Lost in Nassau

I was fortunate enough to be on a President’s Club trip to the Bahamas. The trip was scheduled right in the middle of my training for my first marathon, the San Diego Rock-n-Roll Marathon set for June 1, 2008. Always being up for an adventure, I logged on to MapMyRun and mapped out my route for my long 17 mile run that week. Before I left I told my wife I’d be back within 3 hours, printed the map out, stuck it in my pocket and off I went.

From our resort, I headed over the bridge and into Nassau about 6:30AM. I turned right and headed down a few miles along the coast before I was supposed to turn left and run toward the other side of the island. The plan was to run a nice loop which was 17 miles long. The problem started when I noticed that not all of the streets had street signs. “No problem” I thought. “I have a pretty good sense of direction” and so I turned left onto a street that looked like it would get me where I needed to go. That plan quickly disintegrated along with the sidewalks that I was running on. I dodged traffic for about a mile on a narrow two-lane road that curved to the left until I finally came upon a major street, again with no street sign. The sun was out, but it wasn’t too hot . . . yet.

I turned right and felt confident that I was now on my way to where I needed to go. About 2 ½ hours into my run I figured I had to be getting close to the bridge which brought me over into Nassau. I looked down and noticed that the sun, which had now heated things up to about 85 degrees to match the humidity (I’m from California, we don’t have humidity), was casting my shadow on the wrong side of my body. I stopped and asked a man if he could tell me where I was in relation to the streets on my map. He told me that I was just a few streets over and I began to feel better. Then I asked him where Paradise Island was and he said in his Bahamian accent, “Oh mon. It’s about 8 miles dat way”.

Now, I’m fearing for my life. Not because of where I was, but because I knew my wife would kill me if I was 3 hours late for our “swimming with the dolphins” encounter. I realized that I didn’t bring any money, no ID and no cell phone. I only had my “RoadID” and my room key. I started heading back and after a few miles, I went into a convenience store. I asked if I could use their phone and if they had the number to my hotel. The lady behind the counter was happy to let me use the phone, but she didn’t have the number.

Thankfully another lady in the store had pity on me and gave me a dollar in change and told me to go down to the corner and catch the bus into downtown. I thanked her very much, went down to the corner and looked for the bus stop. There wasn’t one, so I flagged down the first bus I saw and after an embarrassing moment on the bus (nobody wants to sit next to a tourist that is sweating profusely from running for 3 hours), I was back into downtown. I gladly headed back over the bridge to my hotel only 3 ½ hours after I started.

I made it back in time for my dolphin encounter and my wife didn’t kill me (she did laugh at me, but she didn’t kill me). I’ll never forget the generosity and kindness of the people that I met. I look forward to the opportunity to visit them again. My wife tells me it will have to be in a taxi.