If I had to join a two-hour-long queue, my favourite would be waiting in line at Lynden Pindling Airport in Nassau, The Bahamas, a day before Christmas Eve.
Imagine a freezing, wind-swept desolate Canadian winter. Then imagine the welcoming arms of Caribbean warmth. The weather so perfect that it isn’t part of daily conversation. That you are comfortable and sweatless day or night in the same shorts and T-shirt. You fly in over a dozen shades of sea—from azure to deep emerald and the plane lands between fronds of palm trees. You enter a cavern of endless tourists waiting to pass through immigration, on their way to a holiday looked forward to all year with glee.
The hall is humming as tourists sway to the rhythms of Christmas carols played by a steel band on a stage in a corner—their sound so loud it can be heard on Bay St., 10 kilometres away.
Our annual Christmas getaway began a decade ago. Laura had to visit The Philippines to nurse her dying mum. It was too far to uproot the kids from Canada and be back in ten days for start of school.
“What are you going to do while I’m away?” Laura asked.
Bahamas was a magic word producing “Oohs” and “Aahs” from everyone who had been there. Then there was Atlantis, on an island separated from Nassau, with one of the largest waterparks in the world, including a shark tank through which you dove down a glass tunnel. It was an instant hit with my two boys.
With no family in Calgary we were able to dispense with cooking and family chores—Atlantis became our annual dream getaway.
On arriving, our winter clothes dumped in our room, we escaped to Anthony’s, the only locally owned restaurant on Paradise Island. While my family ordered conch chowder and pan-fried grouper, I satisfied myself with a large bowl of Anthony’s Cuban bean soup. The soup was splendid, but the accompanying Johnnie cake was what I had longed for all winter. It was sponge-like, an inch high, stuffed with olives, red peppers and exuding a host of spices. It was always freshly baked and steaming, as it landed on our table.
Many times, I asked who “Johnnie” was. No one knew.
As a budding travel writer, it never occurred to me to write about our Christmas sojourn. As enjoyable and relaxing as The Atlantis was, the packed crowds at peak season smacked too much of being in the centre of Disneyland.
A few weeks ago, waiting for a client to show up, I mindlessly googled “Johnnie Cake-etymology”. It was originally called “Journey Cake”. When travelling from one island to another to seek their fortune, the islanders would bake and take this cake with them to sustain them for up to a fortnight.
It was then I got the urge to write a book about The Bahamas.
Unlike other writers, I need a title before I start to write, rather than the other way round. “Journey Cake” was perfect. All my books compare and contrast eccentrics and situations I meet on my travels and those in my past.
If The Bahamas was to be my main theme, what could I compare it and contrast it with? How about my last seven years’ struggle to write and publish my books, meeting the odd Calgarians I enlisted on the way?
And so my fourth book begins where I started “If I had to join a two-hour-long queue, where would it be?”
