From: Shawn, jdean1@cox.net
Date: 4/30/03 12:59:58 PM
Remote Name: 68.14.11.212
A place to eat, drink and be famous
By David L. Langford, Associated Press
CHARLESTOWN, Nevis -- Think of this sweet little island, called the "Queen of the Caribees," as a sombrero floating in the turquoise Caribbean Sea.
Smack in the middle of the island's 36 square miles is 3,232-foot Mount Nevis (or Nevis Peak, as some call it), a dormant volcano whose peak is usually hidden in clouds, its slopes and rain forests leveling off to stands of coconut palms, lush foliage, flowers and vegetable fields where once there were sugar plantations, among the most prolific and profitable in all the Caribbean.
It's said that when Columbus sighted the island in 1493 he named it "Nuestro Senora de las Nieves" (Our Lady of the Snows) because of the white shroud.
Today the island is a hideaway for A-listers, a playground for sun-seekers and diving enthusiasts, and the adopted home of a sizable colony of expatriates, mainly from North America and Europe. It was there that the late Princess Di retreated with her two boys in 1993 after her separation from Prince Charles. Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake vacationed there before they split, as did Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
But more visible are the goats, sheep and donkeys that forage at will along the roadways and in the parks and estates -- even on the streets of Charlestown, the capital -- and somehow manage to find their way home at night, as if this island were just one big pasture. None of the island's 9,500 residents seems to mind much, except when the animals nibble on the abundant flowers and blooming vines -- bougainvillea, hibiscus, cassia and lilies among them.
Not one would dare to steal a goat, sheep or donkey. A goat thief on this little island, where most folks know each other, would be ostracized, shunned and shamed.
The green vervet monkeys in the rain forests up in the hills are more of a problem. They raid backyard vegetable gardens and pay no heed to fences. Some gardeners even resort to putting netting over the top of their plots. (These alien monkeys of African origin were introduced to Nevis as pets by European colonists, probably sailors. As usual, the English blame the French, the French blame the Brits.)
But the sweet people of Nevis don't organize monkey hunts, or anything of the like. They're too busy having fun, pampering tourists by day and dancing the night away at beachside bars, to the beat of reggae and calypso.
If you've never heard of Nevis (pronounced NEE-vis), it's a sister island of St. Kitts, across a channel two miles to the north, part of the Leeward Islands in the British West Indies, roughly 1,200 miles from Miami. Nevis and St. Kitts share a federated government, each with its own local governing body.
Several of the former sugar plantations there are now inns, each with its own great house and charming cottages, but with modern amenities. Miami Beach it's not, except for one five-star resort.
I was introduced to the island by Marlon Brando. No, not the movie star. Wrong island, wrong ocean. Marlon is a taxi driver, a native Nevisian who lived next door to a movie theater in his youth.
"My mother was a big fan of Marlon Brando's, so that's what she named me," he said.
The two of us set out on a 21-mile tour of the perimeter of the island, over roads sometimes pocked with potholes and where drivers (on the left-hand side of the road) speed around tight curves and stop wherever they please, in the middle of the road or not.
Names seem to be important to Nevisians. Another local is named Calvin Klein. Two names you will be constantly reminded of in Nevis are out of history -- Alexander Hamilton, the American patriot and statesman, who was born there, and Adm. Horatio Nelson, the 18th-century British naval hero who was stationed there during skirmishes with the French. Nelson married Fanny Nisbet, a widow from one of the wealthy sugar plantation families.
More recently, vacationers there have included such bold-face names as Beyonce Knowles and rapper Jay-Z, Michelle Pfeiffer and David E. Kelley, Mick Jagger, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Oprah Winfrey, the cast of "The Sopranos," mystery writer John Grisham and Charles Gibson of "Good Morning America."
Many of these celebs stayed at the five-star Four Seasons Resort, and some made a short walk down the beach to Sunshine's, a definitely no-star, thatched-roof shack with painted wooden picnic tables, cold Carib beer, potent rum punch drinks called "killer bees" and some excellent fresh seafood. It's been rated among the top beach bars in the Caribbean by some travel magazines.
It was the first "pit stop" on my island tour with Marlon Brando. I tried the grilled "catch of the day," which in this case was red snapper, and it was fresh and excellently prepared.
Rasta man Llewellyn "Sunshine" Caines opened his bar in 1991, the same year as the neighboring Four Seasons opened, and since then his shack has been blown away five times by hurricanes, the latest in 2000. He always rebounds.
One thing Sunshine won't talk about is his recipe for "killer bees," other than to say it's basically rum and passion fruit. The other ingredients, he said, are "a secret recipe passed on by my grandmother."
Is it potent?
"One and you're stung, two you're stunned, three it's a knockout," Sunshine said.
There are approximately 400 hotel rooms and a number of villas on Nevis, 160 of them at the Four Seasons. But many of the lodgings are in the restored 18th-century great houses and their accompanying cottages on the former sugar plantations scattered about the island.
One is the Nisbet Plantation Beach Club, the only former sugar plantation in Nevis on a beach. In addition to the great house there are three categories of accommodations in several Bermudian-style cottages, all with patios, vaulted ceilings, tile floors and modern amenities such as coffee makers, irons and hair dryers. They sit along a grassy promenade lined by coconut palms leading down to the beach. The inn, now run by Don and Kathie Johnson, formerly of Bermuda, has earned the AAA Four-Diamond Award each year for the past four years.
One of the reasons is the friendly and capable staff, people like restaurant manager Patterson Fleming, the man one magazine called "The Prince of Ties." Why? A dozen or so years ago, a couple of restaurant patrons were razzing Fleming about this drab ties and when they got home sent him some sharp new neckwear. The word got around and other guests started doing the same.
"I now have more than 1,800 ties, all sent by guests," Fleming said.
Another popular plantation estate is the hillside Hermitage Plantation Inn, whose 250-year-old great house is said to be the oldest wooden house in the West Indies. Guest quarters are in gaily painted gingerbread cottages collected from around the island and refurbished. They are decorated with antiques and four-poster canopy beds. Some have full kitchens, TVs and a view of the ocean down below. There you can saddle up or take a ride in a horse-drawn carriage.
Iron gates guard the entrance to the intimate Montpelier Plantation Inn, where Princess Di stayed. Scattered about the grounds are the remnants of old sugar mill machinery, including an imposing stone windmill standing adjacent to a modern swimming pool. A free shuttle transports guests to Pinney's Beach, where the estate has a private three-acre parcel with a pavilion.
There also are several less-expensive hotels such as Hurricane Cove Bungalows, the Inn at Cades Bay, Qualie Beach Hotel and Pinney's Beach Hotel.
While goat meat is popular on many Caribbean islands, on Nevis and St. Kitts it's the main ingredient in what is generally regarded as the national dish -- goat water, a spicy soup brimming with chunks of tender goat meat, vegetables and small dumplings known as "droppers."
But for reasons known only to the locals, goat water is made and served only on Saturdays, at places like Sunshine's Bar.
If you want to make your own, Don Johnson of the Nisbet offers this recipe: "Marinate goat meat with thyme, garlic and pepper and boil for a couple of hours. (Goat meat is very tough.) Add breadfruit and dumplings and, if you want to thicken it, brown flour."
Not surprisingly, fresh fish and other seafood are popular and plentiful on the island. That perfectly grilled snapper I had for lunch at Sunshine's probably came from the small wooden boat of a fisherman passing by that morning.
A big social event every Thursday evening is the seafood barbecue at Coconuts, Nisbet's beachside bar, where the chefs grill copious amounts of wahoo, snapper, mahi mahi, jumbo shrimp, ribs, chicken and alligator, served with a variety of salads, rice, baked potato and a selection of 10 desserts.
Another pleasant gastronomic experience on the island is dinner on the veranda of the great house of the Hermitage, with its 18th-century furnishings. As guests and their friends are enjoying cocktails, surrounded by a lush rain forest, two rings of a bell announce the call to dinner -- as they have in the West Indies for centuries.