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.

St Lucia day 1

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Now that’s a nice coffee.

Wowza, since we arrived after sunset, the morning view was some kind of surprise. I sit and drink coffee… lots of coffee, while waiting on the girls to get up. Once up, we try to start making some plans for the week. Today, pretty low key, mainly hitting a grocery store, an atm, and the botanical gardens and waterfall.

So we drive back to Choiseul to Massys, where we loaded up on groceries, heavy on the snacks. Then tried an atm with no luck (shades of Mexico City all over again). We drive back to the house and put everything away, then made our first foray to Soufriere. We drove through a cocoa grove, with beautiful mature fruit. 

We also found some of the most challenging roads, including fording a stream. So, we definitely found where we _don’t_ want to drive again. But, we made it to Soufreire. A short walk and we found a place to eat, and par for the course, it had great views.

After lunch, we walked to a bank and were finally able to get money. The bank was right on the water, so we walked a bit before driving to the botanical gardens. Beautiful, but I agree with Bailley, it seemed like just a path through the natural beautiful jungle. 

Ok, then more driving. We did make a huge stride though, the new trick is to decide the route based on specific ‘bigger’ roads, no shortest, or quickest route. That plus a group effort with Abigail helping me stay on the correct side and avoiding the death ditches while Bailley navigates has really worked well. One of us drops out, we’re toast.

Back to house before dark… huge win, where we just relax and enjoy the pool.

I think some dinner, within walking distance luckily, then just chill for the night.

St Lucia travel day

​Why is it that the Caribbean seems so close yet is so difficult to get to? I left the house a bit after 3:00am for the airport… man makes for a long day. Mental note: next time really try to get to Miami or Charlotte a day early and don’t do this in one day.

We aren’t at full force this trip, with Madison staying home due to not being able to take off of work. Bailley, Abigail, and I all left from different cities and converged in Miami. Even that wasn’t without some hiccups. Bailley’s plane originally said they needed a tire, so four hour delay, followed by “nah, it’s ok”. Oddly, that was the plane we all got on for the Miami to St Lucia leg… and they did change the tire. So, we’re an hour and a half delayed, but together and about two hours from St Lucia.

Well, finally swung low and got a good view of the pitons as we landed. A really cool, nice airport. 

Immigration, check. Car rental, check. Now to drive. Right hand drive and left side of road, winding through city, did ok. But as we got closer to the villa, the roads got really narrow, really rough, super steep, and really twisty. Made for an exciting drive. We finally get to the villa and meet Garvin, our new bestie. After showing us the house, we asked where to grab a quick bite… he drove us to Cool Joint where we drank and waited on our chicken and pork plates. Thank goodness he was driving and it was nice to get some local tips.

We eat and eat. So much good local food: chicken/pork, Mac&cheese, some lo mein dish, lentils, pasta salad, cole slaw, and peas and rice. 

Abigail and Bailley exchange gifts, then Abigail and I splash in the pool a bit before deciding to head to bed for a needed collapse.