A mountain chicken that’s actually a frog; a half-snake, half-lizard creature called a galliwasp; and an avian Dr Dolittle ... this is the stuff of a children’s fantasy, or perhaps a particularly vivid hallucination. In fact I was deep in the rainforest of Montserrat, discovering the bizarre local wildlife.
James “Scriber” Daley — so called because he can name every one of the island’s bird species — held up his hand to stop me in my tracks, cupped his hands to his mouth and started whistling. We were in search of the national bird, the Montserrat oriole, a shy creature no bigger than a starling. The Caribbean island, 16km long by 11km wide, is the only place where you find this particular species of oriole in the wild, yet even here they’re hard to spot; experts say there are only between 200 and 800 of them left.
Like most of the island’s human inhabitants, the oriole had two thirds of its habitat wiped out by volcanic eruptions between 1995 and 1997. Before that, tens of thousands of them lived here. The Soufriere Hills volcano had been threatening to explode for years, and in 1997 the side collapsed, sending lava streaming towards the capital, Plymouth.
Even though the evacuation was carried out in advance, and casualties were limited to 19 farmers who had knowingly strayed into the danger zone, many of the 12,000 inhabitants moved to the UK. Today, the southern part of the island is still out of bounds, so most of the remaining 4,000 people live in one small area in the north.
The lack of big luxury hotels and white beaches mean tourism was never large-scale here compared to other Caribbean islands. The little fame it garnered came from Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Sting recording at the British music producer Sir George Martin’s Air Studios during the 1980s: its abandoned remains — it was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 — are located in Belham Valley in the center of the island.
Even now, more than 10 years after the last eruptions, visitors have yet to return in significant numbers. This is partly a result of the volcano’s continued rumblings, though these are not currently dangerous, but also because access to the island is difficult: the only way in is by small plane from neighboring Antigua. But a ferry service from Antigua is scheduled to begin next month, and a yacht marina is under construction in Little Bay, which should bring more visitors.
A recent addition is Mount Pleasant eco-camp — in the Woodlands area about 20 minutes’ drive from the airport, which opened a month ago. Spread over 0.04 hectares of hillside on the edge of a rainforest, the centerpiece is Harmony Cottage — an olive green yurt with a grass roof, looking out over the Caribbean Sea. Sprinkled among the trees up hill are 12 permanent camping platforms with tents, stoves and self-inflating beds available to hire.
For David Payne, the man who built it, it has been a labor of love. “I built an eco-camp in 1995, on the other side of the island,” he said, “but just as I was about to open it the whole lot got wiped out by the volcano.” Not one to give up easily, David has recreated his vision safely out of reach from future eruptions, in the middle of the island in the Centre Hills region. He’s completed all the work himself over the past 12 months, equipping the yurt with solar-powered lights and a fridge, compost toilets and showers that draw water from a spring. The day I turned up he was sawing a huge slab of mahogany destined to become the on-site bar.
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