At St. John, we stayed at the eco-friendly Maho bay campgrounds. Despite the name, it wasn’t really camping. It was more like living in a community of tree houses connected by walkways and surrounded by lush landscape. Some cottages have ocean views, but no matter where your site was located, you were guaranteed to fall asleep to the sound of crashing waves from little Maho bay down below. Everything is built on stilts to not interfere with the delicate environment. The long walkways and numerous stairs looks like something out of the mind of MC Escher, and after a week here, you’ll have developed some decent calf muscle. For $130 per night, which is considered a bargain on these shores, you get to be surrounded by nature without having to really rough it. Maho, by comparison, offers a more luxurious accomodation than the other campground Cinnamon Bay which, by the way, also includes sand fleas.
The Maho Bay campgrounds has communal cold water showers, a general store, and loads of activities like night snorkelling, guided hikes, movies, visits to BVI, and stargazing. There’s also an interesting glassblowing demonstration that we wished we got to see. Apparently, all glass bottles used at the grounds are turned into lovely pieces of art. Very eco-friendly! The days and nights at Maho start and end early. Dinner for example ENDS at 7:30 while the strictly enforced quiet time is 10pm. It was quite an adjustment for us as we’re used to EATING at 8 and sleeping around midnight. And because the nights end so early here, don’t expect a lot of nightlife at Maho. Monday nights offer the most excitement when the local reggae cover band perform your standard American-friendly island tunes. Of course, Bob Marley is always on the set list.
Maho and St. John in general, is a pretty much, do nothing kind of place. And it felt great to do exactly just that. We spent our days going to the beach and taking siestas afterwards. Who knew laying on the beach under a hot sunny sky can be such work? Some afternoons were just spent sitting on the deck reading, eating ice pops, and watching the banana quits. It was the laziest and most relaxing five days we’ve had in quite some time. All this makes us even more sad to hear that in 2011, Maho Bay Campground will be closing its doors forever. No one really knows what will become of the land, however, the overwhelming consensus seemed to be for some development with a similar eco-concious vision, and not some gated condo community.
