Tour of St. Helena in an Old Fire Truck
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
Location: 15° 12.7′S / 007° 44.8′W
Bound for Fernando de Noronha, Brazil
Our crew was very keen on exploring the island of St. Helena, infamous for being the place where Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled from 1815 until his death 1821. We asked around and Maggie was sent to the home of a woman who was known for arranging tours. Jamestown, St. Helena is nestled in a deep, narrow valley and is not densely populated, so when she was told to visit “the blue house with the blue trim” it was not difficult to find at all! She arrived at the door of a tall house located on the main street (built in early 1800s) and after a few minutes, she had negotiated a tour for 18 of our crew for the very next day. The woman added as an aside, as if it was obvious, that the tour would be given by her father, who was going to take us in the town’s old fire truck.
The next morning we all gathered outside the blue house with blue trim and met Colin, the sweet old man with pretty hazel eyes (quite striking since the majority of the population is quite dark (Portuguese, Malay, Indian, Chinese, English, Dutch and African Boer descendants) generally with brown eyes, sometimes hazel. We also got our first look at the old fire truck. It was green and had no top on it and it had been refitted with rows of seats whose leather covering became quite hot in the bright sunshine. The fire truck was quite old fashioned. It resembled a longer version of the Jalopy that Archie drives in the “Archie and Jughead” comic books!
Colin drove us through the narrow and winding streets of Jamestown and up the hillside where we could get a nice view of Jamestown and the harbour from up high. The road was a little wider than a single lane and cars driving down the hill have to “pull over” and stop to let cars pass that are driving uphill. There was only a low, stone retaining wall to prevent cars from tumbling into the deep valley below. With the old buildings (built in the 1700s and 1800s) and the old European-style streets, the asphalt that paved the roads was the only indication that we were in fact in the modern era. Atop the hillside Colin stopped the car so that we could look down into the valley and absorb the landscape. He pointed out the heart-shaped waterfall that flows only in certain seasons, and he pointed out the first home that Napoleon stayed in when he first arrived to the island. Apparently he wrote of this residence as his favourite on the island because he had the opportunity to be with the family who lived there. Atop the hill opposite us was a large fort that had been built by the English. There were forts all over the island to protect it from being conquered by another country.
Our first stop was Longwood, the home where Napoleon lived and died while he was exiled to St. Helena. It was a rather elegant cottage with many rooms decorated to the height of fashion in England at the time. Napoleon was dethroned and exiled to St. Helena allegedly for reneging on a contract with the English. The English, however, were also guilty of not completely fulfilling their end of the deal, so while they deposed Napoleon as Emperor of France, they did give him the rank of General, and he was kept according to a General’s standards. In fact, in the final days of his life, a new home was being built for him because he did not like that Longwood was so damp. It also had a terrible rat problem, and it is recorded that a servant sleeping in a companionway had a portion of his leg chewed off by rats in the night! Longwood and the tomb where Napoleon was first interred (his body was exhumed 19 years later and returned to France) are still considered French soil, although St. Helena belongs to the English. Longwood has undergone extensive restorations and appears now as it would have when Napoleon lived there (minus the rats and dampness, and with added electric lights), and the English have taken over the responsibility of maintaining it on behalf of the French.
After our visit to Longwood, we loaded back into the ancient fire truck (it stalled out from time to time, but ran remarkably well considering its age!) and drove along a beautiful scenic highway (still one lane) with plunging green valleys on one side, and the peak of a 2,000 ft mountain on the other. We drove to the place where Napoleon was buried. Apparently he and his escorts would walk along the valley’s mouth from Longwood and he liked to spend a great deal of his time in the little clearing that he requested he be buried in. It was quite a hike down a slippery, green path, but we were rewarded with the most beautiful forest clearing I have ever seen. There were fragrant purple flowers growing on tall shrubs, their petals dotting the clearing where they had blown free. There were tall trees lining the clearing, with their thick foliage and stumps blocking out the world around us. There were seemingly hundreds of birds singing together. I understand why Napoleon spent so much time there and chose to rest there for what he thought would be forever! In the center of the clearing was a large concrete slab (about 10 x 10 feet) surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence that marked where the tomb had been. We were very lucky to be able to visit Longwood and the tomb because they are normally closed on weekends. The staff having opened them especially for our crew! The walk back up the steep forest path to where to truck was parked at the top of the road, was alarmingly difficult. We puffed along out of breath with our leg muscles cramping from the exertion. We have become stronger physically from working on the ship, but we do not have any stamina because our aerobic activity comes in short bursts and we do not have to walk about the decks of the ship much (and it is not a great distance from bow to stern, anyhow).
We loaded back into the truck and Colin took us on a scenic tour of the island, showing us an American satellite observatory that was erected on a hilltop. The hills were lined with flax, which used to be a major export from the island to make fabrics, but it became redundant with the development of nylon materials. Flax still grows in abundance on St. Helena, but it is now considered a weed. Its main function now is to protect the steep hills from soil erosion.
As we drove along the winding roads, we saw how dramatically different the lush vegetation inland was from the harsh, barren appearance of the shoreline and cliffs facing the ocean. The air was so sweet and clear that one smell struck me more than any other: after months at sea with salty air, I was struck now by the smell of fresh water! The plants, the drizzle, the trickles of water running down the rock faces smelled richly of fresh water. Leave it to a sailor to detect that difference!
After a lovely drive we came across an old, magnificent plantation (now serves a political purpose) where Colin invited us to hop out and pass through a fence and onto the plantation grounds. We had walked only a few feet before we encountered what he had brought us to see. An enormous tortoise named Jonathon crept along at a fabled turtle’s pace, pulling clumps of grass out of the ground with his rounded “beak.” We walked up to Jonathon and petted his long, leathery neck and legs. He pulled his head in at first but then relaxed when he realized what we were. Jonathon is used to people, but he is blind now in one eye (because of a cataract) and we had approached him from his blind side. He was a gentle and patient tortoise, despite a little hissing from time to time when he wanted us to let him alone so he could eat. Vicki peeled a banana for him, which he nudged aside until later. As it turns out, his favourite fruit is grapes, but we had no grapes with us. Jonathon, we learned, is a whopping 174 years old! He is not the only tortoise at the plantation. He shares the sprawling lawn with two female tortoises, each around 40 years old. I did not catch where the tortoises came from, but I believe the French may have brought Jonathon. After we stood in awe of this ancient animal, the notorious island drizzle chased us back to the truck.
We circled around the other side of the island and visited a fort that overlooked Jamestown and the harbour, where the Picton Castle was anchored. We ran around the abandoned battlement and inspected all of the winding corridors and empty spaces whose ceilings seemed to stretch upwards forever. I had to step on my tiptoes to see out the slits cut in the high walls for the gunmen to be protected from enemy fire. The fort was quite large for an isolated island. Some rooms were so dark I dared not go in for fear I’d fall into a storage pit of some sort. From the fort, Colin brought us to the top of Jacob’s Ladder, the last spot on our tour. Since the bottom of the ladder is only a few hundred feet from the blue house with blue trim, Pania, Kathleen and Brett could not resist the temptation to climb down the 700 steps and meet us at the bottom. Their legs were quite sore the next two days.
Once we returned to where we had began our trip more than four hours earlier, we thanked Colin for showing us so much and for taking the time to spend the day with us. The rain had cleared up, so we left Colin and headed straight for the Castle Gardens to chatter about our adventures that day and to relax on the park benches amidst a fountain and thousands of flowers. We caught up on writing our postcards and played with some young children who are lucky enough to live inside the Castle Garden’s walls.
Although Napoleon hated it there, St. Helena and its people struck us with their beauty, and we know how incredibly lucky we are to have had the opportunity to visit one of the most historic and isolated islands in the world (it can still be accessed only by ship). As with Pitcairn, only the luckiest few of us might someday have the opportunity to return.
