The Stops--Grand Turk

After leaving Miami on Monday, and enjoying Tuesday in the open water, we arrived early on Wednesday at the cruise terminal outside of Cockburn Town, capital of the Turks and Caicos Islands.  What a desolate, quiet, quaint, pleasant little town it is!  With only about 5500 inhabitants and not a single stoplight it's the quintessential out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere hamlet.  The cruise terminal is the nicest-looking set of buildings I saw, everything else brings "dilapidated" to mind.

Peaceful.  God it was peaceful.

click pictures to enlarge

A US missile tracking station, a remnant of the Cold War.

A replica of Friendship 7; John Glenn splashed down nearby.

Donkeys and horses wander the streets freely.  We saw some in several locations, just as the guide book said we would.   And I saw much more scrub brush than I saw trees.

This and the utility company building were the only ones outside of the cruise terminal that looked nice, everything else seemed in various states of disrepair.

Are these puppies cute, or what?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the main street though the capital! (You can see the ship docked in the distance if you zoom in.)

And this is the post office, probably the only one on the entire island.

The local currency is the US dollar, so these gas prices are exactly as high as you think they are.

Perhaps you think that I haven't been fair to Cockburn Town, that it's not as "provincial" as I've made it seem.  Here's some raw video I took which also shows the main street:

IMAG0002-Grand Turk from Darren Miller on Vimeo.

Keep in mind that I mean no disrespect to the residents of Cockburn Town or the T&C Islands.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself there for the few hours I was privileged to visit and found the town to be quite nice--but I don't want to put on rose-colored glasses here, I want to be honest.  It was cute, quiet, pleasant, seemingly poor, and somewhat rundown.  All five of those can, and in my opinion do, exist simultaneously.