Birthday Trip Report
St. Lucia, West Indies
December 2005

We left for St. Lucia on December 24th. We got to National airport just after 4:30AM (!!) There was a huge line waiting to check in. Mostly they were people going to all the Central and South American countries and they were going home. Finally they started pulling the 6AM flight people out and letting us check in first. We got through security and barely made it before the final boarding call. TOO stressful to start the trip. Two hours later we were in Atlanta. We waited for the plane to board for St. Lucia. All the people at the gate were going there. Some were changing into shorts and sandals right there in the airport, getting a jump on their vacation. It was funny. The flight to St Lucia was about 4 1/2 hours. We could see islands as we crossed the ocean. All green with sandy beaches. We arrived and debarked into the humid warmth.

After a long wait to get through passport control we went to find our transportation. It was a van and it was full of people going to Ti Kaye Village. The drive was interesting. We went past banana groves and along the beach then cut into the interior. The island is very mountainous and rugged. The roads are bad with potholes and two lanes. They drive on the left there. We passed through small villages with all sorts of houses. Mostly they were built out of stucco and on stilts. A lot of them were shacks. It took 1 1/2 hour to go about 12 miles! We arrived at Ti Kaye at about 5:30 PM. They hustled us to the bar for a welcoming drink. I had a rum punch. It was bitter but very good. Later I found out it was the bitter orange juice that gave it that bite. I had it for breakfast a couple of days. We went to our rooms. We were surprised to find our bed covered with fresh flowers, how beautiful! The room was large and cool with plantation shutters, mosquito netting around the bed and terra cotta tile floors. The bath was roomy but the outside shower was great. There was a lush garden in one corner and along the sides with a pretty mosaic of a blue fish on the wall. It was open to the sky above. From the room, big french doors opened to a nice front porch with a table and two rocking chairs and a big hammock. The view was beautiful to our own banana tree and on past to the blue sea. Usually a sailboat was moored for the evening below our room. We freshened up and then came for dinner. That first dinner boded ill for the service but luckily it improved. The food was a disappointment to us on the whole.

Bed with flowers	Rocking chairs on the porch	Hammock
Sailboat moored in front of our room	Our banana tree	Path down from our cottage

The schedule was to spend Christmas at the beach, the 26th on a tour to Soufriére, the 27th on the beach, on the 28th a tour to Castries, on the 29th back on the beach, then home on the 30th. The routine on beach days was to go to breakfast. They had a buffet of fruits and juices - all fresh. I tried passion fruit and got quite attached to its sourness. Then we'd order and eat. There were many aggressive birds who even knew how to remove napkins that you would use to cover the sugar and cream. Then they'd eat the sugar and/or drink the cream when you went to the buffet. They were grackles and Puerto Rican Bullfinches. The finch males were black with a rusty orange patch under their beaks. Cute birds. Then we'd go back to the room, read some and head for the beach. It was down 167 steps which ruined Cindy's knees by weeks end. The beach was in a protected cove and curved in a half moon with a beach bar restaurant beside the steps whhich was owned and run by Ti Kaye. George and Mike were the two guys who set up umbrellas for us everyday. Then we took the free kayaks and went for a sail along the coast and explored for about an hour. Back to the beach it was after noon so drinks were brought by George. I had rum punches or Piton beer (local brew). Then we'd go and eat at the bar. I had fried marlin sandwiches a couple of times which were good. Then Luther would go back to the room and Cindy, Bill and I would go snorkeling. It was so beautiful underwater. Lots of pretty fish, corals, rocks and formations. It was some of the best snorkeling around so the other resorts send catamarans full of people there too. It became pretty crowded at those times. Lucky for us we could just swim there. Then we'd go back to the room, shower, nap and read until around 6 when we'd play bridge and then go to dinner. Very relaxing.

Breakfast	View from hotel to beach	Our pesky grackle	The beach bar

The two tours were very interesting. Soufriére (means Sulfur in French and well named for the stench from the volcano) was about half an hour by boat. We went to the beach and the boat picked us up right there. There were I think, nine of us. Seven were taking the tour. Two were going for a spa day at the Hilton. We passed villages and approached the picturesque Pitons. These are the extinct volcanoes that jut up from the ocean bottom. They are covered with jungle now but rock shows through too. We saw the hotels perched up on the hills around Soufriére. Most have to have a shuttle to take them to the beach. We saw the bat cave. It was a crevasse that went from the water up to form a cave. Inside you could see hundreds of bats fluttering about. Then a nice older gentleman who was our guide met us at the dock. The van was ancient, the seat covers holey and spilling their foam guts out. It smelled like urine. But I got used to it. We went to the Botanical Garden. Our guide was Alexander (the great). A black man with very few teeth who made sure we knew that he was not paid and relied on our tips. He reminded us often. The garden was quite beautiful and I saw lots of plants I'd never seen before. Pretty flowers and interesting fruits too. Then we went to the Volcano. It is the world's only drive-through volcano. It stunk of sulfur. There were big bubbling pools of mud and vents giving off steam and smoke. Pretty cool. No vegetation grows up the mountain above because of the acid.

Ti Kaye from water	Ti Kaye from water with sailboat	Alexander the Great - our tour guide

The below are scenes from the Botanical Garden

Piton	Below are pictures of the volcano

The Castries trip was just the four of us. We hired a water taxi to take us up and bring us back. It took about half an hour. The boat driver, John T, took us on a tour on the way up. We stopped at Marigot Bay, which I liked a lot. There were about six resorts clustered up in the hills above the harbor. It was a very deep harbor and was coveted by both the French and English so that was why St. Lucia changed hands fourteen times. There were restaurants along the water and a small beach. The town of Castries is the capital and pretty big. The port has a market with lots of junk but I saw locals shopping there too. Also a vegetable and fruit market. Cindy and I bought Barons hot sauce. Cindy bought some spices too. We wandered around and then took the ferry across the harbor. There were two big cruise ships in on that day. We went to the Coal Pot for lunch. This was our best meal. I had mozzarella with tomatoes for a starter and it was lovely. Then I had grilled barracuda with a curry sauce for an entrée. I had never had barracuda before. It was mild and yummy. Then our taxi picked us up. I only regretted I hadn't time to get a piece of pottery.

Marigot Bay	Thought to be the oldest tree in the Caribbean in Castries

The hotel had a band every night at dinner. The best one was on my birthday. We even danced and did the hokey pokey that night! The hotel was nice on our birthdays.

On the 30th a van picked us up along with one other couple and we traveled the other route around the southwest side of the island down to the airport. Very twisty and turny but spectacular views along the way. The flight home was pretty uneventful except the end. We arrived at National at 11:15PM. We were tired. We each got one of two pieces of luggage, the other two being missing. Cindy and Bill stayed to put in a report. We went home. We figured we could go back the next day. The luggage was delivered to our house the next day.

It had been a nice trip and celebration of our significant birthdays.