8. Mount Sage (Mike)

After a few hours of slouching around the pool, we were called to assemble at about 10:30 yesterday morning by the dinner table to do battle. Mum and Dad wanted to go out to explore the island, to drive up into the mountains and perhaps hike to the highest point of the BVI. They wanted to check out the rainforest in the National Park up there and maybe have lunch in this wonderful sounding restaurant affording panoramic views of the surrounding islands from atop a mountain peak. Liam and Ciaran did not. I was initially ambivalent until I realized it would be more than 12 hours until I went to sleep. In the villa, there are two things to do – swim or read. 6 hours of each? I had to admit it was a bit of a stretch even by Hegarty standards, so I threw my lot in with Mum and Dad. Lucky I did too, in light of their eventual (inevitable?) victory.

We dragged ourselves into the car and started up the mountain. The views were pretty spectacular all the way up, so it was a hot, slow journey, frequently punctuated by stops to take photos. All three of us boys were sandwiched in the back. Dad seemed snappy. For a cherry on top, Ciaran managed to step on goat shit at some point and brought the smell back into the car. Mum washed it off and stuck it in the boot, but the smell stuck with us for all 1750 feet of Tortola, up to the car park a half hour’s walk from the summit of the BVI.

The walk to the top was sweaty and steep but (in my opinion) great fun. The path was gnarled and jungly and looked like it was leading to some crusty Incan tomb. On this holiday I've managed to pretend in my head I am James Bond, (ordering alcohol by the moorings from the waitress: "Red Stripe...shaken, not stirred") Jason Bourne, (floating face down in the pool with the lights off as the authorities come to get me) and now Indiana Jones, hacking my way through dense jungle in search of treasure. Quality. The view from the top was the best yet. The humidity of this part of the world means there is usually some degree of haze hanging in the sky, and this means that when you look out to the sea from a great height (such as from the top of Tortola), it’s hard to make out any definite horizon, any line dividing sea and sky. It’s all just a steady, calm and constant blue.
We foolishly brought with us to the top no map of the criss-crossing paths that make up this park, so finding our way off the top was like tumbling down the stairs and hoping to land on our feet. Getting to the top was easy (keep going uphill) but trying to find our way back to the specific entrance we came from (one of many) was a bit more of a lucky draw. Nevertheless, we tumbled down alright, all the way into the off-season/under-construction restaurant/giftshop/smoothie bar owned by a peculiar smiley Brit whose name we can’t remember. We’ll call him Jonathan. He was interesting. While we sucked on the mango smoothies he made us, he talked to Dad (though he was really addressing all of us. Dad didn’t say much, just more than the rest of us) all about hurricanes, immigration, and why he loves it so much here. We learnt an awful lot about the BVI from him. He also displayed a pretty incredible knowledge of World Economics for a shopkeeper. He threw out all sorts of UK growth figures and stock market quotations and we nodded, scared to open our mouths lest we be revealed as the economic ignoramuses we really are. He wasn’t doing it in any sort of self-conscious or intimidating way though, he was just making conversation with us folks. He talked about people leaving the Caribbean to live in England, and had no qualms about saying, in front of 5 Londoners, “To my way of thinking at least, I can’t see any reason why anybody would leave here to go over there. I mean, really, what on earth have you got?” I quietly sucked on my straw to calm the sudden surge of defensive patriotism I felt. But I liked him; he made a living selling smoothies and posters on top of a mountain.