CaribEthnoExp. Part II. British Virgin Islands

Map

March 14th ... April 5th, 2013

It’s great to have a private plane at your disposal—you just hop on and go.

We didn’t have enough time to get visas in Moscow before leaving, but the British Embassy assured us that we could stay in BVI for 24 hours if we were transiting to a third country. So, with that argument up our sleeves, we land.

The border agents, however, are firmly convinced that Britain’s not the boss of them. They’ve got their own island pride here. And the embassy in Moscow shouldn’t be telling them how to live their lives. We nod and agree with everything they say, which proves to be a winning strategy—they let us in for 24 hours.

The self-importance of civil servants is usually directly proportional to the insignificance of the country. There are chickens running around outside the airport here. It makes you wonder why they can’t just let people off the plane to take a walk around. (The only place where tourists without a visa receive an even worse welcome is the South Pacific backwoods of Tokelau.)

The island looks like nothing special. Still waters.

Yet over 700 000 companies are registered in the British Virgin Islands—that’s about 60% of all the offshore companies in the world.

A license plate.

The vehicle license stickers are nice. The color represents the expiration year; the large number is the expiration month. The circular perforation in the middle of the sticker ensures that it can’t be moved without damaging it.

Standard-issue Cable and Wireless payphone booths (like in Panama, for example).

There are large green dumpsters for household trash everywhere (the same model as in St. Kitts and Nevis).

The British Virgin Islands’ main attraction is the cutout rear windows on passenger buses. There’s just one craftsman on the entire island who does this—Keith Smith—and everyone comes to him to make their buses beautiful.