The only person you have to blame is yourself when you could have made a different choice but instead you went against your gut feeling.
― Germany Kent
“Do you want to do this?” I asked Mike as we followed a short, fast-talking man to his taxi. Our ship had was on a port stop in St. Maarten, and the man had roped us in with a pitch to take us all over the island in his air-conditioned taxi during a three-hour tour (Cue the music).
“I’m half-and-half,” Mike replied. “You?” I shrugged my shoulders and, instead of saying what I was thinking, I trudged along.
What I was thinking was that there was no way on God’s green island that I wanted to get in any vehicle with that man who had not stopped yapping since we left the main street of Phillipsburg in search of his air-conditioned taxi.
“Ask him if he’s licensed” I whispered to Mike, and as soon as he could get a word in, he asked motormouth if he had a license.
“Don’t worry, Mike,” the driver said over his shoulder. “The police know me very well. I am a well-thought man. I am honest. We will stop at the police station, and you can ask. Everyone know me.” So, we continued to stumble on until we reached his taxi.
The taxi had the official license—TAXI 245—but that was about the only good thing about it. The front driver’s side had a big dent, the inside was dingy, and the doors were barely operative. Oh, they opened and closed, but only if Lionel (the driver) opened them from the outside. One was stuck in child-proof mode, so he had to open it. The other would open from the inside, but if you did, the inside cover would fall off.
Again, we should have run away, but for some reason, we got in the car. Lionel honked the horn twice, and still talking, he took off.
“Here is the police, Mike,” he said as we approached the main police station. As we sped by it, he added, “We can stop right now and have them tell you what a good guy I am.” I looked at Mike who was starting to tense up.
“I’m not the only one here,” Mike snorted. “You can talk to my wife, too.”
“Ok, Mike, I will,” Lionel said as he honked the horn again. He rambled on and on about the island, honking the horn and putting on the brakes as we rushed up the hill towards the French side of the island.
(Just in case you don’t know, the Dutch and the French share the island of St. Maarten. The Dutch side, Sint Maarten, is a bit smaller and has the main port in Phillipsburg. Saint-Martin, the French side, has beautiful beaches and charming, colorful towns. That’s not to say the Dutch side doesn’t have beaches. Maho Beach in front of Princess Juliana Airport, is famous for the planes that fly extremely low over the beach on their way to landing.)
When we got to the border separating the two parts of the island, Lionel honked his way to the curb. “Here is the sign, Mike. Do you see it?” He opened the doors to let us out, and as I took a photo, he grabbed for my camera and ordered us to stand on either side of the sign. “Mike, you point here, and Gramma, you point here,” he demanded. He took photos of us (Neither one of us pointed where he indicated), and then told us to stand by another sign. “Gramma, point here; Mike, point here.”
“Why are we letting him order us around?” a clearly irritated Mike hissed as Lionel tried to cut in front of another group trying to take photos around a monument. He rushed them, directed us to point at something, and took more photos there. “Ok, Gramma, get in the car.”
“I’m not a grandmother,” I said as Mike simultaneously said, “She’s not a grandma.” From then on, I was Mami, and Mike was Papi. A few honks and braking, and we were off to a hill that overlooked the French beaches. Obviously popular, we found a few large tourist vans and taxis there before us. Lionel honked his way to a parking spot and opened the doors for us.
“Ok, Mami. Give me your phone, and I take a photo.”
“No,” I responded. “I want to take photos myself.” Mike told him we’ll take our own photos.
“Okay, Papi,” Lionel sighed. “I do whatever you want.” He continued to yammer on about the French side and the hurricane from 2017. We got in the taxi to continue on, and a huge bus pulled in blocking us from leaving. Lionel apparently thought that honking the horn would make the van driver next to us and the bus driver miraculously move so we could get out. For 10 minutes or so, he continued honking and waving his arms until the van driver was able to wiggle up enough for us to squeeze between him and the bus.
Lionel continued a tirade about how the other drivers were not respectful. I should probably also mention that the air conditioning in the taxi did not work. He demanded we keep the windows up because what air was coming out of the vents was cool only if the windows were up. Thankfully, I had a small fan with me, so I aimed it at Mike and me while the charge lasted. It did very little, however, in the heat and humidity. Also not helpful was the fact that Lionel kept honking the horn and hitting the brakes.
When we reached Marigot, a town on the French side, Lionel said he would stop so we could shop for 40 minutes. “NO!” Mike and I shouted at the same time. “We don’t want to shop,” I added. “Just take us back.” Lionel muttered something, and then added that he was there for us. I did think that perhaps we should let him drop us off to shop so we could hide from him and take another taxi back. Third mistake.
You probably get the idea of our adventure with Lionel, so I won’t bore you with other stops as they mirrored the first and second. Mike had checked out after the second stop, and I was wishing I were at the ship. At some point, Lionel’s voice and his non-stop self-aggrandizing (I’m here for you. I only do what you want. I’m honest man.) were irritating me so much that I started to tune him out. At one point, I think he got the idea that we were both annoyed, so he turned on the radio for a bit. I think, however, that he couldn’t stand not to hear his own voice, so he started rambling.
There is no way I can tell you what was going through my mind all this time. I was mad because I didn’t speak up when we were hiking to the taxi in the first place. I was mad because I was hot. I was afraid he might drop us off in the middle of nowhere and tell us to find our way back if he got mad. More than once I wondered if he were an axe murderer, but I figured since we stayed on the main roads, he probaby wasn’t. I tried to be polite so we’d get back quickly. “You’re too nice,” Mike whispered to me when I answered Lionel’s questions politely. “I just want to get back in one piece,” I whispered back.
We headed back to the cruise port, but traffic was horrible. There were six other ships in town that day, including Icon of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship (7600 passengers), so the roads were bumper-to-bumper both ways. For more than an hour Lionel swerved, braked, honked, and swore from the airport back to the cruise port. (Yes, at about 30 minutes out, Lionel’s language became a bit cruder.)
I cannot tell you how happy I was to see the cruise port sign. Let’s suffice to say we got out of that taxi, paid, and hightailed it back to the ship. Neither one of us really wanted to talk about the whole day, but we did agree that we needed to learn to trust our gut instincts and follow them.
Amen to that.
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