Allan's Town

Georgetown, Grand Cayman – Thursday morning. The weather has not exactly cooperated with us, but not looking too bad. We tender in, find the bus to Seven Mile Beach and get on. And we wait. And we wait. The gentleman is clearly trying to fill the bus - and with the price of gas these days who can blame him?

More people get on and we are full. And we wait. Oh … jump seats down the middle. A lady yells to him can we “go already”. Typical rude American … always in a hurry. He gives her a nasty stare, and shuts the door so he does not have to hear her. And we wait some more. Pretty soon, though, we are off!

We are enjoying the beautiful scenery ... right up until the scenery we were supposed to get off by (a Marriott hotel) goes whizzing by. Bonne shouts out, but is ignored. Seven Mile Beach, I am assuming is, well - seven miles long. The miles whiz by. Bonne is admiring the hotels, I am calculating the walk back to where we want to be.

We stop at a park and the gentleman tells everyone without tour tickets to get out of the van. We get out and wait to ask him why he did not stop where the vans normally stop, used to stop. He is apologetic and says that he will take us there … back into the van.

We turn around and head back the way we came. Beautiful hotels – I enjoy them this time. We are really in no hurry and I do not have to hoof it. We arrive at the tour groups destination (just short of the Marriott) … or are we? A discussion ensues and the gentleman tells everyone ‘back in the van’. He apologizes and says that he misunderstood, it is somewhere else.

We turn around and are rolling again. Stop at the park where we left the ‘unticketed’ and everyone gets out. Bonne and I wait until he is ready to take us back. He apologizes again and says he will take us now to the Marriott. He has been nothing but kind to us. We tell him it is OK, we are not in any big hurry.

We turn around yet again and start out for our final destination. I have picked out my favorite hotel, point it out to Bonne – discuss the merits of the others, and soon we are there! He gets out, takes each of us by the hand, escorts us across the street and then engulfs each of us in a bear hug.

As we talk about this gentleman and discuss his actions, we realize that he is a very simple man, probably has an I.Q. in the low 70’s and in Bonne speak: “Is precious”. We smiled about the mix ups and then enjoy being the only two people on the beach.

We decide it is time to go, pack our things and head to the bus stop. We wonder how long it will take to get a van – being off season and not the best weather. One comes speeding along and Bonne waves. It drives on by. No, wait – it has stopped up ahead … and curiously enough is backing up in very congested traffic. We head toward it, jump in – taking the last two jump seats thrilled we are headed back to port so soon.

I look up and smiling at me from the rear view mirror is our friend. “I took you there this morning, yes?” he says. We told him that yes, we were the two drop-offs. He is telling the group that he had taken us to our destination that morning – the group being ‘a group’ on a tour all together. I feel like hiding under my jump seat ... Bonne is laughing.

He asks if we have 15 extra minutes and we answer in the affirmative (little did we know he was asking the tour group, not us). The next place we end up is a parking lot filled with vans and a group of men clustered around a booth. Our driver gets out, points at us repeatedly and we surmise that he is asking permission to take us to port – he feels he needs permission. We offer to walk – we had driven miles, but were only about three blocks from port.

He jumps back in grinning again – and off we go. Get dropped off at the port with everyone else. We thank him and in exchange we get huge bear hugs. We ask him his name: Allan.

Georgetown, Grand Cayman … what will forever in my mind be Allan’s Town.