St Lucia to home travel day

​Well… and just like that another vacation comes to an end.

A few last pics from the rental overlooking the pitons…

A few bites to ‘clean out’ the fridge of leftovers, then on the road to the airport. The airport can’t be more than 15 or so miles away… which is definitely an hour or more. Oddly, we have adapted to the driving so well, that the drive was pretty quiet… no constant ‘stay on the left!’ or ‘I’m not sure, but it loooooks like we should be going on the straight, left-ish road’, just drive and chat and discuss the trip. It’s weird, but the only thing I still periodically got wrong was the blinker… not that people used them a lot… but it was on the left of the steering column, and that never completely felt natural. I guess I didn’t use it enough to get that pure muscle memory. 

Bye bye trusty jimney.

On to the next trip!!!

St Lucia day 7

​Pretty chill day. Woke up and lounged a bit and made some spa reservations. Then for lunch we drove to Dasheen one last time.

Food was great, plus we even took leftovers back for later.

We, me mainly, nap a bit and then get ready for the spa. Spa was a short drive down the hill, not even into town. The girls got facials and I got a full body massage. Funny story (disclaimer: this is only my second message ever, so I know nothing on what to do). The lady takes me to where the massage tables are… basically the same view as below, over looking Soufriere and the pitons. She says undress and get on the table face down. I ask, completely undressed? Yes. She asks if it’s ok and am I ok doing it outside like this… I’m like sure, you know, when in Rome and all. So I get completely undressed and lay down on the table face down. A couple of minutes later I hear her walk back out… she touches my leg and says ‘under the sheet please’. Oh ok… ok… I could have used that info earlier, but ok. Rookie mistake I claim. 

Afterwards, we all reconvened in the bar of the resort where the spa was. 

Once dinner service opened, we ordered dishes to take back. Short drive and back to relax.

St Lucia day 6, moving day

​Today we get up and start packing up. We aay goodbye to Garvin and drive to Dasheen for an attempt at breakfast… attempt, because we were between breakfast and lunch… so denied! Alright, so just push on to the beach. Back to Malgretoute beach… but this time a rope across the road and person… hmmm. Seems due to the number of people at the resort on the beach, they weren’t letting people use their parking lot. Ok… so we pull into a little road across from Martha’s Tables and just leave the car there. There was a road/path we walked right to the beach.

We just lounged and relaxed before grabbing a late lunch on the beach. Got instructions on next house, so started driving. In Soufriere we got gas and filled up on snacks for ‘dinner’ later.

This house is more rustic for sure, but the views are something else.

St Lucia day 5

​Last full day at this rental, not sure the next place will be this nice… heck, not sure any place will be this nice. Today the plan is sulphur springs, waterfall, and boat. Should be a fun day.

Ok… up and basically cook all our breakfast stuff with some leftovers to make an omelette we all share. Got to eat while FaceTiming Madison which was great. 

We changed plans a bit, calling Garvin and just saying we’ll drive ourselves… yeah, we’ve become pretty confident, esp on our known roads. So off to a lunch reservation at Rabot Chocolat. As usual, the view is something else.

Then a short drive to the volcano and sulphur springs. We opted for the tour and mud bath instead of just mud bath. I’m glad we did… the tour was short and informational and all around great. The guide even made a reference to HEB oddly enough.

After the tour we drove and bought tickets (we were doing it in reverse due to Google Maps not being updated since some closed roads due to a hurricane). Then to mud bath. We were a bit confused… it was our first mud bath… there were pots of mud you rubbed on, then volcanic heated water pools to wash off. I had expected the pools to be filled with mud… live and learn!

A semi good rinse off, then a drive into Soufriere for a boat cruise.

Shocker… a private, sunset catamaran cruise in St Lucia is really nice. We snorkeled a bit… more live coral than I’m used to seeing… and navigated the coast past Canaries. Was a wonderful outing.

Even the drive back in the dark felt ‘not so bad’. Tomorrow is beach and moving day.

St Lucia day 4

​Up kinda late, cooking and eating breakfast here. Then on to beach!

We first tried to find a beach seemingly just south of us, but we never could find any entrance or stopping place. So… on to Malgretoute beach. It’s close to Sugar beach and has a resort on it like Sugar beach, but we were hoping for a different experience. Boy howdy it was. We drove down just beside the beach, nice parking. I walked to the hotel to ask about the lounge chairs… the lady meets me and says the restaurant is closed… enjoy yourselves! So we have a beautiful beach, shared with just a handful of people, lounge chairs, and shade from trees. Wow, we found our beach. 

We lounged a bit, the girls swam and looked at fish and coral, eventually I made a sand castle in my dad’s style. It must have been decent… the British kids beside us started doing it too. 

Around one, we packed up and walked to Martha’s Tables. Another swing and miss from the Sugar beach debacle. Food was great and we just chatted and relaxed. 

We walked back to the car and decided to drive and explore a bit more of the island. We drove to and through Soufriere and what felt like two hours to Canaries… although B says it was 30 minutes… and we still had almost an hour to get to Castries, our original goal. Man, the road north of Soufriere is nicely paved, wide, even lined(!), but so twisty and turny and up and down it was still taking us a loooong time to get anywhere. So we bail and just backtrack home. We did get some great views while stopping at stands for souvenirs.

We try to hit Massy’s but it’s closed… Boxing Day? Kwanza? So we push on with one stop for souvenirs, then another stop at Cool Joint for food before darkness falls on our trek home.

At home we eat a hodge-podge and relax but the pool. After showers I think the girls are going to watch a movie while I blog 🤓🤣.

St Lucia day 3

​Early start with plans today. 

Everybody up and out by 8:30, heading to Project Chocolat at the Rabot estate. 

First we had a good, informative tour, mostly through rain forest. Seems they graft the most disease resistant root with the best tasting upper section. It also makes a plant that produces fruit in half the time… like 2 - 4 years. A cocoa plant requires little water, 1 - 1.5 liters a year(!), and only 4 hours of sunlight a day. So they plant other trees near cocoa plants to block sunlight and absorb water. We got to chew/suck on a ripe but fresh cocoa seed… the gelatinous coating was a bit sweet. We also got to eat a native flower that tasted like green apple and saw coffee plants loaded with beans.

After the tour we got to make chocolate bars, like legit make. We used a hot mortar and a pestle to pound the cocoa nibs until it made a paste… maybe 20 minutes of continuous pounding. Then cocoa butter followed by slowly adding powdered sugar. Then 10 minutes of mixing before pouring it into a mold. They put the bars in a freezer while we ate lunch. 

Nice lunch and drinks… most things including cocoa and fresh juices. Then back to get our bars, look through the gift shop, and head out.

Oh… and Abigail drove back. Big road… and sketch road(!), all the way to the house! 

Now the girls got in the pool and we are just snacking and lounging. Probably just going to relax the rest of the day.

St Lucia day 2

​Well… we’re back from dinner finally (inside joke, but let’s just say we had a long dinner last night). 

Today Bailley and I cooked breakfast, Abigail isn’t feeling 100%, so is sleeping in a bit. 

I think today we may pencil in the rest of the days and hopefully hit a beach or two.

Ok, we _think_ we have a Saturday plan for sulphuric springs, waterfall, and catamaran. A Garvin special, so we’ll see! 

So post breakfast, post planning, we hit the road for the Jaloise or Sugar Bay beach. I swear, picking the longer sketchy road over the shorter death road… I felt like we were there in ten minutes, where it had been feeling more like 45 minutes. We find the resort and are directed to parking. This place is insane, directly on the inlet between the two pitons. We walked down the steep road until we reach the resort. 

Beautiful. We were told that if you buy food or drink, just save the receipt and you can catch a shuttle up the steep road back to parking. Man, this can’t get any better… well, that’s closer to true than we thought at the time. The beach was really pretty and being sandwiched between the pitons, made it picture perfect. But instead of taking pics, we decide to enjoy first. So… palapa… don’t care how much, I want one. Find a free one and ask… ummm ‘no’, only for resort guests. Ok, fine. We lay out stuff out on the sand and get in the water. Wow, just beautiful. We enjoy a while, but I wanted a drink and maybe a snack while drying off so I could put on sunscreen, before getting back in the water. Bailley wanted a drink and Abigail didn’t want to be alone, so we all leave the water. Walk up to restaurant… ummm ‘no’, only resort guests. Huh… ok, so how do we get a drink or receipt. One non resort place next door.., ok. So we walk there, and they aren’t seating people… I guess it was between services. Hmmm, ok, so we decide to leave and maybe come back another day. We find the shuttle and just pay them to drive us up to the car. We drive and stop at Martha’s table (hand written menus, as legit as they come)… they stopped serving for the day. Hooo boy, striking out left and right. So we start heading back and tried a couple more places before finding one open and accepting us. Luckily, the food was good and the views, unexpectedly, were phenomenal. Which ended up being good, because we only got one or two pics on the Sugar beach.

After eating and chatting and laughing, we hit the road back to the house (Abigail literally hit the road, falling as we left the restaurant). A quick skinned knee cleaning and a short dip in the pool once we got back and now start winding down for the night.