4 The HBCU Advocate


Nassau and Exuma: This Is Not Your Mama's Bahamas


Editorial


Volume 3 Number 3


www.thehbcuadvocate.com


Royal Blue Golf Club with Grand Hyatt Baha Mar in the background BY ANGELA JONES


If you are ever looking for a great


place to vacation during the Christmas holidays, I cannot think of a better place to go than the Bahamas. As a matter of fact, I spent this Christmas holiday in Nassau and Exuma, Bahamas. The water was turquoise, the weather was warm and the people were even warmer.


I must admit that when my


daughter said that she wanted to go to the Bahamas and see the swimming pigs, I told her, ‘as much as I love pigs, I have already been to the Bahamas and there are too many other exciting new places where I have not visited yet.’ Since she had her heart set on to


going to


the swimming pigs, and she worked hard


the Bahamas and graduate


from seeing Stanford,


recently, with a master’s degree in Computer Science focused on Artificial Intelligence, I promised her earlier in 2019 that I would take her. Of course I had to wait until the weather was just right. I thought it would be too hot in the summer and too stormy in the fall, during hurricane season. I believed the Christmas holidays would be the perfect opportunity to enjoy the Caribbean weather and it was. When my mother and I visited the Bahamas previously, after my graduation from N.C. A&T, we stayed in Freeport. This time, my daughter and I chose to fly into the Nassau airport because it is closer to the swimming pigs and I am glad we did.


If you have not been to the


Bahamas ever or lately, you need to go and you need to stay at the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar.


I almost do not want to


recommend it because it is so beautiful, so relaxing and so accommodating that it is difficult to leave and explore all of the wonderful places and people we discovered while in the Bahamas. The Grand Hyatt has 10 swimming features,


pools/water 10 restaurants


and a 100,000 square foot casino in the lobby. It is located on Cable Beach and


it offers numerous shows and other entertainment options. The hotel was decorated exquisitely for the holiday season. There is a night club off the lobby and live music in the bar area. An ice skating rink with live shows is located near the convention center area outside of the hotel. Another good reason to


to the Bahamas during the Christmas season, is because of the Junkanoo Parade. The parade


is an African


celebration in honor of a man named John Canoe (Junkanoo), who upon hearing that the Germans were going to sell Fort Fredericksburg to the Dutch in


the early 18th Century,


mounted a resistance that lasted almost 20 years. Fort Fredericksburg was in present day Ghana. I do not know what it is like in other parts of the Caribbean but in Nassau, Junkanoo is celebrated on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and lasts for about 12 hours each day. Can you imagine a 12 hour parade? I went to the portion that occurred from 9 a.m. until noon. It was amazing. The dancing, the music and the costumes were all creative and breathtaking. The locals told me that I “missed the whole thing.” I replied, ‘I was there for three hours, how could I have missed the whole thing?’ They said that the best costumes are at night and they have lights. If it is so much better than what I saw, I’m glad I missed it. I do not think I could have handled that much more greatness. After celebrating Junkanoo, it was time to see the swimming pigs although the tour organizers tried to cancel at the last minute. They said there was a tropical storm brewing and the water would be too rough for the boat. Knowing how disappointed my daughter would be if she did not get to see the swimming pigs, I scoured the internet until I found a tour that was still planning to proceed. This tour, led by 3N, involved taking


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travel


a flight from Nassau to Exuma. After they assured us they would not cancel for any reason, we booked that tour and left early the next morning. We set our alarms on our phones and counted pigs until we fell asleep. The next morning I was surprised to see the smallest plane I had ever had the pleasure or disdain to book. While sitting in the last row of seats, I could almost touch the pilot on the shoulder. A whole lot of prayers later, we landed in Staniel Cay, Exuma, one of the most beautiful places on earth. The tour guides led us to the boat from the airport, it could not have been much more than 200 yards from the runway. The boat was adequate, if one does not mind not having cover from the rain. It was definitely fast and there were times that I was not sure if I might be thrown from it. I kept a smile on my face the whole time. Who does not love being on a boat, in the middle of beautiful island scenery, no matter how likely it may be that you may get thrown into the shark infested water? I did not really think about the


danger of sharks the whole time I was swimming on the tour. When we were actually swimming with the kind of sharks that are not dangerous, nurse sharks, I did for a moment think, ‘how would I know if the dangerous kind slipped in here with these tame ones?’


When we arrived at the island


with the swimming pigs I have never seen so many grown folks lose their minds


over some animals. Okay,


I did it too. The swine were so cute when they swam out to meet our boat. They knew we were going to have something to feed them. The boat captain, yes, the same one who I was sure was trying to dump me out of the boat during most of the tour, gave us bread to feed the swimming pigs. There were huge pigs, baby


pigs and every size in between, on this island. They are feral pigs who somehow learned to swim and people will pay crazy money and risk life and limb to see these floating balls of fat. After


swimming over the with the


pigs we went to lunch and some of those same people who were going gaga


sandwiches for lunch. I just gasped as I heard them belt out their orders, shamelessly. Three of the four people at my table were vegan and the other person ordered fish (I do not believe it was shark meat). There were approximately 15 people on our boat including


the captain and another


person who worked for the tour company. After lunch, we went to a cool sand bar in the middle of the water. It looks like you are walking on water from a distance. We also went to a


pigs ordered BLT


grotto that was featured in the James Bond film Thunderball. We donned snorkeling equipment to see the fish in the cave but with the current and all of the swimming I had done earlier, my arms and legs were too tired to go inside. I did see some beautiful fish just outside the cave. The tour guides also took us to


the wreckage of a plane that crashed in the ‘70s, which is not something I wanted to see knowing I had to ride that Barbie plane back to Nassau soon. I would definitely go on that tour again if someone else was paying. I did not even mention that our first stop was Iguana Island. I was not that excited about seeing iguanas because I saw so many in Puerto Rico, earlier in the year; however, everyone else seemed to enjoy watching them. Tired, cold, wet and just plain


scared, I headed back to the airport and thought, this is one of the best days of my life. We made it back to Nassau in the Barbie plane and tried to get the city bus back to our hotel. Since it was a Saturday evening, I do not believe the buses run that late on the weekend. We did discover, however, that


instead of a $25 taxi, we could catch a bus for about $1.50, to downtown from our hotel. And earlier on Saturday, we rode the bus to the airport for approximately $2.00 each.


On our last day in the Bahamas,


we planned to visit the golf course that is part of Baha Mar. We did not have enough time to actually play. The Royal Blue Golf Club just happened to be hosting a professional golf tournament, as we arrived. We were given a tour of the course by the two very knowledgeable and delightful assistant golf pros, Georgette and JR. The course was immaculate, without a blade of grass out of place. I cannot wait to return to Baha Mar to actually play a round of golf at the Royal Blue Golf Club.


I met so many kind and thoughtful people while I was in the Bahamas. Even downtown, where we visited the Pompey and Pirate Museums. The history lessons were nice but the lessons in humility that the Bahamian people teach while going about their daily lives are priceless. I met a kind gentleman who owned a Jamaican Restaurant a couple of blocks from the Pompey Museum that put his heart and soul in the food he serves and his customer service. The staff at the Grand Hyatt always greeted us with smiles. I would challenge anyone to find someone there who is having a bad day. Although we intended to go, we never made it to Atlantis or Paradise Island. I felt like I was already in paradise at the Grand Hyatt, Baha Mar. Actually, the entire country seems like paradise. I will be back in the Bahamas soon.


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