The Caribbean: White sands and black magic

They say that doctors go in fear of being collared and quizzed by complete strangers about their ailments: "I wonder if I could have a word..." You might be surprised that a Caribbean guide book writer could venture any professional complaints in life, but I do have a grievance on similar lines: I groan inwardly every time I'm asked: "So, tell me, what's the best island in the Caribbean?"

They say that doctors go in fear of being collared and quizzed by complete strangers about their ailments: "I wonder if I could have a word..." You might be surprised that a Caribbean guide book writer could venture any professional complaints in life, but I do have a grievance on similar lines: I groan inwardly every time I'm asked: "So, tell me, what's the best island in the Caribbean?"

What they usually mean is: "Please tell me where I should go on holiday – which island, airline and hotel, oh, and if you've got a couple of recommendations for a romantic dinner out, then that would be nice too." I know this because I can see their eyes glaze over when I start talking about the places that I actually love. Like Haiti for instance...

Poor, benighted Haiti, it's hardly a tourist destination. But it really is one of my favourite islands. It is vibrant, compelling and relentless; tough travel but fascinating. Haiti takes familiar Caribbean strains, good and bad, and amplifies them to a blare: Haitian "tap-tap" buses are the most crowded in the Caribbean, but they are as brightly painted as circus caravans. They are inscribed with slogans in Haitian kweyol, the hardest baked of the Caribbean creoles. At times these sound like incantations, but at least you have a chance of benediction when you are run over in the heaving streets of Port au Prince – with a scream of horns you will look up and see 'DIEU te BENISSE' before being despatched.

And then there's the voodoo. Once I hitched a lift in a truck to a voodoo pilgrimage, the Sodo. Every vehicle in town was going there. Except the one I chose. It was only when I had climbed aboard that I realised I had managed, on my way to a Catholic voodoo pilgrimage, to climb into a lorry full of Protestant Evangelists. Four hours of conversion attempts on a badly pot-holed road left my mind as numb as my bum. It all threatened to dissolve into a fight when I pointed out a voodoo doll nailed to a tree.

At the Sodo (Creole for the French 'Saut d'eau', or cascade) Catholic devotees honour an appearance of the Virgin Mary in a waterfall. But they also honour Erzulie, Mary's less effete voodoo counterpart. Coquettish Erzulie is the loa (or life spirit) who oversees matters of love. Pilgrims come to pray for lovers, to keep their lovers, for children, or anything pretty much. Some just give thanks, others literally arrive with a shopping list of requests.

They bathe in the spattering, hundred-foot shower of the waterfall. Some become possessed, but most simply wash themselves (literally, with shampoo and soap) all over. The last thing they do is to hitch up their skirts and drop their underwear into the stream. Underfoot the riverbed runs spongy with knickers.

The Sodo is not spooky, but after dark falls the atmosphere changes as voodoo ceremonies begin. Candle clutching crones, eyes and teeth flashing, pray to the locked white-washed church, to ask Bon Dieu Bon (God oversees all the voodoo spirits as he does the Catholic saints) to bless their services. The drum-driven rhythms last long into the night.

By the time I've got on to this story the person who unwittingly asked for a bit of free holiday advice has either decided to go next year or they have quietly crossed themselves and moved on.

If I'm not feeling quite so indignant, then I'll just pluck a likely island and sing its praises. Which one depends on an unfathomable personal illogic, but it doesn't necessarily matter. The Caribbean has impressive variety.

The Grenadines often come to mind. Strung between St Vincent and Grenada, these are some of the doziest and most delightful islands in the area. Some are little more than a sand-bar and a palm tree, but most have haphazard, small-island charm. Others, like Mustique and Palm Island, are absurdly luxurious. The Virgin Islands probably offer better holiday sailing (certainly more beach bars), but the Grenadines have a rawer, more natural Caribbean quality. And they are ideal for island-hopping.

Bequia, just south of the volcanic St Vincent, is picture-postcard pretty, like Cornwall in the Caribbean. Tin-roofed houses sit among palm trees along the Belmont waterfront and at times scores of yachts stand in Admiralty Bay. I love to start a trip here, walking and taking water taxis to the beaches and bars.

The mail boat and inter-island ferry, the MV Barracuda, calls three times a week. On board are all the soft drinks, dry goods, goats and chickens, vegetables and building materials that are needed on the islands, and the mail of course. Once I caught a ride to Mayreau, where there still isn't a concrete dock (goats are unloaded in bags, but cattle are simply herded off and left to swim for it).

Mayreau is a classic Caribbean outcrop. It only recently received electricity and telephones, so the air of the old Caribbean remains and you can find yourself in a communal film (now video) screening in the local bar. Or perhaps Dennis, owner of the guest house, will sing to you. (In the bar on Mustique it might be Phil Collins or Nigel Kennedy).

Each Grenadine island is visible from the next. From Mayreau you can see the Tobago Cays, a series of sandspits, Union Island (reached by fishing boat from Mayreau in this case), and beyond it Carriacou, across the border with Grenada. Officially the border slices off the north of Carriacou, but the two nations haven't come to blows over it recently. The ferry, a sail boat, runs twice a week. On board, I was offered a swig of "Jackiron", a boot-legged rum of undeclared proof, swimming with grass ends and grit. When we landed I asked the captain to prove the old adage and it is true. Ice sinks in "Jackiron".

If Bequia is pretty, Carriacou is the comatose Caribbean incarnate. The pace of life is soporific and if you can cope with that it's perfect. Everyone says good morning because they all know each other, and they greet you even if they don't know you.

But Carriacou is also about beaches, secluded strips of deserted sand. The nicest is Anse la Roche in the northwest. Reached off the main track via cairns on forest paths, it is like a treasure hunt to get to. If quiet natural beaches are your thing (there are no facilities there) then it is a classic, with silken sand that slopes steeply into the sea and waves that clap and race in spume fingers.

There are times of course when being questioned about the Caribbean is a pleasure. Then I try to tease out the ultimate Caribbean secret: which island would make this person fall in love with it? But if I ask this of myself, I find I'm a bit of a coward. I have had a good time in so many of the islands, for completely different reasons. If I were forced to choose, though, it would probably be Nevis.

Nevis is an island with a near-limitless capacity to make you starry-eyed and smitten. It is small and slow and the islanders are unconditionally friendly. There have been changes, but Nevis still keeps a charm that other islands lost years ago.

I love Nevis's understated physical beauty: her shores, skirted with brown sand and a tangle of palms, and the superb views of St Kitts. Even on this island, just six miles by eight, there is a mountain, whose flanks are mantled in rainforest, where tree frogs ring on the humid night air, seemingly for the simple joy of singing. There are no crowds, except in church, and when the boat comes in. I love Nevis's innocence. Of course I realise I am smitten here ­ the island faces the same problems as any small island and it needs to develop ­ but how else should love be? Even the raffish collection of outsiders that have washed up there seem part of the patchwork.

I love Nevis's feeling of elegant history, visible in every beautifully built, sun-blackened wall that pokes out of the undergrowth. Several of the old plantation houses have been turned into hotels and they are some of the most delightfully low-key places in the Caribbean. Not glitzy, not brash, just... well, just so. And of course I love just being there. Somehow Nevis feels right. It's not that I feel I "belong". I would just love to return again and again to find the same slow beauty and dreamy, nonchalant calm and charm.

Who knows if a doctor has ever diagnosed a dose of hopeless Caribbean fever in an impromptu surgery, but they might in me. And if I managed to cause one, then I reckon I'd have done well.

The fifth edition of James Henderson's 'Cadogan Guide to the Caribbean and the Bahamas' is published this month, price £14.99

Traveller's Guide

Getting to Haiti: travel via Miami, or get a cheap charter from Manchester or Gatwick to the Dominican Republic and cross overland from Santo Domingo.

Where to stay: in Port au Prince the atmospheric Oloffson Hotel was the inspiration for the hotel in Graham Greene's The Comedians. In the north of Haiti, you can stay in an old colonial mansion, the Roi Christophe. Trips Worldwide (0117 311 4402, www.tripsworldwide.co.uk) offers a week's itinerary taking in these places, for £1,550 per person.

The Grenadines: Caribjet (020-7627 1616) offers a return flight on British Airways and LIAT into St Vincent for £575. It is easy to hop on the various ferries ­ get timings and ideas for accommodation from the tourist boards (St Vincent and Grenadines 020-7937 6570, Grenada
020-7771 7016). On Bequia you might consider staying at Frangipani, a villa on the Belmont waterfront, and in Carriacou, the Caribbee Country House.

Nevis: get a charter or scheduled flight to Antigua, and take a 20-minute hop from there. Tourist Board: 020-7376 0881.

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