Who wouldn’t want a trip to Grand Cayman in the middle of winter? My husband surprised me with a weeklong trip to this beautiful island for my milestone birthday! Temps in the 80’s, sparkling turquoise waters, white sandy beaches, steel drums echoing at the Beach Bar every night, and hens and roosters. Wait. Hens and roosters? You heard that right. Hens and roosters are everywhere you go on the island. They are prolific now because of a lucky break in the food chain. Apparently, the green iguanas, who overran the island for a time, loved to eat chicken eggs–at least until island officials put a bounty on them. The hens and roosters flourished as the green iguana population declined. None of this was a comfort to me, however. I have an unpleasant history with hens and roosters. I have been chased numerous times by these seemingly gentle creatures. The people at the resort seemed to take the roaming chickens in stride. In fact, the chickens paid no attention to the resort guests as they basked in the sun or sat reading on their balconies. I tried to skirt around them as we walked along the beach, but they smelled my fear. I stifled any screams so as not to disturb the guests and did some pretty fast sprinting. I’m sure I had a nickname by the end of that week: “Crazy-Woman-Who-Is-Afraid of Chickens” or “She-Who-Dances-with-Chickens.” You know that old joke about why did the chicken cross the road? Well, it was to chase me, undoubtedly…
In spite of my Poultry Fears, my husband and I wanted to explore the island. I couldn’t wait to tour the Queen Elizabeth II Botanical Gardens. I love flowers, and I knew I was in for a visual feast. The gardens did not disappoint.There were many categories which reminded me of our own Coastal Botanical Gardens here in Boothbay, Maine. One was “Xerophytic”– I had to look this up–this type of garden had many succulents. It contained plants that adapted to very little water. There was a breathtaking Children’s Garden, complete with amazing woody structures for kids to climb on. And then, there was the Orchid Boardwalk. I could not believe the beauty of these airy, delicate plants. Many were not in bloom because of the season, but there were enough to make you gasp at their color and shapes.
There were no trolls here at the Queen’s Gardens like the ones at Maine’s Botanical Garden , but there WERE creatures roaming freely. Not the green iguanas, but the elusive BLUE iguana was here, and they are protected by Cayman law. I did not know they were free-roaming until our taxi driver sweetly informed us as we drove up to the Gardens. A few facts on the blue iguana: they can be over five feet long, weigh twenty-five pounds, and a fact my husband deliberately omitted, was that they can run over twenty miles an hour..I was glad I did not know this ahead of time, but let me reassure you my size eleven feet would have come in handy if, indeed, I had to escape one of these charming creatures! We did encounter FOUR iguanas, one being quite large, and the rest smaller and younger. They seemed disinterested in us, but I kept hearing the warning of the gift shop clerk and the numerous signs that said, “Don’t bring food with you into the gardens…” My husband did not know how close I was to riding piggyback on him as we scooted past a small iguana not two feet from us on a wooded trail. We did survive the garden and the lovely iguanas, although the conservation pen areas gave me a flashback to the movie, “Jurassic Park”–remember the fences everywhere? As we went into the penned area, there was a big sign on the fence:” Please close the gate behind you.” We were out of there in record time. I did dream of tropical gardens that night. And I did get some ideas for my own sunflower gardens. I did NOT dream about blue iguanas or even chickens. I decided the only large creature that would be in my garden would be a sweet, bear statue holding a flower in his paw.
