Today’s not only my first blog, but it’s also my birthday. The confluence of the two sent me thumbing through old passports to jog my memory about any interesting birthday travels.

 

Most of those, it turns out, were in my early days writing leisure travel. I spent a lot of summer time in the islands—travel writers get to go to the Caribbean in the hottest part of the summer, to make deadlines for fall articles that will help readers plan their winter vacations. We sweat, literally, over helping them escape the cold.

 

Shimmering heat dominates my memory of a trip to Haiti in the last days of Baby Doc Duvalier. There was still a tourism industry in those days, and I was part of a group of travel writers who were put up at the astonishing Habitation LeClerc. Even then, there was a jarring juxtaposition between the stark, grinding poverty of Port-au-Prince’s Martissant slum and the walled-in splendor of the Habitation’s 50-acre compound.

 

The Habitation had 36 villas, each pair sharing a pool; we each had one to ourselves. The property is so vast and hilly that golf carts transported those unwilling to make the hike from the reception area to their villa in the heat, and each villa had its own personal steward to run errands and deliver messages; there were no phones in the rooms. My all-time favorite travel anecdote comes from that stay.

 

My pool-sharing neighbor was Ron Butler, a wonderful writer and long-time friend. His teenage daughter had recently come to live with him in Manhattan, and this was the first time he’d left her alone in the apartment for any length of time. Just before 6 a.m. on the day we were scheduled to depart, his steward knocked loudly on his door. I heard him say urgently, “M’sieur Boot-laire! M’sieur Boot-laire! You ‘ave a phone call!”

 

Ron, woken from a sound sleep, immediately thought of his daughter, threw on some clothes and dashed down the winding paths to the reception building. When he arrived, out of breath and already sweating, no one was behind the desk; he pounded on it to get some attention. A perfectly pressed and coiffed person placidly appeared, and Ron asked about his call. The gentleman thumbed through a file of messages, pulled one out with a flourish, and with a radiant smile said, “Ah yes, M’sieur Butler. This is your wake-up call.”

-Mary Hunt, Editor, eFlyer