Bequia: ‘quiet island’ of the Caribbean
Financial Times
14 Feb 2020
By Jan Dalley
Bequia (say: Beck-way) is, I’m told, the quiet island. Not Mustique-starry, nor mass market Barbados sceney, there is a sense of the old Caribbean — working fishing boats along the waterfront in the capital Port Elizabeth, women walking their fruit to market, neat uniformed schoolchildren, churches, goats in the road. It’s already the end of January, but the annual Christmas lights competition, tightly contested between different villages, doesn’t seem to be over.
The old-world tone is set in the reception, where a Reading Room has deep sofas, books, rattan fans gently swirling, all decorated with period leather luggage evoking a bygone era. The cabanas around the pool are jauntily coloured, with hand-hewn wooden fretwork. Rooms have high four-posters draped with filmy white mosquito curtains, quirky antique furniture and objets, old maps on the walls: Caribbean history is all around. With some 50 rooms across the whole estate, this is the largest hotel in St Vincent and the Grenadines yet still feels homey and it’s full of entertaining touches. At the bottom of the outside stair leading up to my room, a soft brush hangs on a peg — for dusting the sand off your toes.