Bermuda: faux flora and fauna

Bermuda is a cool place now, but it must have been really cool in the early 1940s. That’s when cars were banned. That’s right: no cars allowed.

They eventually bowed to pressure, of course, in 1946 and allowed cars, but they still restrict them to one car per family unit. The place is still jam-packed with vehicles, mostly taxis full of tourists and those annoying, buzzing, 50-cc scooters you see everywhere. I bumped into a 30-minute traffic jam one day there recently, for example.

Here’s another thing you may not know about Bermuda, even if you’ve been there. Most of the trees were brought in, mostly from the Carolinas. They had a blight decades ago that just about wiped out those prized Bermuda cedar trees. They had to have something for the tourists to look at and feel all tropical, so almost all those palm trees you see are imported.

Weird.

Here’s something you probably already know, though many people still believe it: Bermuda is not part of the Caribbean. Locals told me most people know that by now, but many still go there thinking they’re going to the Caribbean. It may look like a Caribbean island, but try going there in January.