CARIBBEAN ADVENTURE – PART 4

St. Kitts and Nevis is the smallest and least populated country in the Americas, only 261 square kilometres and 55,000 people.  Yet our first impression on landing at the airport was that here was a country on the move.  The taxi driver pointed out several significant real estate developments on the drive to our hotel on the southeast peninsula of the main island of St. Kitts.  Like Canada, St. Kitts and Nevis is a parliamentary democracy and member of the Commonwealth; it achieved independence in 1983.

On our first full day in the country, we looked out our window at a full-day rain, the first in six weeks.  Although it’s rained nearly every day since we arrived in the Caribbean, it usually only lasts for twenty minutes or so.  This day was different.  We figured out how to get into the capital, Basseterre, by local bus and wandered through Port Zante, watching thousands of passengers pour out of two cruise ships in port for the day.  There are at least 100 stores at the cruise port, certainly half of them selling jewelry.

We got our bearings at the local tourism office and headed out on foot to visit attractions in Basseterre, stopping at Independence Square, the Catholic Co-cathedral, and St. George Anglican Church.

As we walked through the streets, we noticed the contrast between this tiny capital city (population 13,000) and the others we’d visited.  It’s clean, orderly and inviting by comparison.  Then it started to pour!  By mid-afternoon, merchants were closing up shop and the few remaining cruise ship passengers were running from shelter to shelter, many of them without rain gear.  While we were slightly better equipped, we got wet good and wet too.  But, as we cyclists say: “When you’re wet, you can’t get any wetter!”

The map showed two tourist attractions on the south side of St. Kitts, so we boarded the local bus and headed along the coast from Basseterre.  The driver let us off in the tiny village of Old Town and we hiked up a side road to Romney Manor, arriving there just as the gates opened.  While the place has quite a history as a sugar plantation, the real reason for going there was for Elva to buy some batik!  I sat dutifully while she and the saleslady worked their magic and, eventually, we left with a few very nice items.  The Manor grounds are the nicest we’ve seen on our Caribbean trip.

Back down on the main road, we hailed a local bus for the short drive to another side road, this one to Brimstone Hill, nicknamed ‘The Gibraltar of the Caribbean’.  Brimstone Hill and the imposing fortress that commands its summit was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.  The hike to the 243 metre high citadel was a bit of a test.  Cruise ship passengers drove by us in buses and taxis and must have thought we were crazy, but we didn’t care.  We’ll drive when we’re older.

The view from the citadel was amazing.  On a crystal-clear day, we could see the islands of St. Eustatius and Saba to the west, and Nevis to the east.  And the breeze was a welcome relief.

Back in town, we walked to El Fredo’s, reputed to be the best place to sample the national dish: saltfish with dumplings and provision.  While Elva went the safer route with barbecued ribs, I was in foodie heaven.  By this time, I’d eaten a lot of salt fish in the Caribbean, but none this good.  The dumplings had a healthy dose of coconut in them and the provision included plantain, banana, breadfruit and another root vegetable I couldn’t identify.  All delicious!

You can’t go to St. Kitts and miss out on its sister island, Nevis.  The one-hour ferry ride from Basseterre to Charlestown took us along the southwest coast of the main island and across the four-kilometre wide strait to Nevis.  Charlestown is a prosperous-looking place, a step up from the other small islands we’ve visited on this trip.  We started our visit with a local bus ride around most of the island.  Our driver, a former accountant at the luxurious Four Seasons Resort, pointed out a number of interesting places and entertained us with talk of everything from politics to sports.

Back in Charlestown, we did the walking tour, stopping at the historic Anglican Church where we saw gravestones dating back as far as 1733.  Like all the other islands we’ve visited, Nevis was all about the sugar cane in the earliest days of European settlement.  And it was more than just a sleepy backwater.

Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, was born in Charlestown.  His image appears on the ten-dollar bill and his life is the subject of the most popular play on Broadway.  One tag line for the play reads: “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?”  Admiral Horatio Nelson, British hero of the Napoleonic Wars, while stationed at nearby Antigua, married Nevisian widow Frances Nisbet on Nevis in 1787.  So much history for such a small place.

We’d been told to not miss the hot springs in Charlestown.  We finally found them after getting directions and were met by a woman attendant who wouldn’t take “No” for an answer.  We explained that we didn’t have out swimsuits.  “Not to worry,” she replied.  “I’ve seen it all!”  So we stripped to our underwear (no pictures!) and stepped gingerly into the 42-degree C water.  Then she splashed a bucketful on our backs and ordered us to get in.  As I squatted in the simmering bath, I thought of the boiling frog anecdote.  You know, the one about a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out.  But if it’s put in cold water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.  An appropriate metaphor, I thought, especially given our ethnicity.

We explored the quieter northwest coast of the main island by local bus.  The driver took us to the end o f his route in Sandlers, then doubled back to the small town of Cayon, where we got off and walked up to Ottley Plantation Inn, a high-end hostelry and former sugar estate.  We walked the grounds and the trails, had a beverage in the open-sided restaurant, and enjoyed a beautiful view of the ocean, with St. Bart’s and St. Maarten off in the distance.  Ça prend pas grand chose pour nous amuser.  What a place to get away from it all!

Before heading back to Basseterre, we stopped at a roadside eatery and sampled the local fare, chicken and Johnny cake, washed down with homemade passion fruit juice.  Watching and listening to the locals bantering and playing a serious game of dominoes added to the experience.  And the food was very good to boot!  I pinched myself, thinking: “There’s no place in the world I’d rather be right now.  My best friend at my side, a genuine experience, and a view to die for.”

Our modest hotel on St. Kitts, the Sugar Bay Club, a place that may have seen better days, couldn’t be in a better location.  The narrow, low-lying strip of land between Frigate Bay North and Frigate Bay South is home to a golf course, hotels, beaches, and a string of funky bars and restaurants.  We spent most of our last three days strolling, swimming and sunbathing in the area and liked it so much that we checked on condo rental prices for possible future reference.

A highlight of our time in St. Kitts was meeting Jennifer and Brian Nelson, two forty-somethings who spend six months of the year working in Panama City, FL, and the other six months sailing around the Caribbean on their 37-foot trimaran, Moon.  We boarded the local bus together on our first day in St. Kitts, said hello, and it was like we’d known one another for years.  They arrived on October 24 and have been working hard on their boat ever since.  Very interesting people.

The trip to St. Lucia turned out to be another adventure, courtesy of LIAT.  Four hours late leaving St. Kitts, we missed our connection in Antigua.  The airline offered to put us up in a local hotel, the Halcyon Resort, but it took forever to get the dozen or so stranded passengers through Customs and herded onto a bus.  Up at 3:30 for the ride to the airport, we faced confusion at the counter as LIAT had not transferred us onto the morning flight.  We finally got to our hotel in St. Lucia, exhausted but thankful to be finally rid of the local airline.

The Bay Gardens Inn, an older but well-kept property, is located in the heart of Rodney Bay, ‘tourist central’ in St. Lucia.  The town has everything: malls, restaurants, supermarkets, resorts, a beach, and a huge marina.  After exploring the area on foot, we hopped a local bus and rode to the capital, Castries.  Two cruise ships were in town and the place was abuzz.  It didn’t take us long to discover, however, that St. Lucia’s capital is a bit rough around the edges.  We’d been spoiled by the relative cleanliness and order of St. Kitts’ capital, Basseterre, and the friendliness of the people there.

We visited Pigeon Island National Park on our second day after taking the bus to the village of Gros Islet and walking the rest of the way.  We needed to stretch our legs in preparation for the next day’s hike.  The view of Martinique and Dominica from the top of the old fort made the short climb worthwhile.

Next, it was back on the bus for the long drive south to the town of Soufrière, a town of 8,000 people and the center of St. Lucia’s activity-based tourism offer.  Although the distance from Rodney Bay to Soufrière is only 50 kilometres, it took us two and a half hours to get there because of the narrow, congested roads, and the mountainous terrain.  We stretched our legs and walked  from the town to the former du Boulay Estate, site of the Botanical Gardens and Diamond Waterfall.  We’d seen other botanical gardens on our travels, but this one was by far the best.  We even discovered what came before Viagra, “Bois Bandé”!  What else would you call a tree with aphrodisiac powers?

Through the night, the rain pounded relentlessly on the roof of our hotel.  The worst of the downpour had passed by the time we got up, but we were pretty well resigned to cancelling our planned ascent of Gros Piton.  But, as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and our 8:00 am pickup approached, we started to feel like it might come off.  Our driver, Richard, assured us that conditions would be better in Soufrière, so off we went.  Two and a half hours later, we arrived at the tiny village of Fond Gens Libre, home to 120 souls, descendants of former slaves who rebelled against their masters founded the settlement in the nineteenth century.

Our guide for the hike introduced herself and explained what lay ahead.  The mountain loomed over us, threatening, reminding us she was not to be conquered by the weak.  We signed the mandatory release forms, picked up walking sticks and started the 2,000-foot ascent.  Getting to the half-way point was relatively easy, although we had to clamber over a couple of difficult rock staircases, boulders the size of beer coolers.

Our guide warned us that the second half of the climb transitioned from moderate to difficult and asked us for the umpteenth time whether we thought we were up to it.  Poor girl, she’d never encountered a Jos à Denis or The Diesel!  Damn right we were tired.  But quit, I guess not!  Then, it started to rain!  And not just a light shower; a steady downpour that made the trail that much more treacherous.  But it also cooled us off!  After almost two hours of climbing, we reached the top of Gros Piton, not much the worse for wear and took in the impressive views of the island, looking south.

When you’re at your physical limit, when your mind tells you to turn around, that you’re too old for this, you search for inspiration.  Elva found hers in memories of Martha Lebel, her good friend who loved to hike and who left us too early, and of her cycling friend, Liz, who calls every hill “A piece of cake!”  For me, the sight of these plants growing wild on the mountain summoned memories of my dear mother who grew them in our house in Wellington all through the years we lived together.

The long descent was quite hairy and I was thankful for the walking stick.  Several times, I braced on all fours for stability on the slippery path.  My legs held up surprisingly well though and I made it down in ninety minutes or so.  Elva followed thirty minutes later and we congratulated one another on a job well done.  We don’t know what getting old feels like yet.  Someday we will, but not on this day…  Gros Piton is a ‘must-do’ for the adventurous sort, a UNESCO World Heritage Site spectacular in beauty and worthy of the designation.  Looking at this aerial shot of the monster in the foreground, I still find it hard to believe we made it!

We spent the last couple of days of our Caribbean adventure in Rodney Bay and Castries, soaking up the last of the sun and the sand before heading back north.  St. Lucia has a lot to offer the vacationer but it also has its drawbacks.  Most of the 150,000 or so people who call the island nation home are packed into a small strip of coastal land in the northwest corner.  Add in tourists and a woefully inadequate road system, and you have the makings of one gnarly traffic jam.  And garbage is strewn everywhere.  In a word, it’s gross.  People here are friendly, but it’s not the genuine friendliness you find in Grenada, Dominica, and St. Kitts.  There’s work to be done on several fronts, including better staff training.  Otherwise, the country will not achieve its goal of becoming a premium tourist destination.

As we end this adventure, I offer a few parting thoughts:

1. No two couples, having visited the same eight countries, would rank them in the same order, I’m sure.  But for our style of travel, from best to worst, here they are: St. Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
2. Independent travel isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it can be very rewarding.  We learned so much more on this trip than we expected, especially about ourselves and our capacity to adapt.  Three keys to successful independent travel: talk to the locals; eat what and where the locals eat; and travel with the locals where possible.  These are guarantees of a more enriching experience.  And it helps to be in shape!
3. Never travel without the advice and help of an agent.  Ours happens to be Elva’s sister, Lucille Thompson of Carlson Wagonlit Travel.  She knows our habits, our expectations, and our quirks.  We work in tandem with her to come up with an itinerary and find suitable hotels, all booked in advance.  The savings she finds for us more than cover her fees.  Most importantly, when something goes wrong, as it always does, she’s there to help.
4. The time and schedule conscious either adapt to the Caribbean pace or they go crazy!  People here march to a different drummer.  Maybe it’s the heat and maybe it’s just their nature.  LIAT (an acronym for “Late If At All”?), the publicly-owned regional airline, is a study in inefficiency and rarely on time.  We learned to go with the flow.  After all, what’s the rush?
5. The eight Caribbean countries have much the same history: the indigenous Kalinago (Caribs) conquered the Arawak, only to be exterminated by the Europeans; Columbus was the first European to set foot on the islands, claiming them on Spain’s behalf; France and Great Britain fought over them, with the British prevailing in the end; the strong black majority eventually gained control in each country; and all sought and achieved independence within the last sixty years.  But there are important differences in terms of quality and form of government, standard of living, population density, and potential for economic growth.
6. With the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, the middle class is weak or non-existent in the eight countries we visited, and that is a huge barrier to social and economic progress.  Wages are very low by our standards, even for those in public service jobs.  Were it not for expats - people who moved away and returned to spend their retirement years in their native countries - things would be far worse.
7. The ‘gift of jurisdiction’ in these eight sovereign countries comes at a high cost.  With the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, none has oil reserves.  They all depend heavily on tourism, agriculture and fishing.  A few supplement these with an offshore banking sector.  There is great potential in tourism, provided each country can successfully brand and differentiate itself.  Foreign investment is hard to come by and many public infrastructure projects would not be possible without grants from richer countries.  Each one has a citizenship-by-investment program.  But bad government can and does stifle growth.  The best example of this is Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
8. Children here are very independent.  We saw them walk off the ferry from Bequia at 8:00 am, all dressed in their sharp-looking uniforms, on their way to class at a secondary school in Kingstown, St. Vincent.  Imagine having to catch a ferry at 7:00, enduring a rough one-hour crossing, spending six hours in class, and having to take the ferry home again, five days a week?  We drive our children to the stop and complain about them having to take a bus to school.
9. The Chinese have arrived; not as tourists but as patrons.  We saw signs of this in Grenada, where they contributed to the cost of the national stadium, and in Dominica, where they’re doing the same.  Watch out President Trump!  The Chinese may yet take you from behind…
10. And finally, after seven weeks of black immersion, I am now officially colour blind.  And proud of it!  It’s been a life-changing experience.