The Last St. Lucia Post. Sing Hallelujah!

Has it really been over two weeks since my last St. Lucia post? And has it really been ONE MONTH since we went to St. Lucia? Boy oh boy, my blog cred is slipping fast. Not to mention all the other bloggable kid-related stuff that's pilling up. Anyway, sorry for my delays (apologies are for the Grandmas). Here's the last bit about our trip.

We had all sorts of fun experiences on the island, from swimming in the ocean outside our hotel, to kayaking to the little island nearby, to shopping in downton Castries and more. But here are a few of the more memorable outings:

First, the famous St. Lucia mudbaths. These sulfur springs near a volcano are one of those touristy things listed on all the "what to do in St. Lucia" travel sites. Also, apparently these mudbaths were highlighted during an episode of The Bachelor (more than one native St. Lucian remarked upon this proudly), which has increased their exposure.  We were smart, though: we got up early so we could get there right when it opened, hoping to lather ourselves up in restorative mud ("it takes off ten years!") before the tour buses full of cruise ship folks descended upon us. Although there were a few people sharing the bath with us who spent most of the time talking loudly about professional hockey, they had a nice personal tour guide with them. He gave us some good tips on where to find the smoothest mud, and reminded me to take off my wedding ring (but not my necklace).

He also ever-so-kindly offered to take pictures of us afterward. (He was the one who recommended the kissing pose. We never would have come up with that ourselves.)

By the time we were done with our pictures, the cruise ship folks had pulled up. Oh the humanity! We were glad to avoid it. In fact, we specialized in avoiding crowds the whole entire trip.

Later that day, we went to a cocoa plantation on the property of our hotel owner. The main plantation house doubles as another of his hotels, and he has workers here who produce cocoa and other produce, as well as flowers. Charles is his main guy on this property, and he was so kind to take us on a personal tour. Cocoa: more fascinating that one would think.

Charles telling us how their special drying trays for cocoa beans work.

The beautiful pool by the plantation house/hotel

A cocoa pod

They grow these coconuts only for the husks for composting. They have no way to sell the coconuts themselves and make money at it, so they just throw the insides away!

Some flowers he was getting ready to deliver to a wedding. Such pretty colors!

On Saturday, we got up bright and early once more and beat the crowds to the jungle zipline. I was a little nervous about it, given my fear of heights, but I figured once I got buckled into the harness I would be fine. And I was right. Walking up the rickety stairs and waiting on the platform was scarier to me than the actual ziplining. (It's any high spot from which I can fling myself that gives me the heebie-jeebies.) The most stressful part, actually, was the fear of not going fast enough and getting stuck in between two platforms, which would necessitate one of the nice worker men having to shimmy out and come to get you. Luckily--whew--didn't happen.

All hair-netted up and ready to go. The hairnet requirement, as far as I can tell, is to either 1. keep your hair from getting stuck in the zipline, or 2. keep you humble.

One of the kinda rickety high platforms.

Look at all that jungle!

And me, zipping away. Not the best picture, but I figured I needed proof that I really did it.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was attending the Castries branch on Sunday. They met in a small building, and there were about 30 or 40 members, 4 young missionaries, and a missionary couple. We happened to come on fast Sunday and the branch president asked guests to bear their testimonies with a note of pleading in his voice, so we did. But I admit what I enjoyed the most was listening to the members bear their testimonies: so many of them new converts, so many of them having to make real sacrifices just to get themselves to that building on a Sunday morning. And listening to the young men bless and pass the sacrament! Tears. It was a beautiful, spiritual morning, one of the most memorable ones of the whole trip.

The church building. No chapel, no organ (but a nice little keyboard!), but an abundance of the spirit.

Me with two of the young men who blessed and passed the sacrament. The one on my right is a new convert. 

The sister missionary serving with her husband emailed this picture to Katie when we got home. This little girl is named Krisshona, and she was so friendly and sweet, giving both Katie and me big hugs and asking me all about America. All the children at the meeting were just beautiful. 

Our last big adventure on the island was a scuba diving/snorkeling trip. Darrin and Forrest did the scuba diving (although Katie almost did it too -- she'd certified over 15 years before, but felt a little rusty, so joined me in snorkeling around). We went on a boat owned by a British guy and his wife and a few other tourists; really, the only time during the whole trip that we weren't just the four of us. It was a good crew, though, and we had fun. My only complaint was that even though the first place we dove had some incredible fish -- I wish I had an underwater camera -- it also had a bunch of little stinging plankton-like devils that the locals called sea ants. They're so small you can't see them, but their bite feels a little like getting poked with a tiny needle. My favorite is when they'd bite my lips. When I was swimming in an area that the seemed to be hanging around, I took to covering my upper lip with one hand. The sting dissipated after a moment, but it was still a little irritating. Luckily the second place we snorkeled was sea ant free.

They guys reported seeing a giant puffer fish, among other things, and I loved swimming among big schools of colorful, Nemo-ish fish. The water was clear, the sun was shining, and it was an all around great day.

Forrest and Darrin, before the dive

Taking the plunge!

A whale we saw. Unfortunately, once we came a little closer, he didn't surface again. But it was still cool.

A view from the water

Darrin and Katie, looking cute.

Forrest, and Beverly, the dive master lady. She was great. Closed her eyes and slept the whole way back.

And there you have it: our St. Lucia trip! I could have written so much more, but this will have to do or else I'll never get back on blogging track. We arrived back home and found that Barbara and Chelle had taken SUCH good care of the kids and our home. We feel so lucky and grateful to have had all their help. The kids had a great time, and it was a relief to know we could leave them and not worry. And now Forrest and I have a trip that we'll always remember, truly a trip of a lifetime. It was wonderful. Thanks, babe, for sharing the last twenty years with me. We shouldn't wait twenty more before we do something like this again.

St. Lucia -- The Experiences Part I

Our St. Lucia trip was wonderful in so many ways, not least of which were some of the lovely surprises that came our way, many of them food related. I've had trips where I plan and scheme in the hopes that I'll get to eat one or two delicious meals, only to end up disappointed (oh, my girls trip to Chicago, what a culinary disaster!).  But this trip? So much good food.

The first nice culinary surprise happened when we got bumped to first class for the trip from Atlanta to St. Lucia. Four hours, free movies, and surprisingly tasty food (no peanut baggies for us!). It was a little strange to sit there in my first class seat while everybody else shuffled past, thinking I was the kind of person who could actually afford to buy a first class ticket just because. (At least that's what I used to think when I shuffled past the first class folks, back in the day before I understood how frequent flyer miles work.) Turns out you don't need to have much money at all (obviously) -- just a husband who travels a lot on Delta, and a flight that doesn't have a lot of business travelers who'd get bumped ahead of you.

I made Forrest pose for a First Class photo. They also refill your drinks as often as you'd like, and give you hot towels with which to wipe your grubby hands. The best part, of course, is that you don't have to spend four hours trying not to touch the elbow of the snoring stranger escaping the confines of the seat next to you whenever you shift position.

Once we got to St. Lucia there were many good restaurants to choose from. Lots of sea food, of course, and a bunch of restaurants with fancy European chefs, as well as little restaurants making local Caribbean food that was spicy with an Indian flair. Our first night there we went to an Indian restaurant that had been highly rated on TripAdvisor (oh, thank heaven for TripAdvisor) called Spice of India and mmmmmm was it yummy. Not very expensive, and the owner/chef came out and chatted with us. So many different flavors (my favorite kind of eating -- I do not understand spending $50 on a slab of steak) and every bite was good. Here we are at Spice of Inda:

And what the heck, more pictures of us at other restaurants, too. Eating at The Coal Pot, another really nice place right on the water that had delicious sea food:

And then Darrin and Katie, followed by Forrest and Me, at The Edge, a restaurant I kinda talked them into because I heard it was supposed to have good sushi. Again with the TripAdvisor. I loved my sushi, but Darrin has a touch of the sushi snob about him and wasn't as impressed as I was. I'll concede, my sushi experience is comparatively limited: simply eating those little pieces of ginger in between bites makes me happy. Just a few minutes after we took these pictures one of the only rainstorms we experienced on the island swept in. A couple of waitresses got drenched trying to tie down the tarp-like window coverings (see the ties behind Darrin?), but the wind was whipping too hard, so we had to move, even after the waitresses' brave attempts to rescue us.

If you enlarge this picture you can see that's a shrimp on the plate. Eyes and all. So fancy, leaving the eyes on!

 

Lots of the restaurants we went to did a beautiful job plating the food. Even the lunch spots. A pretty plate of food just makes things more fun:

Nope, that's not pork and potatoes. That's tuna and breadfruit. It was yummy, too.

This was Katie's dish and I can't remember what it is, other than it was supposed to be "cocoa-infused." And it's pretty.

We found a wonderful local spot for gelato, Elenas, and went there three times. Passion fruit was my favorite. So tangy! We also ate dinner cooked up by a guy in a trailer on the side of the road, as well as ordered surprisingly tasty rotis from the beaten down restaurant next to our hotel and ate it in our room while we played Monopoly Deal. Colin, the owner of our hotel, told us that some people like the "rustic charm" of the decidedly dilapidated restaurant, but that if you're not into that sort of thing, just order it to go. Great advice from Colin, once again!

We also ate at the restaurants of a few really fancy hotels. Our first attempt at eating at a fancy hotel was pretty hilarious, though. We had driven the 1 1/2 hours through winding roads and St. Lucian villages to arrive in southern St. Lucia where the Pitons are located, as well as a few other touristy spots like the mud baths and botanical gardens. What we hadn't really understood was that a good place to shower and clean off after the mud baths would NOT be forthcoming, so we headed to a beach we'd heard was nice and tried our best to wash off in the ocean. Turns out the bay also included the fancy dancy beachfront of a hotel called Jalousie Plantation (where you can stay for the low, low price of $500 a night, for starters! Just for kicks, I'm hyperlinking the fancy hotels where we ate, just so you can get a sense of where the 1% stay when they're not hard at work managing portfolios and hedging funds and whatnot). Their restaurant was right on the beach, so after trying in vain to scrub the black mud from our elbows and the backs of our necks, we sauntered over to the hostess, dressed in blinding white linen from head to toe, and asked for a table. "Ummm," she said uncertainly, glancing at us, then over her shoulder, then back again, "due to crowding concerns, we ask that all non-guests eat at our snack bar," and gestured to the far side of the beach, a nice distance away from the half-empty outdoor restaurant full of "actual guests."

Well! I never!

Truly, I really didn't mind shuffling off to the snack bar to eat with those of our kind. Same dang view anyway, and cheaper!

We kept to the right hand side of the dock.

Forrest at the snack bar, wondering how his "non-guestiness" could be so obvious.

We were planning to eat dinner that night at another fancy hotel, Ladera, but we didn't time things so well and got there at 5:00, a full hour before dinner was scheduled to begin. (In the interim, we were able to change our clothes and clean up a little better at a plantation house owned by Colin, our hotel guy, story forthcoming.) That actually turned out for the best, too, because we got awesome seats right by the balcony overlooking the Pitons -- best spot in the house -- and ordered some yummy food off of the bar menu. Great ambiance at half the price once more!

Right in between the two Pitons

We also had a fun lunch one day in Marigot Bay, a little cove where yachts and sail boats come in to refuel and stock up on necessities. There was a great little shop advertising French cheeses and expensive alcohol: the sustenance of fancy yachters, I imagine.  It was in this bay that we saw a sailboat so huge and gorgeous I had to take its picture:

This picture does not do it justice. I'm sure its owner buys lots of overpriced brie.

The restaurant was a casual place, not busy at all, with the bay on one side and mangrove fields on the other, as well as pretty little birds that came to visit:

It was also at this restaurant that Katie accidentally talked the waitress into giving her a guava from her own personal stash. Katie had mentioned her love of guavas and her wish that she could order one, and before we knew it, the waitress had given us the guava she brought with her lunch. We tipped her well. :-). We all shared it and found it quite delicious, rind and all. (On a side note, Katie also took a bite of a fruit she *thought* was a guava, growing wild at another beach we visited another day, and proceeded to have a mildly scary allergic reaction. Two stories about Katie and guavas alone on this trip! Too many tales to tell.)

The last fun restaurant we managed to visit was at the Hotel du Chocolat, another fancy spot for fancy-people-who-are-not-me.  We decided to try to squeeze it in on our last day there, and although it made us just the teensiest bit almost late for our flight (15 more minutes and they wouldn't have checked in our luggage, whoops!) it was totally worth it. This is the view from the balcony:

And us, standing in that same spot, with the Piton obscured due to that darn Caribbean sun:

Yep. This is the kind of swimming pool that $700 a night will buy you.

All the food at the Hotel du Chocolat (it's built on a cocoa plantation) is cocoa infused in some way. Yep. Yum.

Forrest and Darrin, waiting to get their chocolate on. I realize that sounds odd but I'm going with it anyway. 

Darrin's pasta, Katie's roti. I had a roti, too, which looked just about the same. Don't you love how they put the plantain chips (no potato chips! heavens!) in a little glass? Who thinks of such things?

Katie's "tour of chocolate" dessert, and Darrin's ice cream trio.

Forrest with HIS ice cream trio, and my molten chocolate cake, which was truly one of the best desserts I've ever had in my life.

After that beautiful lunch, we rushed to the airport and hustled on to the airplane where I was thrilled to find we'd been upgraded to 1st class AGAIN, and this time Darrin and Katie got to join us too (Darrin doesn't have quite as many Delta miles as Forrest, but he still has a good amount). Once we got in the air they fed us right away -- a yummy pasta dish -- and even though we were full we STILL ate it. Because, you know, free food? Again, you can take the girl out of West Valley . . .

One of the most striking things about this St. Lucia trip for me was the juxtaposition of the poverty of so many residents of St. Lucia and the decadence and wealth on display among the most monied tourists.  It became clear to me how thoroughly middle American I am: not comfortable with poverty or luxury, and continually surprised that there are so many people on this planet who inhabit both of these unfamiliar worlds.  On the tiny island of St. Lucia alone, so many examples of either extreme abound.  But the fact that I got to drive on the winding roads and see the colorful villages in one world that will never be mine, as well as eat the molten chocolate cakes and stand on the sweeping balconies of another world I'll never join? What a blessing, right? Just to see them both.

So coming up next . . . snorkeling, hiking, zipping through the jungle. The non-food-related St. Lucia experiences await.

St. Lucia -- The Sights Part II: Flora, Fauna, and Pretty Water

There were all sorts of pretty things to look at in St. Lucia. The first was right outside our hotel room:

This is the view from our balcony. We shared a two bedroom unit at the Villa Beach Cottages with Darrin and Katie. It was the perfect place for us to stay: small, nice (but not too $$), and right on the beach. The beach was almost always empty, and other than the occasional sounds of the family with little kids that often occupied the pool, it was quiet enough to hear the birds whistling and the waves splashing against the sand.

Here are a few shots of the beach and my favorite hammock:

It was so nice to get up in the morning and take a little stroll. I try not to think about it now that I'm home and the alarm starts blaring at 6:00 a.m. and I'm off like a shot, trying to print a handout for seminary, get Wyatt his chocolate milk, find my shoes, stand at the foot of Elise's bed and beg her to actually sit up, etc. etc.

There aren't many non domesticated animals (should I try and tie in a transitional sentence that relates Elise in the morning to a non domesticated animal??? ah, naaahh) in St. Lucia -- not even many bugs, which was very nice, although I did manage to get a few mosquito bites. There are a lot of birds, though. I'm sure it would be a fun place for bird watchers to go.

I should know what this bird is (Aunt Julie, should you go ask Tom?) but we saw a lot of them on the island:

These little black and red birds were ubiquitous too, and very bold. They would eat right out of your hand:

Or right off of Forrest's shoulder:

And another bird (isn't this exciting?? :-):

And a bird with a mammal! There were a number of horses, goats, and dogs in St. Lucia (and all the dogs looked alike, skinny and long snouted), but I never saw a single rodent, even in the forest.

We also saw a bunch of lizards, and heard a bunch of frogs:

And ran across a number of crabs:

You can see his little crab face in the middle of the picture

We went on some lovely hikes, like this one to the botanical gardens:

And this one to the relics of an old British fort on the northern tip of the island. Fort Rodney was situated on the very top of the northernmost hill so they could spy on the French stationed in the neighboring island of Martinique.

Darrin and Katie, being huggie.

Forrest, pretending to warm his hands.

Forrest and Darrin, exploring the powder room. Which is room where they keep gun powder, not a ladies' restroom.

Can you believe I got close enough to the edge to take that picture?

Forrest, exploring the wrong end of a cannon.

Aforementioned cannon.

There were inscriptions like this all along the walls.

All the boats in the bay. And me, with beach hair.

Speaking of all the boats in the bay: Wow, there are a lot of rich people in the world. It's kind of stunning, really. While we were on this little hike, there was a couple with two kids and a grandma. We started talking to the grandma and she said she was with them for a little while (they'd just come from Argentina in their sail boat) and that her son and his wife had taken their two kids out of school for a year to home school them and sail around the world. The grandma seemed quite impressed and grateful that she was able to be there, and the son seemed to be younger than we were, which begs the question: if you did not inheret your money, how in the world are you rich enough by age 35 to quit your job, buy a yacht, and sail around the world with your small children? Just curious.

One of the only rainy days on the island, but it was a nice rain. Refreshing.

I love this shot with Forrest and Darrin in the corner. 

As far as other scenery goes, we must include the Pitons, which are the scenic symbol of St. Lucia:

I didn't look down for this picture

Swimming and snorkeling at the base of the Pitons 

A little bay between the two Pitons

Smokey and mysterious

The view from the restaurant at the Hotel de Chocolat (more on that later)

And to wrap things up for today, a few more pretty pictures of the ocean:

Lots of pictures in this post, but not a lot of people or stories. The people and stories are for next time. Deep breath!