11 food fight

After a full week of R&R, seeing the lively exchanges at the Marigot market (Wednesday and Saturday mornings) on St. Martin might suddenly remind you of your last office meeting – only without the deadlines. At the foot of Fort Saint-Louis, this market has all you’ll need for a picnic lunch, which you can enjoy dangling your feet off the end of the nearby dock.

Marigot, St. Martin

12 Saline Solution

The Turks Islands’ salt industry is making a comeback. André Niederhauser, CEO of the Coral Gardens resort, produces his own salt from huge vats of sea water. Tastes a lot better than swallowing a mouthful down your snorkel.

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos 649-941-3713 www.coralgardens.com

13 Riding Free

Take to the open road for great cycling – and when we say open, we mean open. With only 16 cars per 1,000 people, Cuba has lightly populated highways that let you pedal in peace. Sure, in Havana, you’ll have to move over for road-hogging American cars, circa 1950. Their candy colours, shiny chrome and fantastic tail fins and hood ornaments are as much a part of the scenery as the palm trees. But as soon as you leave the metropolis, the road’s all yours.

Havana bike rentals at cubalinda.com

14 Caribbean Condo Living

We chilled Canadians deserve the chance to chill out, if only for a few weeks a year, in our own island paradise. So some have recently floated the idea that the Turks and Caicos should be made our 11th province. (In the T&C themselves, the idea is apparently usually met with uncontrollable fits of laughter.) For now, running one of the luxe resorts that are legion in these islands is a feat in itself. Canadian Stan Hartling is doing very well at it, thank you very much, and this month he opens the Palms, an exclusive condo development on Providenciales island (don’t bother; all units have been sold for months). “High-end buyers in the future will not be satisfied with a simple condo on a beach. They will be looking for a sophisticated property that can give them a resort experience when they use it and income when they don’t,” explains Hartling, who also runs the Sands, a cozy resort with the feeling of small-town life. Cocktails on the beach, welcome service… being a homeowner was never so relaxing.

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos
649-946-8666 www.thepalmstc.com
1-877-777-2637 www.thesandstc.com

15 Bomba’s Full Moon Parties

During a full moon, a gravitational pull draws surfers and revellers to Bomba’s Surfside Shack on Tortola island. You can’t miss it: Look for the structure built out of driftwood, tin roofing and broken surfboards or just follow the crowd. Yes, it is a raunchy dive. And yes, it’s fun.

Apple Bay, Tortola, B.V.I. 284-495-4148

16 Dancing in the street

Trinidad’s is one of the more popular of the pre-Lenten carnavals. If you don’t want to miss any of its colourful and dizzying excitement, it’s best to simply not sleep (you wouldn’t be able to anyway). If you don’t feel limber enough for the limbo contest at your hotel, you can test your chops on that musical icon of the region, the steel drums. After all that bumping and grinding, a barbadine punch, one of the island’s many aphrodisiac elixirs, will be just the thing.

February 7–8, Trinidad www.visittnt.com