The Charm of Feral Chickens: A Grand Cayman Escape

My hand on the steel banister, I take one last inhale of warm island breeze, threaded with sea brine and preposterously pink flowers.

Then I step into the plane.

Grand Cayman escape

Stale recycled air. Industrial cleanser. The scratch and press of winter clothes I’d changed into at lunch so as to better meet the demands of our mid-Atlantic winter.

The flight attendant chuckled knowingly. "Welcome back to reality."

I laugh, even as my heart twists.

Had it only been three days earlier that we'd left Charlottesville before dawn, snow piled high along the roads? The memory of that icy drive quickly evaporated, since by lunchtime of that same day, my toes were curled in warm sand, eyes drinking in the redolent blue of the sea as I sipped a piña colada so perfect it has ruined me for all future piña coladas. And maybe all pineapples.

I’m lucky enough to have had a handful of travel moments so ridiculously perfect that all I could do was laugh. 

One, when Keith and I were stunned by the beauty of a Scottish cove framed by sheep-roaming farmland, and as we tripped over our words at the beauty, we turned and realized a rainbow arched above us. 

Two, when Keith and I hiked through a rainforest in Australia and stumbled on a troop of tree kangaroos called, improbably, pademelons (later, one of our kids said, “I didn’t know kangaroos came in varieties!” Neither did we). 

And then this moment in Grand Cayman, dress fluttering around me, the bottle-blue of the sea merging with the sky, chickens roaming the coastline. 

Before we go any further, I should say that this was my very first trip to the Caribbean. Shocking, given it’s practically in our backyard (two short flights from Charlottesville counts as in our backyard, even though it’s across country lines and over ocean waves), but all I can say to justify my Caribbean-newbie status is that I live in a family treats skiing less as a hobby and more as a calling. Which means any vacation that can involve a snowy mountain will involve a snowy mountain. Which means spring breaks and winter holidays—times when sensible people seek relief from the cold—find the Damiani family racing straight into more of it, please and thank you.

I loudly and often point out that since I don’t ski, I deserve some kind of medal for putting up with this family quirk. But if we’re honest, I deserve no such accolades, as the sight of a mountain stirs me like few things do, and hygge—that Danish feeling of coziness, contentment, and delight in simple pleasures—is one of my favorite states of being. 

In fact, for my fiftieth birthday, when I could have requested any adventure in the world, I asked for hygge. My husband found us a cabin in Big Sky, Montana where they could ski and I could watched clouds slip and divide over a mountain peak from big picture windows beside a crackling fire and under a cozy blanket as I read one book after another. 

Anyway, all my demands for gratitude must have settled in anyhow because for my December birthday, Keith gave me a box covered with travel stickers that read “winter weekend getaway” (Incoming brief marital bliss aside: if you're looking to delight your spouse, few things beat handing them a mystery trip.) Opening the box, I found four vintage postcards, each with a different destination—Oaxaca, Nassau, Riviera Maya, and Grand Cayman. I got to pick the card I wanted and my sweet husband planned a trip for Valentine’s Day weekend. 

I’ve always wanted to go to Oaxaca, but I knew that in a place like that, I’d want to be doing and seeing and all I wanted was to finish one book after another on a beach. My brain tickled with the possibility of sun-and-surf hygge.

Grand Cayman delivered.

And then it threw in chickens.

I realize it is unusual to become emotionally attached to feral poultry during a tropical vacation. But I’ve just never seen chickens as wild birds before, so watching russet ones strut past my umbrella or mottled ones herding chicks through a parking lot, it was a never-tiring miracle of poultry.

I'd love to contrast the chickens with some more serious kind of beauty in Grand Cayman, but frankly it all veered into the cartoonishly amazing.

The island seemed determined to outdo itself at every turn. Plump starfish lounged on the sea floor, some nearly as large as my head. Bioluminescence dripped from my paddle in a starlit bay though the floating stargazing lesson before the bay did lend a sense of gravitas even to the ridiculousness of all these glowing beasties). Even the sight of a ray gliding beneath me while snorkeling became unintentionally comic thanks to three little fish riding along on its back, as if the ray were a boat and they were waterskiing.

Our days on Grand Cayman were filled with snorkeling or, when the choppy water throttled my weak swimming skills, sitting on a beach, finishing one book after another as children played and palm trees swished and a cooler of British snacks kept me occupied (to know: as a British isle, driving happens on the left. After Scotland and Australia—funnily enough, the scene of the two other times I was this blown away by beauty, maybe I gravitate to places where the driving subverts my expectations?—Keith is an old hand, but those less confident can easily book a place a twenty minute taxi ride from the hotel and hire taxis to avoid the particular thrill of roundabouts that don’t pivot like one expects).

We feasted on meals of conch, rice and beans, coconut, and jerk chicken that still makes my mouth tingle when I think of it. Or modern interpretations, elevated but still filled with sunshine and personality. Or, some of the best Italian food I’ve ever had, with a view of boats passing through the marshy inlet. 

Hip cocktail bars, a visit to a rum distillery, and a trip to a museum where I learned that Grand Cayman's story is unusual. Unlike much of the Caribbean, there was no known permanent Indigenous population when Europeans arrived. Its earliest residents were sailors, shipwreck survivors, turtle hunters, and settlers arriving from elsewhere.

Another consequence of island life surprised me even more—Because so many Caymanian men worked at sea for months or years at a time, women often ran households, managed finances, and became the practical center of community life. The island's history has a distinctly female thread woven through it.

Three days.

That’s all we had on Grand Cayman.

And yet I came home with exactly the same feeling I carried home from Big Sky, even though the landscape, participants, and activities were wholly different.

Contentment.

The kind I had always assumed belonged to mountains and fireplaces, wool blankets, and falling snow.

I just never knew that one could find hygge watching literal chickens cross a literal road. Reading beneath a palm tree. Paddling through water that glowed beneath my oar. Eating jerk chicken while the sea changed color by the hour. Watching people barbecue beneath the trees because it’s Saturday afternoon. Having little local boys grip me fiercely in the water, suddenly someone else’s sense of safety, even as I could barely understand them through their island accents. 

I thought that kind of containment could only be found by a fireplace. But turns out it can be found with feet in sun-warmed sand. 

Looks like we’ll be spicing up those mountain trips with seaside escapes more often.

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