It was a short trip, so this should be a short report, but it isn’t. I thought I’d share information and impressions that you all might find interesting. Maybe you can clear up some puzzles for me as well.

Spur of the moment plans
Back on August 4th, I was surfing TTOL postings when I read the one about the “Nude Beach Cam.” I visited the windsurf website and the image of Orient Beach came through. It was a little blurry that first day, but it was clear the next day, and the beach looked wonderful and sooooo inviting. I e-mailed my wife at work to check out the site. She replied: “Want to go?” I was just finishing up teaching two courses in the summer session (I’m a professor), and I had said I wanted to get away for a few days and recharge my batteries before the fall semester started up. I had not considered SXM for such a short trip, but what the heck. I went to CheapCaribbean.com to see what they had. I have never used them before, but I had checked out their prices several times and read about them on this site. Well, 4 nights at L’Hoste with airfare cost a very reasonable $1,700 for two. You can sometimes pay that much for airfare alone from San Antonio. And with only a week's advance notice, that sounded mighty good to me. So we booked on the 6th and went on the 13th. I usually plan and book such things many months in advance. To get such a reasonable deal a week before departure was a bonus. Nothing was unlucky about Friday the 13th for this trip. All went smooth as could be.

CheapCaribbean.com [hereafter, CCC]
As I said, I have never used them before, so I was a little wary. And as I also said, all went well. But for a while, I definitely had some reservations about our reservations. I booked online on Friday the 6th. On Monday the 8th, I e-mailed L’Hoste with our arrival time information. Basically, I was testing the water to see if they indeed had received a reservation for us from CCC. No, they had not. Hmm. I next called CCC. They assured me they had a confirmed reservation from L’Hoste but would fax them anew right away. As of the next day, L’Hoste said they still had nothing. I again called CCC. They were again very nice and said they would call L’Hoste and call me back. They implied the problem was at L’Hoste’s end. When I never heard back from them, I went ahead and called L’Hoste on their 888 number. They said they had heard nothing from CCC. But charming Agnes assured me they would reserve me a room until they heard from CCC. She e-mailed me Wednesday that she had contacted CCC, and they (that is, CCC) did have my reservation on record. At last I can relax knowing we have a room. Curiously, when we got to L’Hoste on Friday, Agnes said they had gotten the e-mail with our reservation only that morning from CCC confirming the booking. The one-week lag between my booking online and when CCC actually established the reservation at L’Hoste is puzzling, and it was a bit nerve-wracking. I believe that had I not contacted L’Hoste directly early in the week, there would not have been a room waiting for us when we got there, because they were completely full that weekend. I’m fairly sure we could have found a place to stay near by, but still the difference between all the apparent nice and friendly customer service they gave me over the phone at CCC and the reality in terms of their actually making the confirmation calls or sending the confirmation faxes leaves me a bit concerned about their reliability and ultimate honesty. But all’s well that ends well. Maybe it was just some miscommunication problem. Maybe somebody else can explain it.

L’Hoste Hotel
Excellent again. We love this place. We got the smallest room, but it had two king beds and a small kitchen area. Plenty roomy for us. The breakfasts are perfect for us. The beach here was by far the busiest on all of Orient. The Playa restaurant and bar are great. The service on the beach was also good. I can’t imagine a set up better suited to our preferences. And, now with the Village right next door – where one can pick up supplies, go to restaurants and bars, get one’s hair done, buy newspapers and magazines – it has made staying at L’Hoste all that more pleasant. Interestingly, the hotel was full of French families. It seemed like one big extended family and friends reunion. Then we found out from a French woman who ran a boutique where we shopped in Marigot that this group is a bunch of people in the garment business in France. She said they come every year on their vacation, with the wives and kids often coming ahead of the husbands. Cell phones were very busy on the beach as they all kept in touch with France. And most of them smoked Marlboro’s. I’ll take their wine in trade for our cigarettes any day.

Orient Beach
The beach was in great shape. We were a bit surprised and puzzled by how quickly the beach shuts down by 5:00 pm or so. When we arrived shortly after 6:00 on Friday, we said, “Let’s go to one of the bars on the beach for a drink.” We figured something would still be open. Nope, nothing was open. (We did find a bar at the Village, however, and got our first Kir Royale for the trip.) We wondered if it was the time of day, the time of year, or the time of man that explained the the complete lack of life on the beach. I know Orient beach shuts down at night, but we were still surprised how early and how complete on a Friday. Same thing the next day. I guess it is the slow season, and fewer places are open. It certainly seemed slow in general in terms of the number of Club O people taking their early morning and late afternoon strolls on the beach. When we were there in May a few years ago, it was an almost constant parade all day plus the busier walk times. Not this time, another small puzzle. That web cam that was the catalyst for this trip to begin with did not seem to be working the last week before we left. I checked it out in person on the beach. The camera is embedded right in the Club Nathalie sign on their hut, and they actually had the camera covered with cardboard one day. Today, though, I see it is up and running better than ever. I was struck by the illusion created by the camera. The beach looks so much deeper on the beach cam than it is in reality. The images provide a wonderful opportunity to check out how the weather really is relative to the weather reports back here on our computers. That leads into….

The weather
We had only two brief rainfalls to contend with. One came during dinner at Il Nettuno in Grand Case. With the spotlights shining on the beach, the rain looked like snow. The other required a brief retreat from the beach for less than half an hour. We were lucky to dodge the hurricanes that swept through the Caribbean and Gulf last week. A note about the online weather forecasts for SXM that we look up back here in the states before we leave on our trips: many people worry before they go about the weather forecasts being so dreary. Small chances of thunderstorms seem to be exaggerated by the weather sites, particularly Yahoo. If one were to believe these sites, it would rain every day, even though the chance of rain was really only 10-30%. A “chance of thunderstorms” really means great weather 95% of the day.

Currency
We were surprised by the 1-to-1 exchange rates in so many stores, even though I read about it here. We saw the French pulling dollars out of their wallet. Makes sense. They bring their Euros and buy dollars at 1.23 a pop. Then they buy stuff with the dollars at stores with 1-to-1 exchange rates.

Dinners, dancing, and slots
We are not gourmands, so there is a great deal to report on restaurants. We love to go to the Marigot marina, because it reminds of a bit of cafés along the Cote d’Azur. We greatly enjoyed our seafood at Le Galion one night and pizza at Belle Epoque another. Plus the pasta at the fore mentioned Il Nettuno in Grand Case was terrific on another night. We hit Bliss one night just before midnight for dancing. It went from a sparse crowd to very crowded in the half hour after midnight. We love the location and atmosphere. Not too thrilled with the music. Call me an old f*rt, but I just can’t get into hip hop. We wanted to go into Q Club above Casino Royale as well, but we never actually saw anyone going in past the gauntlet of intimidating bouncers. The area with the Platinum Club and Gizmo was the busiest of all. We knew what the former was offering, but not the latter. There were certainly plenty of women heading back that way. Another puzzle. Anyone been to the Gizmo? We went to Casino Royale three of four nights. We got long playing times on the slots, but we came away losers. The long play made up for not winning. We had lots of fun for a few $20 bills.

Car Rental
Marius of St. Louis was terrific as usual.

Conclusion
All in all, it was a wonderful trip. The nine hours of flying and layovers on both ends of the trip are a bit discouraging. It takes us longer to go from San Antonio to SXM than it takes the French to get there from Paris. But to have six flights go off without a hitch is a minor miracle. And to think that we planned the trip on the spur of the moment and had such a smooth and enjoyable time, also seems like a miracle to us. I’m already checking future dates and prices on CCC already. Plus I can’t help but check out the beach cam and wish we were back there.