Getaways

It was midday, and, I suspect, too warm for the flamingos to be splashing in the sun-dappled pond. I was disappointed: not a pink feather in sight. As I turned to leave, a movement through a clearing in the leaves caught the corner of my eye. I got goose bumps, then I giggled. There they were, about eight of them, bobbing single-file along a nature trail like a string of crane-necked, slightly overbaked tourists.

Can any travel experience surpass the thrill of spotting rare wildlife in its own habitat? I had, after all, seen pink flamingos in zoos on travels around Florida. But Grand Bahama's Rand Nature Center afforded an entirely different encounter. At the edge of downtown Freeport, it inserts a peaceful oasis between metropolitan traffic and cosmopolitan shopping. Its new flamingo observation deck overlooks Flamingo Pond at the end of a trail through brushy native vegetation.

Minutes away, the actual overbaked tourists were feeding quarters into slot machines and buying duty-free perfume in the small section of Grand Bahama Island that most of us are familiar with. Few people even recognize the name Grand Bahama. To them, the island is Freeport, Gambling and Golfing Mecca. Truth of the matter is, Freeport comprises only a small section of a long jagged island that measures 96 miles at its longest, 17 at its widest.

The balance of the island is given to natural and uncrowded beaches, old-island settlements, and untamed bush, as the locals call island wilds. Five years ago, Grand Bahama Island was first discovering its own vast wilderness. Eco-tourism was introduced slowly into a vocabulary dominated by casino, high-rise, cruise ship, continental dining, and shop, shop, shop. Lucayan National Park, east of Freeport, had just opened under the auspices of the Bahamas National Trust. The park, 50 acres of pristine beach, limestone caves, and mangrove environment, hosts in its six levels of eco-system great blue herons, hummingbirds, woodpeckers (peckerwoods in Bahamian parlance), ospreys, parrotfish, land crabs, curly-tail lizards, brilliantly flowering bromeliads, and delicate wild orchids. Today, the park is the centerpiece of a flourishing heritage and eco-tourism trend in Grand Bahama. It preserves the island's history as well as its natural soul. One of its caves holds a cemetery of the Lukka-Cairi (Island People), Arawak tribesmen who contributed to the Bahamas its earliest Spanish-assigned nomenclature, the Lucayas.

Visitors today can climb down into Burial Mound Cave, where Lucayan skeletons were found, dated by the Smithsonian Institution, and returned to their graves, and Ben's Cave, both part of one of the world's most extensive surveyed cavern systems. They can wade in the shallow waters of Gold Rock Beach and snorkel out to the reef at Gold Rock. Marked nature trails travel from caves to beach. To get to know the park intimately, sign on with Kayak Nature Tours, Grand Bahama's pioneer in eco-tourism. Full- and half-day trips combine kayaking on a windowpane-clear mangrove creek with hiking, exploring caves, and snorkeling (full day only). Knowledgeable and gregarious native guides identify plants and animals along the way, flavoring the tour with Bahamian-spiced facts, anecdotes, and good humor. The company also hosts biking and birdwatching tours and all-day sea kayaking trips off the islandÕs remote north shore. Birdwatchers are on the lookout for 18 species not found in North America, including the red-legged thrush, Bahama parrot, and Cuban emerald hummingbird. East of Lucayan National Park lies a world largely unentered by tourists or Freeport denizens. Roads that became navigable only in the past five years lead to sweeping, uninhabited beaches and settlements proud now to have telephone service. Protected Caribbean yellow pine and palmettos line the road like a forest of upside-down brooms and feather dusters. To experience the time-stilled expanse, try East End Adventures Bush and Sea Safaris, member, along with Kayak Nature Tours, of the Grand Bahamas Island Eco-Tourism Association.

Back around Freeport, two other attractions belong to the association. At Parrot Jungle's Garden of the Groves, a Miami attraction has taken over a vintage spot of beauty. The new owners have introduced tropical birds, a petting zoo, and, soon to come, an alligator pit into the setting of greenery and blossoms. Hydroflora Gardens, owned and operated by an old Bahamian horticulturist family, makes up in cultural charm for what it lacks in sophistication. Guides tell fascinating stories about how plants got their names (Did you know avocado is Aztec for testicle?). The botanical gardens are arranged along haphazard paths with signs identifying royal palms, Jamaican ackee, fragrant jasmine, and other plants native and rare. Displays underline the importance of religion in the lives of the Bahamians and, as they believe, in the glory of nature.

We can't leave out Underwater Explorers Society (UNEXSO), a highly respected dive operation that introduces visitors to the ecology of underwater habitat. Its popular Dolphin Experience takes visitors by the boatload to Sanctuary Bay to interact (carefully) with the creatures, and on closer encounters where participants swim, snorkel, and dive with dolphins, another unsurpassable thrill. On the other side of Freeport, past the cruise ship docks, the road takes another turn toward heritage tourism on a return to old Grand Bahama. The settlements here, Eight Mile Rock, Holmes Rock, Deadman's Reef, aren't quite as isolated as those at East End, but seem, nonetheless, a world away from the Freeport scene. Along Fish Hole Road, boats pull up with their catches and fishermen sell conch, crab, and grouper to people in passing cars. Folks are plain-out friendly, going out of their way to greet you with a neighborly, but properly British, Good morning. Fish fries constitute the social event of the week in the small fishing villages; visitors are welcome. Stark white churches beckon their nattily dressed congregations for lively Sunday worship.

At the end of the road lies West End, Grand Bahama's original capital in the days when rum-runners and wealthy yachters, the Kennedys, DuPonts, Hearsts, and their ilk, made the town's renegade reputation. Like much of the island, West End these days appears in a stupor, a state of animated suspension. A new resort slowly rises from the shambles of old Jack Tar Village, once a lively boater's destination. The same happens in the beachy Lucaya area of Freeport, where old hotels have been demolished to make way for a super strip resort for golfing, gambling, shopping, and playing in a splashy water park.

In the meantime, Grand Bahama Island waits for a renaissance promised by foreign investors. Heritage/eco-tourism thrives while traditional tourism has been put on pause. The new trend has taken its long-earned place in the scheme of flurried Freeport things, and now falls right in line with plans for this grand renewal, like a file of pink flamingos avoiding the heat of the moment and giving visitors a taste of what's still thankfully wild and untainted on Grand Bahama. Sanibel-based writer Chelle Koster Walton, contributing editor for Caribbean Travel and Life magazine, recently updated the Grand Bahama Island chapter of Fodor's Gold Guide to the Bahamas 2000.