The St Lucia Log: Part One
Okay, so the missus and I are back from our week in St Lucia, and jimminy crickets do we have a lot of photo's! I'll be adding instalments to the log as I get through batches of photos to upload. We didn't take them on the first couple of days, but from Monday to Friday, the shutters were snapping like mad.
Caveat: I was using Patti's backup camera, which had a fixed lens - no zoom. Also, it's specifically for close-ups, so I went to town taking close pics whenever I could. As such, we have a lot of pics of flowers and other things that just caught my eye. Live with it. ;)
So... Part One!
SATURDAY
Up bright and early, an uneventful time at the airport, except for the brief moment where my elbow made judicious (Judicious, I tell you!) contact with Gdaysheila’s coffee, enabling higher coffee sales from passengers waiting in gate 171 who inexplicably smell (and thus want) coffee when they walk past a particular section of carpet.
On the plane, we’re seated with Wendy, the groom’s brother’s girlfriend. I’m delighted to find a fellow geek, complete with her own Nintento DS, who hasn’t yet been subjected to any of my vast repertoire of jokes and witty rejoinders. I amaze her with my mad skillz, especially when I get stuck trying to clear Jamiroquoi’s Canned Heat on Elite Beat Agents for about an hour.
Arrived in St Lucia, made the entire group of about 25 of us wait to go to the resort while we got my visa sorted out. Apparently Canadians don’t need a visa to be here, but Australians do? Gypped! The locals are probably just jealous that I come from a bigger island…
Finally at the resort. A little disappointed to discover that our rooms don’t come with a stocked bar fridge. Just an empty one, should we decide to buy something to put in it. So far we’ve fooled them by just bringing cold drinks from the bar back to our room. Air conditioning is a good thing.
Dinner at one of the four restaurants, Le Jardin. Men have to wear long pants and collared shirts at all of the resort’s restaurants for dinner meals, so I’m secretly smirking that we were assigned to the only air conditioned restaurant on our first night.
Sitting in the “Sunset Lounge”after dinner, delighted to find out that bartenders here know how to make Grasshoppers. Seriously, it’s a VERY simple cocktail, but I’ve yet to find a bartender in North America that can make it without my explaining it to them. Yeesh. We listen to a band complete with a steel drum as they work through their repertoire, including a couple of John Lennon numbers and some Eric Clapton. Neat.
Finally, air conditioned sleep. At about 9pm. We’re such late night party animals…
SUNDAY
Woke up around 6, had a shower, sat on the balcony and played some me Elite Beat Agents while Gdaysheila napped. Made the mistake of looking over at the balcony beside us, where I saw the blinds weren’t shut, and the male resident of the room was laying there watching TV or something, with his pantsless butt facing towards me. This was moderately alarming, but what was truly disconcerting was the giant eyes the guy had tattooed, one on each butt cheek, staring straight at me. I’m going to need more drinks…
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, bacon, breakfast sausages, French toast, assorted fruits, yogourt. Man, I love a good buffet…
Couple of orientation sessions later (one from the resort, one from our travel people) and it’s into the pool and the swim up bar. Very cool. Drank something with banana in it made by the talented Ricardo. Also made acquaintances with Chris and Trish, also here for the wedding. Delighted to find more kindred spirits.
Lunch at “The Palms”, another of the resort’s restaurants. Seriously disappointed. My “entrée” contained a piece of potato the size of a chip, some thin slivers of capsicum, and two strips of beef about the size of mini breakfast sausages. We hit the beach barbecue for a burger afterwards.
Some time in the sun, then time for a siesta. Cleared another couple of songs on Elite Beat Agents while Gdaysheila napped. After that, more sun, and trying to plan our events and excursions for the remainder of the week.
Dinner at “Bambou”. The meal was uneventful, though about five times the servers almost handed plates to the wrong people or forgot a dessert or something. The waitress gave me a drink she called a Scorpion, but it’s now an hour and a half later and I’m still waiting to feel a sting. At least it was banana-y.
A quick email check to make sure the kids are okay, grab some more drinks from the bar, and we’re pretty much ready to cash. Laying around in the sun all day doing nothing, sure takes it out of you…
MON
Why can’t I sleep in?? Woke up this morn at 5:30AM EST. 6:30 local time. After a moderately restful night, that’s still only about 7 hours sleep. Aren’t human bodies supposed to like 8-10???
I ended up listening to the rest of my Geek Speak Radio podcast from last week, which I hadn’t gotten around to yet, while Gdaysheila slept.
Finally up for breakfast, we headed to The Palms for more French toast, breakfast sausages, and bacon. Gdaysheila had a very good omelette, but apparently the coffee tasted like crud this morning, so she didn’t bother finishing her drink.
Now, we had plans on going into the capital, Castries, for shopping this morning, but the seemingly required dip in the pool, and organizing excursions for the rest of the week, took up much of the morning.
In the end, we caught a taxi into Castries at around 11. Cab drivers here? Seriously over eager. He was almost pushing us to hire him for a personalized cab tour, or to put him on retainer for the week. Very, very eager, these lads, as was further proven shortly after arriving at the central market in Castries.
See, when I say eager, I mean it. We hadn’t been out of the cab for more than five minutes when another driver asked if we needed a cab. This continued to be a trend for the remainder of our stay in downtown Castries. We were there for about three and a half hours in the end, and I’d wager no less than forty or fifty cab drivers had asked us if we needed a ride, or stated that we were to seek them out when we were ready to go, proudly pointing to their assigned vehicle, usually a red minivan with only a touch of rust.
Anyway, on to the market. Many, many stalls, each manned by a local. The vast majority really held a lot of the same sort of stuff, right down to the same shirts. I’ll go into that in a minute.
They were all very keen to have our attention on their particular wares. “I am the artist”, “I make these by hand” for handicrafts, despite our seeing near-identical pieces in other stalls. “I’ll make you a special deal”, “Cheapest in the market” were common claims.
After a bit of perusing, we came across one stall that had a few knick-knacks we liked, including some gifts for the gals back at the office, and some shirts we liked. This one booth was a little bit of an eye opener.
It’s weird. This is not a rich nation, but somehow everyone seems to have cell phones and was well networked. They only had three of the magnets I liked, I wanted ten. Within minutes, two phone calls later, a vendor from a stall somewhere else in the complex arrived with a tray with more of the same magnets. They had a shirt we liked for my father-in-law, but not in the right size. One “No worries, we’ll find it in another stall, thanks for your time”, and a brief flurry of phone calls brought out a shirt in the right size from another stall.
These people were more organized than they appeared.
Our journey through the markets continued, including a stop at a bar no bigger than three or four of the cubicles at my office. The local beer, Piton, is pretty solid. A drink later and we’re wandering around some of the nearby back streets. At one point we pass a waterway which caught my eye. Right near us, and maybe for 20-30 metres, it was clear (if murky) water. Then, suddenly, a wall of floating litter. It just seemed rather weird to me, so I took a pic.
We approached some of the local domino players - this is a very serious pastime here. I’ve seen less intense poker games, that’s for sure. The gents actually thanked us for asking if we could take their picture. I’m guessing most tourists don’t bother asking. That’s just rude.
We also found some rather stoned rasta’s and took their pic, which immediately resulted in their pal wanting to get in on the action, and giggling fits from these lads. Possibly the happiest locals we saw all day, that’s for sure.
We also took a trip up the street to the local cathedral, fighting off cab drivers, including one who insisted on calling me “cowboy”. The cathedral was very cool - the first cathedral I’ve ever seen that didn’t have a stone ceiling. Rather, everything was painted wooden planks. Also had the very neat juxtaposition of very old wooden fittings, and newer fluorescent light bulbs. Had to get a pic of that too.
A trip on the water taxi across the harbour, past a nice huge cruise ship, led to some duty free shopping in a plaza of about 25 shops, about 1/3 of which were jewelers. Seriously, how many diamonds do they expect tourists to buy? Two of the stores were even separate outlets of the same bloody jeweler.
Having been harangued by cab drivers all day, when it was time to go I decided to have a little fun. We walked through the gates and there were about 30 cab drivers sitting their on a short wall. “Alright, who’s taking us home? Raise your hand!”
Dear Lord, didn’t they jump. We picked our winner, and caught the cab home. A short walk later, a quick change, and we’re back in the pool cooling off again. It’s about 4:30 by this stage, no time left to go geocaching today, so we’ll have to do that later in the week. C’est la vie.
Dinner was a buffet barbecue on the beach, with two of the couples here for the wedding, one of them being the bride and groom. Gotta say, I love these guys. They’re too cool for school. I’ll talk about them more after the wedding, but I’ll give a shout out to the other couple, Chris and Trish. Aside from having a hilarious sense of humour and a great sense of fun, these guys deserve all the credit in the world. Why? 17 years married, and it’s bloody obvious they’re still in love. 48 hours ago I had no idea who they were. Now? I can’t imagine what this trip would have been like without them. Very, very cool people.
After dinner, Gdaysheila geeked out over cameras with the groom’s dad and brother, both of whom are photography enthusiasts, while I allowed my shoulder to be a camera rest. Not only am I a husband, I’m a substitute tripod!
We ended the evening watching some Caribbean dance and song before retiring to our chambers. Now, I’ll freely confess, I’m a sucker for dance troupes. I don’t care what the style is, I don’t care about the music - anything where you can get a group of people synchronized like that? It’s a wonder to behold. Four guys, five girls, and the atmosphere was positively electric. These dancers were absolutely amazing. Perfectly timing, excellent rhythm, remarkably athletic. And yes, this means I’m not averse to watching synchronized swimming either - such things are massive credits to the dedication and teamwork of the participants.
And now, to bed, for tomorrow… we snorkel!
Sundry Monday Pics:
Barnacles under a mooring post, holding one of the many cruise ships that visitted.
The bass player for the resort band - I'd never seen a 5-string bass before.
Nice, neat braids...
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
The cathedral ceiling, painted wooden planks.
One of the cool statues in the cathedral
The walls were painted too.
My lovely wife.
Mickey the karaoke guy, and my reflection. Hee....
A Cheerios mural downtain, go figure.
Companion to the Cheerios bee.
A nice shiny padlock on a rusty gate.
The police station, downtown Castries.
Royal Bank of Canada - Caribbean style!
I just thought it looked neat.
Monday's sunset.
Not the one we used, but it still looked interesting.
I loved the lights over the gardens.
Pink flower with a yellow bit.
Red leaves.
Rusty leaves.
White flower with an orange bit.
Wrinkly leaves.
Yellow flower.
See? Told you there was a lot of flowers. More later!
Caveat: I was using Patti's backup camera, which had a fixed lens - no zoom. Also, it's specifically for close-ups, so I went to town taking close pics whenever I could. As such, we have a lot of pics of flowers and other things that just caught my eye. Live with it. ;)
So... Part One!
SATURDAY
Up bright and early, an uneventful time at the airport, except for the brief moment where my elbow made judicious (Judicious, I tell you!) contact with Gdaysheila’s coffee, enabling higher coffee sales from passengers waiting in gate 171 who inexplicably smell (and thus want) coffee when they walk past a particular section of carpet.
On the plane, we’re seated with Wendy, the groom’s brother’s girlfriend. I’m delighted to find a fellow geek, complete with her own Nintento DS, who hasn’t yet been subjected to any of my vast repertoire of jokes and witty rejoinders. I amaze her with my mad skillz, especially when I get stuck trying to clear Jamiroquoi’s Canned Heat on Elite Beat Agents for about an hour.
Arrived in St Lucia, made the entire group of about 25 of us wait to go to the resort while we got my visa sorted out. Apparently Canadians don’t need a visa to be here, but Australians do? Gypped! The locals are probably just jealous that I come from a bigger island…
Finally at the resort. A little disappointed to discover that our rooms don’t come with a stocked bar fridge. Just an empty one, should we decide to buy something to put in it. So far we’ve fooled them by just bringing cold drinks from the bar back to our room. Air conditioning is a good thing.
Dinner at one of the four restaurants, Le Jardin. Men have to wear long pants and collared shirts at all of the resort’s restaurants for dinner meals, so I’m secretly smirking that we were assigned to the only air conditioned restaurant on our first night.
Sitting in the “Sunset Lounge”after dinner, delighted to find out that bartenders here know how to make Grasshoppers. Seriously, it’s a VERY simple cocktail, but I’ve yet to find a bartender in North America that can make it without my explaining it to them. Yeesh. We listen to a band complete with a steel drum as they work through their repertoire, including a couple of John Lennon numbers and some Eric Clapton. Neat.
Finally, air conditioned sleep. At about 9pm. We’re such late night party animals…
SUNDAY
Woke up around 6, had a shower, sat on the balcony and played some me Elite Beat Agents while Gdaysheila napped. Made the mistake of looking over at the balcony beside us, where I saw the blinds weren’t shut, and the male resident of the room was laying there watching TV or something, with his pantsless butt facing towards me. This was moderately alarming, but what was truly disconcerting was the giant eyes the guy had tattooed, one on each butt cheek, staring straight at me. I’m going to need more drinks…
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, bacon, breakfast sausages, French toast, assorted fruits, yogourt. Man, I love a good buffet…
Couple of orientation sessions later (one from the resort, one from our travel people) and it’s into the pool and the swim up bar. Very cool. Drank something with banana in it made by the talented Ricardo. Also made acquaintances with Chris and Trish, also here for the wedding. Delighted to find more kindred spirits.
Lunch at “The Palms”, another of the resort’s restaurants. Seriously disappointed. My “entrée” contained a piece of potato the size of a chip, some thin slivers of capsicum, and two strips of beef about the size of mini breakfast sausages. We hit the beach barbecue for a burger afterwards.
Some time in the sun, then time for a siesta. Cleared another couple of songs on Elite Beat Agents while Gdaysheila napped. After that, more sun, and trying to plan our events and excursions for the remainder of the week.
Dinner at “Bambou”. The meal was uneventful, though about five times the servers almost handed plates to the wrong people or forgot a dessert or something. The waitress gave me a drink she called a Scorpion, but it’s now an hour and a half later and I’m still waiting to feel a sting. At least it was banana-y.
A quick email check to make sure the kids are okay, grab some more drinks from the bar, and we’re pretty much ready to cash. Laying around in the sun all day doing nothing, sure takes it out of you…
MON
Why can’t I sleep in?? Woke up this morn at 5:30AM EST. 6:30 local time. After a moderately restful night, that’s still only about 7 hours sleep. Aren’t human bodies supposed to like 8-10???
I ended up listening to the rest of my Geek Speak Radio podcast from last week, which I hadn’t gotten around to yet, while Gdaysheila slept.
Finally up for breakfast, we headed to The Palms for more French toast, breakfast sausages, and bacon. Gdaysheila had a very good omelette, but apparently the coffee tasted like crud this morning, so she didn’t bother finishing her drink.
Now, we had plans on going into the capital, Castries, for shopping this morning, but the seemingly required dip in the pool, and organizing excursions for the rest of the week, took up much of the morning.
In the end, we caught a taxi into Castries at around 11. Cab drivers here? Seriously over eager. He was almost pushing us to hire him for a personalized cab tour, or to put him on retainer for the week. Very, very eager, these lads, as was further proven shortly after arriving at the central market in Castries.
See, when I say eager, I mean it. We hadn’t been out of the cab for more than five minutes when another driver asked if we needed a cab. This continued to be a trend for the remainder of our stay in downtown Castries. We were there for about three and a half hours in the end, and I’d wager no less than forty or fifty cab drivers had asked us if we needed a ride, or stated that we were to seek them out when we were ready to go, proudly pointing to their assigned vehicle, usually a red minivan with only a touch of rust.
Anyway, on to the market. Many, many stalls, each manned by a local. The vast majority really held a lot of the same sort of stuff, right down to the same shirts. I’ll go into that in a minute.
They were all very keen to have our attention on their particular wares. “I am the artist”, “I make these by hand” for handicrafts, despite our seeing near-identical pieces in other stalls. “I’ll make you a special deal”, “Cheapest in the market” were common claims.
After a bit of perusing, we came across one stall that had a few knick-knacks we liked, including some gifts for the gals back at the office, and some shirts we liked. This one booth was a little bit of an eye opener.
It’s weird. This is not a rich nation, but somehow everyone seems to have cell phones and was well networked. They only had three of the magnets I liked, I wanted ten. Within minutes, two phone calls later, a vendor from a stall somewhere else in the complex arrived with a tray with more of the same magnets. They had a shirt we liked for my father-in-law, but not in the right size. One “No worries, we’ll find it in another stall, thanks for your time”, and a brief flurry of phone calls brought out a shirt in the right size from another stall.
These people were more organized than they appeared.
Our journey through the markets continued, including a stop at a bar no bigger than three or four of the cubicles at my office. The local beer, Piton, is pretty solid. A drink later and we’re wandering around some of the nearby back streets. At one point we pass a waterway which caught my eye. Right near us, and maybe for 20-30 metres, it was clear (if murky) water. Then, suddenly, a wall of floating litter. It just seemed rather weird to me, so I took a pic.
We approached some of the local domino players - this is a very serious pastime here. I’ve seen less intense poker games, that’s for sure. The gents actually thanked us for asking if we could take their picture. I’m guessing most tourists don’t bother asking. That’s just rude.
We also found some rather stoned rasta’s and took their pic, which immediately resulted in their pal wanting to get in on the action, and giggling fits from these lads. Possibly the happiest locals we saw all day, that’s for sure.
We also took a trip up the street to the local cathedral, fighting off cab drivers, including one who insisted on calling me “cowboy”. The cathedral was very cool - the first cathedral I’ve ever seen that didn’t have a stone ceiling. Rather, everything was painted wooden planks. Also had the very neat juxtaposition of very old wooden fittings, and newer fluorescent light bulbs. Had to get a pic of that too.
A trip on the water taxi across the harbour, past a nice huge cruise ship, led to some duty free shopping in a plaza of about 25 shops, about 1/3 of which were jewelers. Seriously, how many diamonds do they expect tourists to buy? Two of the stores were even separate outlets of the same bloody jeweler.
Having been harangued by cab drivers all day, when it was time to go I decided to have a little fun. We walked through the gates and there were about 30 cab drivers sitting their on a short wall. “Alright, who’s taking us home? Raise your hand!”
Dear Lord, didn’t they jump. We picked our winner, and caught the cab home. A short walk later, a quick change, and we’re back in the pool cooling off again. It’s about 4:30 by this stage, no time left to go geocaching today, so we’ll have to do that later in the week. C’est la vie.
Dinner was a buffet barbecue on the beach, with two of the couples here for the wedding, one of them being the bride and groom. Gotta say, I love these guys. They’re too cool for school. I’ll talk about them more after the wedding, but I’ll give a shout out to the other couple, Chris and Trish. Aside from having a hilarious sense of humour and a great sense of fun, these guys deserve all the credit in the world. Why? 17 years married, and it’s bloody obvious they’re still in love. 48 hours ago I had no idea who they were. Now? I can’t imagine what this trip would have been like without them. Very, very cool people.
After dinner, Gdaysheila geeked out over cameras with the groom’s dad and brother, both of whom are photography enthusiasts, while I allowed my shoulder to be a camera rest. Not only am I a husband, I’m a substitute tripod!
We ended the evening watching some Caribbean dance and song before retiring to our chambers. Now, I’ll freely confess, I’m a sucker for dance troupes. I don’t care what the style is, I don’t care about the music - anything where you can get a group of people synchronized like that? It’s a wonder to behold. Four guys, five girls, and the atmosphere was positively electric. These dancers were absolutely amazing. Perfectly timing, excellent rhythm, remarkably athletic. And yes, this means I’m not averse to watching synchronized swimming either - such things are massive credits to the dedication and teamwork of the participants.
And now, to bed, for tomorrow… we snorkel!
Sundry Monday Pics:
Barnacles under a mooring post, holding one of the many cruise ships that visitted.
The bass player for the resort band - I'd never seen a 5-string bass before.
Nice, neat braids...
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
The cathedral ceiling, painted wooden planks.
One of the cool statues in the cathedral
The walls were painted too.
My lovely wife.
Mickey the karaoke guy, and my reflection. Hee....
A Cheerios mural downtain, go figure.
Companion to the Cheerios bee.
A nice shiny padlock on a rusty gate.
The police station, downtown Castries.
Royal Bank of Canada - Caribbean style!
I just thought it looked neat.
Monday's sunset.
Not the one we used, but it still looked interesting.
I loved the lights over the gardens.
Pink flower with a yellow bit.
Red leaves.
Rusty leaves.
White flower with an orange bit.
Wrinkly leaves.
Yellow flower.
See? Told you there was a lot of flowers. More later!