I can’t help but laugh as Rommel Forbes wraps up his tale of why there are no fast-food chains here on Provo, the hub of the Turks and Caicos Islands. ‘All of a sudden, KFC started selling pork chops. It was downhill from there.’ As Forbes, my driver and guide, tells it, a local businessman launched the fried-chicken franchise in the mid-1990s but operations didn’t always follow corporate standards. (‘Our chicken had 48 herbs and spices,’ he claims, with a wink.) And within a couple of years, KFC was out.
I first came to Providenciales around that same time, and have visited it and its sister islands - only eight of the 40 that make up the archipelago are inhabited - a great deal since. Back in 1996, Provo was a different place. Stepping onto its famed beach, Grace Bay, you could look both ways and not see a soul; no footprints other than your own on its 12 miles of sand. The police station was a shipping container on wheels; no building was more than two storeys high; and there wasn’t a single traffic light across the 38-square-mile British Overseas Territory.
There still aren’t any traffic lights. But a lot has changed. While the Turks and Caicos still feel pretty lo-fi compared to Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, they have in recent years become an elevated option for surefire winter sun, a three-and-a-half-hour flight from New York. There is a kind of South Beach meets West Indies vibe along Grace Bay, where swimming pools are surrounded by Bali beds and hotels are all out-hotelling each other - the newest, the Ritz-Carlton, soars 12 floors above the sand. Almost everything here is imported, so almost nothing is inexpensive.
Beyond its beaches, however, Provo is known for its food. Not the hotel restaurants that whip up plates of flame-grilled steak and salt-crusted whole sea bass night after night. This is the Caribbean’s conch capital and no one should leave without at least one trip to Da Conch Shack, a long-standing hangout. In past visits, I’ve tucked into all of the above, but what feels more relevant now is to seek out what the Belongers - born-and-raised islanders - eat.
Forbes suggests Sweet T’s, successor to the long-gone KFC. The family-owned business opened a few months after the outpost closed, he tells me, hawking its wares from a parked caravan. The concept was simple - chicken wings and only chicken wings - and it turned out to be a winner. Now, decades later, it does a roaring trade out of a pitched-roof, pink-tiled cement kiosk next to the Rubis petrol station.
Sweet T’s is busiest around 3pm, when parents on the school run stop by with children in tow. ‘It’s the best deal on the island,’ says Forbes, and the menu on the wall backs him up: chicken from just $2, or $5 combos with chips and a drink. This kind of grab-and-go street food is a breath of fresh air after the $50 hotel dishes. Parked in front of the building, we sit in the car to eat, and I look around and notice that we aren’t alone. It’s not yet noon but several cars on the dusty plot have their engines running, bass from reggae on the radio making dark-tinted windows vibrate as drivers devour well-seasoned wings. The line at the kiosk is now a dozen people deep, many customers absently fanning themselves while the sun beats down. As my teeth pierce the crispy batter, I’m happy that even after 25 years, Provo can still surprise me.
North Caicos is only 12 miles and 25 minutes by boat from Provo, but feels much further away. There are no banks on its 41 square miles, only one hotel and a population of around 1,400. When day-trippers arrive at Bellefield Landing, they check off a quick round of cove snorkelling and flamingo spotting before rushing back to catch the return crossing. But, of course, it takes more than a few hours to get under the skin of the place. Known locally as the green island because it gets more rain than the others, North Caicos has traditionally fed the territory, supplying most of its produce. But when foreign food imports increased in the 1980s, farmers began leaving for jobs in Provo’s then-burgeoning tourism industry. It feels like a different country to its urbanised sister, sleepy rather than slick, leisurely rather than luxurious. When a car passes you on the single ribbon of road that loops around the eastern shoreline, the driver always gives a friendly wave or toot of the horn. Its low-key charm is slowly attracting attention from those who have realised they can purchase land here for a little more than half of Provo prices.
My guide is a son of North Caicos soil, Charles Handfield. The former island administrator and church organist also runs Belmont, a car-rental and tour business. ‘I always like to start by showing visitors where we came from and what kind of people we are,’ says Handfield, who claims that his great-great-great grandfather was a doctor kidnapped from Nigeria to serve a Scottish plantation owner. Navigating a rocky and rutted path, we arrive at Wade’s Green Plantation, an 18th-century cotton and sisal estate owned by British loyalist Wade Stubbs. Wandering the overgrown acreage punctuated with ruined buildings, we’re surrounded by four-foot walls. Handfield explains how the enslaved African men who Stubbs brought with him from the USA hauled huge limestone boulders to build the perimeter and dividing walls, chipping them into flat stones and then painstakingly stacking them by hand. They didn’t use mortar or cement, yet the structures have remained largely intact, a testament to the strength and ingenuity of the people who built them. As I run my hands over the weathered rocks, I can’t help but think of those who touched them before me, and the brutality they were forced to endure. Handfield describes how, after their voyage here, Stubbs’ 70 workers traipsed for miles, barefoot and barely clothed, malnourished and exhausted, to the plantation. Their port of arrival sounds familiar: it was Bellefield Landing.
He drops me off at Pelican Beach Hotel, where I meet its chatty co-owner Donna Gardiner. She also grew up here but mostly lived off-island, returning when her father died to run the family business. As we sit in the breezy, sea-facing gazebo munching on fried conch, Gardiner tells me which stretch of sand she thinks is the island’s best. ‘If we go to the beach and see another person, we vex!’ she laughs.‘We have lots of beaches around so we can all have our own; we’re spoiled.’ Her words ring true when I get to Horsestable, a showstopper where the water is ludicrously blue and the sand is as fine and white as icing sugar. On the two occasions I visit, there’s no one else in sight.
The next day I pass North’s oldest church, built in 1826 from conch shells, limestone and cement. I slow down in front of a humble cottage whose dreamy location on the banks of Bottle Creek - a milky turquoise lagoon that looks like some sort of magical marine potion - makes me wonder if I could trade my Miami apartment for a Caribbean fixer-upper.
On middle Caicos, which is connected to North by a two-lane causeway, Mudjin Harbour is the closest you’ll get to a crowded bay. Perhaps 15 or 20 people will come here to swim on any given day, feasting on fried snapper, rice and peas at Mudjin Bar, the hillside restaurant - one of two on the island - that overlooks the shore. From Dragon Cay, its only hotel, I have panoramic views of the sandy scallop and rugged rubble of its namesake islet, just a three-minute walk down a path. My cottage is one of seven whose blue roofs pop against the vivid, sun-bright landscape. Mint-green walls, white canvas sofas and a pair of chaises on the screened veranda give it a casual, beach-house vibe. Despite its resort billing, Dragon Cay doesn’t have any communal spaces, and the kitchens come in handy since the restaurant only serves lunch.
The next morning, I’m roused from sleep by invisible but insistent roosters (the most Caribbean of wake-up calls). I make a cup of coffee and watch the sunrise. My plan for the day is to follow directions given to me by Gardiner to another secret swimming spot. ‘Head along the track up the side of the restaurant. Go past the praying hands. You’ll see a hole in the ground. Step into it, walk down the stairs and there you are.’ Sure enough, after passing a bronze sculpture of hands in prayer and descending cement steps into a cave, I find myself at a deserted cove. Waves roll towards the shore where they meet limestone flats slick with moss. I take shade under the cave’s overhang, watching them crash majestically and incessantly. There’s something humbling yet comforting about them. Hidden beach is concealed just around the corner from Mudjin Bar, but in this moment it feels as if the windswept deck and parasol-topped tables are many miles away.
I’d also been looking forward to revisiting quiet Bambarra while on Middle Caicos. A decade ago, when I first saw its miles of rippled pale sand, like a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia, it instantly became my favourite Caribbean strand. But when Demara Parker, one of the team at Dragon Cay, divulges that Wild Cow Run beach is hers, I’m determined to see it for myself. I set off east, arriving an hour later at a forest of casuarina trees, through which there are alluring glimpses of blue. I walk across a carpet of fallen pine needles, then through a tangle of sea- grape bushes, and Wild Cow Run is revealed.
A blinding-white sweep curves in either direction. The water that meets it flows glacier-clear over undulating sand, appearing to be no more than knee-deep for at least a mile offshore. You’d have to lie on the seabed to immerse yourself. Further out, the ocean turns a pearly blue, deepening to a bold cobalt just beyond the far-off reef. A strong, warm breeze makes my dreadlocks fly; the only sounds are the soft lapping of gentle waves at the shoreline and their roar in the distance. I have seen countless beaches and was certain that Bambarra topped them all. But 10 years later, I feel equal parts awe at Wild Cow Run’s untamed beauty and fear that it’ll soon be developed and eventually become another Grace Bay. For now though, in this Caribbean cathedral, I’m a congregation of one.
WHERE TO STAY
Amanyara
On the ironshore of Provo’s western tip, this peaceful retreat with a distinctly Asian aesthetic feels a world away from Grace Bay. Guests hole up in vast waterside villas or sleek pavilions - some with their own sandy coves - among the sea grapes. Malcolm’s Road beach is a standout, as is the spectacle of the sunset, best seen from the deep daybeds looking out to sea. Pavilions from about £1,700. aman.com
COMO Parrot Cay
The 1,000-acre private-island hideout is so close to North Caicos - about five minutes by boat - that locals joke it can be walked to in low tide. For more than two decades it has been the ultimate cloister, where houses come with pools and outdoor showers that front a sugary strip of beach. Step over the Chanel bags and Ancient Greek Sandals dotted around the pool for a treatment
at the COMO Shambhala spa, one of the region’s best. Doubles from about £645. comohotels.com
Pelican Beach Hotel
With only seven bedrooms, this family-owned hotel (the only one on North Caicos) is a relaxed island base. Come for proximity to the stunning sweep of sand; stay for the cracked conch, coconut Martinis and conversation with the ebullient owner at the Barracuda Beach Bar. Doubles from about £110. pelicanbeachhotel.com
Dragon Cay
The loveliest roost on Middle Caicos has a clutch of simple hilltop cottages and villas a three-minute walk from the beautiful crescent of Mudjin Harbour, which you’ll have to yourself when the day-trippers from Provo depart. Bring supplies and live like an islander for a few days. Doubles from about £250. dragoncayresort.com
BOOK IT
Elegant Resorts can organise trips to the Turks and Caicos with stays at Amanyara or COMO Parrot Cay. elegantresorts.co.uk
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