Lockdown is making me nostalgic for past travels. This week it’s all about nostalgia in lockdown and travel memories as it’s been hard not to think about where we should have been right now. We are supposed to be on the beautiful island of St Martin with our great friends the Rodz.
The last time JF and I were in the Caribbean was over 20 years ago when we spent 2 months exploring Barbados (picture of beautiful Bottom Bay above), St Lucia, Martinique and Trinidad, with a brief visit to St Vincent and the Grenadines.
For part of our trip we travelled between the islands by boat, but not your ordinary boat, neither a sailing boat nor a cruise ship. No, we travelled on a small inter-island cargo ship as some of about 20 passengers. (Photo below of MV Windward, on the left of the picture, moored in Castries harbour, St Lucia, near a real cruise ship – which is half the size of cruise ships these days!) The cargo ship took us passengers to Carnival in Trinidad where it moored in Port-of-Spain for the duration of the festivities. It was an incredible experience and one of my all-time favourite travel memories.
Back to the present, to lockdown France, in lieu of actual travel, this week we “got together” with friends in London over Zoom for a travel-themed meal. (For more ideas on how to travel without travelling click here). The country, randomly chosen by an app, conveniently turned out to be Senegal. I say conveniently because we’ve been there recently (to stay with those very same friends the Rodz) and had a few souvenir props we could use to decorate the table.
Sourcing the ingredients for the meal, cooking chicken Yassa (recipe here) and mango cream, creating ersatz Bissap (hibiscus juice) and Senegalese beer, and decorating the table took us away from the humdrum of lockdown life for a fun evening “with” friends.
Related Reading
Carnival – Two Very Different Celebrations (for more on Trinidad carnival)
A Family Adventure in French Guyana (written by the Rodz)
The Beginnings of a Multicultural Marriage
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Senegal dinner looks delicious. What an experience to go on a tiny cargo boat like that one in the Caribbean. Lucky you
What a brilliant idea the Senegal meal was and great to be able to reminisce over travels from the past. Hopefully we can all start planning adventures again soon.
Another great article (obviously slightly biased as mentioned 3 times!) Yes the trip to Saint Martin has been postponed AGAIN, but as the saying goes : 3rd time lucky. Your Senegal dinner soiree looked amazing. Glad I could help. But being a positive person, there are worse places we could be during the confinement. Sooo lucky to be living on the Côte d’Azur.