Troll Echos

After having safely arrived at an airport that by American standards would qualify as one of the smallest around, yet by St. Lucian standards was actually the big airport (yes, they have 2 airports), we found ourselves surrounded by fresh new wedding rings and fancy manacured nails.  The airport had exactly one runway, and a mere 2 baggage claim things.  Its parking lot looked capable of holding around sixty cars. Once our bags were in our hands and we were wandering around wondering where to go to end up at Sandals we were almost immediately confronted by a friendly gentleman with a Sandals shirt and a baggage cart. Like blind and stupid tourists we happily added our suitcases to the man’s cart and followed him through a pair of double doors.  About forty feet past those doors was a clearly marked Sandals van or six. He walked us over to them, unloaded our bags, and immediately asked for a tip.  This of course revealed him as not being related to Sandals.  We’d been had.

Thanks to the lack of a bill smaller than a $5.00 in my wallet, the man made around EC $12.50 (the local currency) for what amounted to less than 20 seconds of walking with bags on a cart.  A quick Google search indicates that if that guy had been actually employed in the role of moving luggage he would be pulling in right around EC $7.00/hr.  Assuming he would turn around and spend another 40 seconds laughing to himself as he walked back to get more bags from the next unsuspecting couple, and also assuming the typical tip is US $1.00, he was making around EC $150/hr.  Well over 20 times that of an employed baggage handler.