Yesterday, we were quite surprised by our carpet quotes. Both owners came out personally. One company was very professional. They gave us a written quote at a reasonable rate. The other company was less professional. They quoted almost double the price and didn’t put it in writing. We also got an uneasy sense that the final bill would be more than the quote. Needless to say, we hired the more professional company. They arrived first thing this morning to start work.
It was a relief to get the carpets and upholstery done. Ever since Stromboli, Christi had cleaned the carpet 4 times with the canned carpet cleaners, but she hadn’t been able to completely remove the stains or sour dairy smell that we had gotten during the Stromboli fiasco. She hadn’t even tried to clean the upholstery, which also got stained in Stromboli. By 1300 they were done and we had spotless, great smelling carpet and upholstery. It is so nice to have everything clean!
We also had our dinghy engine delivered back to us while the carpets were being done. When the employee picked up the engine, we had been quoted $50 – $100 US, so we were surprised when the bill was $150 US. The employee explained that it was full of sand from our Barbuda incident and it was more work to clean and service than had been originally anticipated. Normally, we would just accept that answer and not think twice about it, except that it turns out that the repair work had been done by the same company that gave us the high carpet quote. Hmmm”¦ Anyway, whatever the cost, we are thrilled that it is running again. We feared that it was totally dead after this last dunking. $150 is certainly cheaper than a whole new engine.
As soon as the carpet guys were done, we rented a car and headed to the airport to pick up Christi’s dad, John. The airport is on the north side of the island, in the center. We took a highway that snaked up through the center of the island. In the south, closer in to English Harbor, the main road is lined with mostly small bungalows on decent size plots of land. The farther we went, the less houses we saw, and the ones we did see were on bigger lots. They were still mostly bungalows, but we would occasionally see a bigger house. This is a shot of typical houses in the typical neighborhood. We also passed a few churches that looked more American in style than European. Most buildings look to be fairly well maintained, with few dilapidated places. We were told Antigua hasn’t been hit by a hurricane in 10 years, so we suppose that is why the buildings are in better shape overall than on Guadeloupe.
The terrain on Antigua is not the big mountains of Basse Terre, but it is hilly, with some peaks that would be a heck of a hike on foot. There are a handful of cleared fields with cattle, horses, or goats grazing in them. We saw a few small farms with unidentifiable crops. There is quite a lot of undeveloped land around, particularly farther back from the main road and near the airport. All of the grounds that aren’t regularly groomed are lush and thick with plants and greenery. Goat herds seem to roam the streets freely. There are also some chickens roaming about freely. The roads have a lot of pot holes. Cars must need their shocks replaced monthly around here.
Near the airport there is a stadium that looks brand new. The airport also looks pretty darn new. Around the airport is a swanky complex with a cricket field, a fancy hotel, a couple fancy old fashioned bank buildings and a restaurant. This is what pretty much all the buildings in the complex look like.
John’s flight arrived a little after 1600. We decided to go to the main city, St. John’s. It is a short drive from the airport. The plan was to sightsee, get dinner and find an ATM. For some reason, our ATM card doesn’t work at the Bank of Antigua. We were told the only place on the island where there was a bank other than the Bank of Antigua is St. John’s.
We got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic trying to get into town. It took so long to get to St. John’s waterfront that we probably could have made it all the way back to English harbor faster. St. John’s looks like the rest of Antigua, except that the buildings packed in tightly instead of spread out on roomy lots like on the rest of the island. Some buildings are new and modern, some look to be very old, and everything in between. Most of the buildings are Caribbean style bungalows with the metal roofs and gingerbread trim, and most are reasonably well maintained. It reminds us of the smaller towns on Guadalupe.
Something that amused us is that we have seen several signs supporting Barack Obama. The people here are really excited about the new US president — so much so that they have renamed one of their mountains to Mt. Obama.
At the waterfront, we parked and walked around a little. There was a market going on, with lots of street vendors selling produce. There were lots of school kids, all in neat little uniforms. We found a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet. We tried conch in coconut curry, which was really bland. We suppose this is the tourist version and that the locals make it spicier when they cook for themselves. We also tried conch fritters, which are similar to accras fritters, but not quite as good.