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Cuba, the Caribbean Islands,
and Central America in 2001

Sint Maarten Philipsburg

Bec
2004-09-17 16:42:53

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Juliana Airport
It was dark when I reached the Juliana Airport in Sint Maarten but I was fortunate to find an honest taxi driver who took me directly to the inexpensive José's Guesthouse that corresponded exactly to my needs.

Philipsburg
Cruise ships are here of course as everywhere else in the Caribbean.

If it were not for these big boats, Philipsburg would be a miserable village for the salt flats that once made it prosper have not been exploited since 1950.

According to the numbers published by the World Tourism Organisation, the Netherlands Antilles rate a high Tourist Saturation Index (TSI) of 1.13 but that includes St Eustatius, Saba, Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire. Philipsburg is so saturated that I suspect it would rate many times that index if separate numbers could be found.

Downtown Philipsburg is so much like downtown Charlotte Amalie that if you were emerging from an alcoholic binge in one, you could easily think you are in the other.

Those of you who have never "emerged from an alcoholic binge" can try to use their imagination to see what I mean.

This famous, and expensive, French restaurant, L'Escargot, could be anywhere in the Caribbean. It tries, and succeeds, to present the perfect stereotype of what tourists expect of a French restaurant.

Things are more quiet in the the western end of Philipsburg for few cruise ship tourists venture past the pink Seaview Beach Hotel.

This is José's Guest House, at the extreme western end of Philipsburg, where I rented a small but decent room for 21 $US a night.

I liked Sint Maarten much better than the Virgin Islands because of José Rovelet and his wife Joanna who were real people with defects and emotions and not stereotypes of the calculating "servant of tourists" predator that I now recognise a mile away (sometimes, a mile away is still not enough to give me a chance to flee),

I also loved José's place because Annika Johansson was also staying there.

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