here at Cinquale as a lovely souvenir; some are in my mother's big aquarium. We carry on and stop in a typical little Caribbean village, where Vanni notices that one of the wheels of our car is flat and assumes it's punctured. What bad luck, I think. So after a walk among the little shops typical for tourists we set off again and give it a pump at the petrol station.

Here another incredible thing happens to me: with modern technology at our service, me equipped with a GSM mobile phone, I get a call from none other than my brother-in-law Massimo, who is inside Kruger Park in South Africa. Well, imagine that! The day is sunny, and from up there on the green hill we admire a fine golf course just below, a very beautiful sight; there's no shortage of photos and videos too. We head back down. Here you drive on the left and the road full of bends and hairpins risks making one of the passengers feel unwell. Fortunately I'm a very gentle driver: I brake softly and go slowly. Unfortunately, overtaking is out of the question, and the traffic increases as we approach the town.

We take a few more steps along the seafront, and towards evening we drop Mamma, Fali and Rosa off at the port; they board our majestic Carnival Destiny cruise ship, the biggest in the world (at the time), while Vanni and I, after filling the car and giving the wheel another pump, drive to the airport where we'd picked it up a few hours earlier. We ask the Avis people if they'll give us a lift to the port, and they do, in the very same car. Vanni and I fear the wheel will go flat but the guy doesn't notice a thing. Many thanks. And we board too. Here in the Virgin Islands sudden downpours come from the sky; they don't last long but they come by the truckload. Bye bye