01. 04. January 15, 2011

 cockfights, crash test dummies, coladas: St Lucia 2011

hi mum!

chocolate piano. no big deal.

i'm actually drinking rum on the rocks!

morning routine.

FOUND!!!!!!!!!

Another photo for my mum

brilliant! wine and coffee shop!

23. st lucia.

view from the room

Hello! It seems I'm having to remind everyone I know to check the blog. I thought I was more interesting than that? Apparently not.

In my infinite quest for narcissistic tendencies however, I have opted to continue writing, if only for myself.

So on January 5th at 3:30am, while Winnipeg was I'm sure still celebrating New Years, Nico and I took off to St Lucia. We landed in Vieux Fort, in the South of the island. Someone we met on the plane offered us a ride North to Castries where we were staying with our loveliest couchsurfing host, Michael. For 20USD, the passenger's brother drove us to the North tip of St Lucia, and dropped us off about a block from our destination.

Not bad!

Michael greeted us with Chairman's Reserve on the rocks - a sweetly spiced locally-made rum. I actually managed to drink it without wincing, which surprised everyone.

The next day, Nico and I set out to the market in Castries via public transport, which is very similar to the matatus of Uganda. We found one, jumped in, and within about twelve seconds it registered. A very distinct "hmmm hmmm hmmmmm" - The Crash Test Dummies were playing on the radio. Fits of laughter erupted from me (you can never really escape Winnipeg....) before arriving at the bustling, Creole-inspired marketplace. We ate and shopped around a bit (I use the term "shopped" quite loosely - I left my debit card at home giving me a grand total of 78USD and 75CND for the 10-day trip). All the portions of food served were absolutely enormous and full of curryish flavour. 

That night, Michael's girlfriend prepared us some more local fare, which, to my detriment, was basically fish mixed with fishy tasting vegetables. I had two bites but couldn't hack it. However, I did resolve that from now on I will try at least everything once (future endeavours on the island included mussels, mahi mahi, something a rasta handed me and more rum than usual).

After a few days in Castries, which involved sun, beach, food, drinks, conversation we opted to go to a Friday night street party in Gros Islet - about 12 kms further North. 

w-o-w.

Every Friday night the streets close down and everyone comes out, vendors open, booze is served openly and everyone just dances and sings and parties and yells and laughs. At one point, I saw a girl who didn't look to comfortable, dancing with a local.

After studying them for about 30 seconds, and seeing her growing uncertainty/nervousness I jumped in, grabbing her arm and saying "DANIELLE!?!?! HEY!!!!" I'd never seen her before but my intention was that it would be a good excuse to scoot away from the creepy guy.

She was very confused and so I explained why I'd interjected and rescued her. She thanked me. I asked her where she was from and she said "Canada."

me: Me too! Where?

her: umm..Winnipeg?

me: ME TOO!!!!! WHERE?!!?!!?!?!??!?!?!!? (JUBILATION BURSTING THROUGH)

her: St James. 

me: ME TOOOO!!! (kidding).

So we grew up five minutes away from each other. And now we are at the same small-island street party. Did I mention you can't escape Winnipeg?

I asked what school she was at and learned she was in high school...taking a closer look I figured she was about 15. I felt...old? responsible? Winnipeg pride? 

Well nothing could really top that moment and we headed back to Michael's. Three more couch surfers arrived into his tinyish place and we were grateful to have arrived first so we got the bedroom, as opposed to the love seat/floor/back yard.

Headed to a new couchsurfer's, in the South inland. Generally the tourists stick to the coast so we knew we were going into some pretty thick rural St Lucia. What we DIDN'T anticipate was that our couchsurfing host would live in a club-turned-house, attached to a bar, full of children and pot-smokers alike, with a very active COCKFIGHT happening. The roof was corrugated tin, the walls were thin, everyone was drunk. The hosts were incredibly warm and talkative and their children were adorable but...just not our scene. It felt like a charity case, and I needed a vacation. 

The next morning I woke up at 7am to sounds of the children burping and farting and complaining about having to go to school. I went to sit outside, where, at 8:30am, I found a couple locals drinking the local beer, Piton. You know those days you wake up and wonder how anyone could possibly be drinking!? It was one of those moments.

I lasted another 4 hours before booking a seaside  hotel in Soufriere, on the Southwest of the island, surrounded by palm trees and the Caribbean sea, and of course the Pitons - cone shaped mountains unique to St Lucia. 

This is where we spent the remainder of our vacation, admittedly on the beach the whole time. We had had a lot of adventuring in our first 5 days and so opted to have a very relaxed end to the trip.

I've put some pictures up that showed some of the highlights of our trip. All in all, Nico and I decided it was the coolest trip we'd ever done together (better than Iceland, Vancouver, and even Grand Forks).

I'll have more stories coming up in time...hopefully this has been a good start though. I highly recommend couch surfing St Lucia, for what it's worth. 

I have to go work on my photo cloud - a wall-based collage of pictures and post cards. I finished unpacking (I think).. and suddenly, I feel like I'm at home.

I'm feeling very happy and relaxed and excited to start my internship on Monday!