By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
My wife and traveled to Antigua in February of 2010. I did all the necessary research and booked our flights, rooms and rental car so we could explore the island on our own. I was especially nervous about this trip because it would require driving on the left side of the road. In anticipation of this, I poured over satellite images of the island and the route I would take, trying to memorize every turn and landmark. After about a month, I felt ready and as they say " every fighter has a plan until he gets punched". Well, punched, I did. Upon landing on Antigua after a relatively uneventful flight, we retrived our bags and went to the rental car counter. After signing the requiste paperwork, they brought us our car. To call this car a piece of crap would be an insult to pieces of crap everywhere. Immediately, I was regretting my decision to try and drive. The agent went over all the damage on the car, which was significant. As we left the airport, everything in my body was screaming " move to right, move to the right". Forget about any maps and landmarks, I was in completely new territory. I had leaped into the unknown and foreign world of driving on the left. It didnt take long before I made my first wrong turn or was it a right turn? I don't know, I'm driving on wrong side of the friggin road. A couple miles down the road my internal guidance tells me " you are going in the wrong direction, idiot." So I pulled off the side of the road to look at my trusty map. A few minutes into trying to decipher my map, my guardian angel shows up in the form of an american driving a white jeep. He pulls up and asks, " Are you American" " Yes". I answer, " How did you know?" " Well, for starters, you are pulled off on wrong side of the road and looking at a map". He says, matter of factly. " Where are you headed?" " Hawksbill Resort". I tell him He says he knows where that is and to follow him. So we follow this unknown American across the north end of the island and into St. John's. After, 20 minutes or so we come to traffic light in downtown St. John's. As I applied pressure to the brakes, I quickly realized, I didnt have any brakes. The rear end of the car in front of me was fast approaching and instinctively I grabbed for the emergency brake and swung into oncoming traffic narrowly missing the car and avoiding getting hit head on. As I sat there stunned, and traffic honking at me to get out of way, my American friend signaled me to pull over to spot just past the intersection. As we came to a stop, he jumped out his jeep and nervously told us to grab our luggage, get in his car and leave the rental. " Call them later, we need to go." "Why?" I natively asked. " Look around". I scanned the surrounding area to see that this was NOT a place for tourists. I made a call to the rental company, told them what happened and where to find the car and we left post haste from the area. We still had a little drive to the resort so we started small talk. He was a man of few words. His name was Sam. No last name given. He was from New York, but has not been back in several years and has no intention of returning. His " business", which he was evasive in explaining, didnt require him to go to the U.S.. He was a dichotomy of explanation. Sketchy, yet you felt safe. Nice, but you could tell there was an edge. Legit with a hint of criminal. You get the idea. He got us to the resort. We thanked him profusely and offered him money for his trouble, which he flatly refused. Before he left, he told us to visit his friend's Italian restaurant. As he drove away, we just looked at each other wondered, " who was that guy?".