Walk Up To The Tropical Hideaway

Okay so on our way back from Friendship Beach and the Bequia Beach Resort, we passed the entrance to the Tropical Hideaway. Well not really an entrance at first. More like the bottom of the road it was on top of. Let me digress and explain that on the trip into Bequia while waiting in the Barbados terminal, I commented on the tropical white sports coat another traveler was wearing. I said I would love to have one of those for just such an occasion. Bonnie also like the sports coat and struck up a conversation with the fellow. He said he was also going to Bequia and was staying at a place called the Tropical Hideaway. From his description of it’s isolated and spectacular vantage point on the island, it’s personal focus and small guest size, it sounded intriguing. Bonnie wanted to visit.

I had located it on the map and there we stood after our long walk to Friendship Bay, on the doorstep, so to speak. I was not really enthusiastic about a walk up the long winding uphill road to where the Tropical Hideaway sat. As we were were discussing this, two workmen came through a gate in a stone arch right on the part of he road were were standing on. We asked them about the Tropical Hideaway and it turned out they were actually doing work there. They pointed to the gate and the small sign and indicated this was a path up the mountain that we could take directly to the Hideaway. They said they were up and down this path all day, carrying materials to and away from the site.

Well a peek at the path was not encouraging to me. It was… steep. Steep in a way that would make a mountain goat hesitate. In Bonnie’s mind however there was no doubt we would be climbing this path. It was just another adventure. She started up, I followed, not with out comments about how foolish this was and how soon I would be dying. However it was such a lovely place to die and my complaints were not convincing.

After 30 minutes of steep, sometimes treacherous, always dizzying, trail, we made the summit and surprised the hosts. It turned out guests often walked down this trail but very very few walked up it.

In any case I was so tired and scared the whole trek up I didn’t take a single picture. And much of it was photo worthy. Dense but sun speckled, with occasion benches and a few stone thrones to rest upon. It certainly needed to photographed. I just wasn’t up to it. I did get this shot on the road down.