Last week I was in Florida for a business trip and I decided to leave one day earlier (it's good to get rid of the jet lag on your first business meeting anyway) and fly to the Bahamas for a little geocaching.It was surprisingly cheap : Less than 100 USD for a round trip from Ft Lauderdale to Nassau with American Airlines. The flight only takes 45 minutes and can be bumpy when the weather is stormy (the aircraft is a little ATR, see pic below). I left at 9 in the morning and returned at 6pm. It was a great day and actually you don't need much more time to visit this main island (Nassau is the capital). The weather was incredibly nice, with generous temperatures and a gentle breeze to cool you down when needed.
I found 4 caches on the island. As usual, without Geocaching I would never have seen the places I discovered. First the governor's mansion, where there is a microcache that is rather easy to find.
Then I went on to visit the water tower, a virtual cache where you need to find information about the tower itself, and you get a great view from the hill (yes, the water tower is on a hill, which makes quite a nasty climb when the weather is hot). Third cache was near Parliament Square, a cool green square in front of the pink parliament building. Most buildings are pink. Anybody know why ?
And last but not least I went to Paradise island to find my fourth cache. You need to take a ferry that takes you to the island in around 15 minutes, while a tour guide tells you funny stories about the island.
Unfortunately they tell the same jokes on the return trip as well, which makes it not so funny after all. The worst one ? "Watch your head when get on the boat. And if you hit your head, watch your language. Haha"
So when you get to the island you discover a Bahamian Disneyland with a huge Hotel-casino-beach-shopping complex that is called Atlantis and looks incredibly tacky. There is a mixture of Roman statues, Egyption styles and Greek temple columns, all looking awful together, but the whole place is grandiose.
And the boats (yachts, they are called, I think...) are a perfect match for the place. The place is quite large, and you need to walk a lot to get from the ferry jetty to the hotel, but the shops along the way are tempting. Finally when you enter the place you see the casino, which looks like most other casinos anywhere else in the world.
But the most interesting part of the hotel is certainly the restaurant, where diners are surrounded by a gigantic aquarium, with Sharks, manta rays and lots of other colorful fish.
The menu is all around you, so to speak (if you like to eat fish, of course)
Lots of visitors to see the aquariums, as the restaurant was closed
And the geocache in Atlantis ?
Well, it's a virtual cache near one of the entrances of the hotel. I won't give away the secret, since the place itself is stunning (no pictures, therefore) but it's even more grandiose and tacky at the same time than the rest of the hotel. That was the fourth cache of the day
I took a taxi to the airport at 6pm for the return flight (the airport is only 10 minutes away from the city center) and I enjoyed this day - Bahamians are a friendly bunch, as I met a few during the day.
There are a few more caches on the island, so that gives me a good excuse to come back, maybe on a cruise next time...
Very enjoyable day !
