A Mango on the Loose

A few fruits talk of the Caribbean, limes perhaps, the coconuts on the beaches… but mangos are in a category of their own. They say mangos taste best with a bit of salt water, so perhaps sitting in some shallow sea… Among my happiest Caribbean moments was at the end of the fifth and final stage of the Guadarun, after about 30 kilometres through the heat of Grande-Terre. I sat in a sandy rockpool and was handed a mango to eat. (The other, good reason for eating it in the sea is that a juicy mango is one of the messiest things it is possible to eat… )

And what about this for a strange, magical Caribbean moment…? Inland in St Lucia, in the steep lands east of Castries, I found myself descending an extremely steep and windy road, when in front of me a mango fell from its tree, bounced off the verge and rolled out in front of me onto the tarmac. And it kept rolling, end over wobbly end, in no particular hurry, plump yellow and pink against the brand new, smooth black tarmac. It meandered into the middle on the short straights and it speeded up into the inside of the bends where it was steepest, drawn into the curve by the camber. At one point it almost veered into the gutter, but happily it righted itself and sallied forth once more, into the middle of the tarmac. It just kept rolling on, for more than 100 yards, drawn beautifully by its own weight and shape and the smoothness of the new road. It was intriguing to think how far it might go. I said there was no hurry, so I crept along to follow its progress. Eventually though, another car appeared on my tail. They would be unable to see this small moment of Caribbean perfection unfolding in front of me, nor could I explain why I was driving so slowly, so it became impossible to continue. I had to drive on, carefully passing it between my car wheels. I never saw how far the mango got...