We're still trying to get the hang of this whole mosquito net thing. We were being feasted for a few hours, and at about 4am, Maggie sat up with the resolve of a military general whose soldiers were being outmaneuvered by the enemy, and made a determination to change strategy and go on the offensive. We were now in the business of killing moh-skee-toes, in the paraphrased words of Captain Aldo Rain. We teamed up (Maggie outside the netting, me inside) and high-fived out any mosquito hanging out on the netting, whether inside or out. Which resulted in quite a few blood stains, seeing as though they had been gorging themselves on our exotic fruit punch, and were probably too fat, dumb and happy to care to fly out of the way of their imminent death-by-giant-hand. After 15 minutes of carefully orchestrated moh-skee-toh extermination, we fort-ified our bed, and were able to fall asleep a little easier.
We arose a few hours later, victorious in our mission. We headed downstairs to make some coffee and get ready for the day. Timothy returned with a co-worker and worked on cleaning and fixing the pool (the algae grows quickly down here). Once they were finished we headed out the door. It was time for some driving down to Marigot Bay, roughly 1 hour south of us, below Castries. I was on the lookout for a music store, which was located somewhere in between Rodney Bay and Castries, but I didn't know exactly where (they're not big on Google Maps, addresses, or road names down here). I managed to spot the shopping center where it was located, and we decided we'd check it out on the way back. Maybe I could rent an instrument for the remaining week. My hands were itching to play a little bit.
As we approached Castries, the traffic picked up a bit. It even got a little feverish. I can handle Boston, Philly and NYC, but Castries-style traffic worried me. It wasn't as crowded or as congested as a major U.S. city, but it was more chaotic. There's a certain beauty in the cab-laden avenues of Manhattan. They all adhere to an unwritten law of Physics that generally keep them from smashing into each other constantly. Reaction times and deliberate movements make these cities move. Castries traffic has the same pace, but none of the flow. Their traffic circles, for instance, are free-for-alls. The driver in the circle is not always given the right of way. Everyone just kind of centrifugalizes through them and hopes for the best. I had to abandon my Jersey-bred circle etiquette. It was tough. And then we came across the proof of my theory: An accident in one of the circles. And not caused by idiot tourists! Two locals had smacked into each other at an odd angle through the circle, and were creating quite the traffic pile-up. Which in Castries, is really only about 20 cars. We were able to squeeze by the damaged car and continue on our way. It would be a while before the cops came to help clear the area.
Once through Castries, the roads opened up a bit, and did their classic wind-and-climb through the hills and valleys of the area. We weren't far from Marigot Bay, but there's no freeway driving in St. Lucia; you just need to take your time getting to wherever you are going.
We passed by a purple-pink-ish run-down looking house with the sign "Mama Sheila's", which was a restaurant that I had noticed on TripAdvisor that had gotten good reviews, if only 8 of them. It was far down the list, and didn't have the 450-review, 5.0 star rating of some other places, but the handful of reviews that it did have rang genuine. I wanted to try it out. We made not of the location, and continued on. Which wasn't for too long, as the entrance to Marigot Bay was about 100 yards away. We drove down the pot-holed road, down, down, down into the bay, after a local gave us directions and tried to sell us a branch with a leaf on it (to which we said 'no thanks').
As expected, it was beautiful. And smaller than we expected. And without a beach, really. I had a vision of a grand bay/inlet, with a large beach on one side, and giant yacht-moorings on the other. But really, it was much more quaint and hidden. Not really commercialized. Just a place for boaters to tie up and stay for a night or grab a bite to eat as they made their way slowly up (or down) the Caribbean. We walked along the dock, with increasing awe at the size and complexity of some of the boats. One group of friends was loading up on supplies, and we said hello and briefly commented on their boat. We got to the end of the dock, and decided we'd find a place to grab a drink and hang out, then go find some lunch. As we were wandering, we came across one of the men who had been loading up his boat at the dock. We said hello again, and this time he stopped and started talking to us. And he was ready to talk. We thought maybe we were in for another kidney stone story, but this fellow proved to be a bit more interesting (if what he told us was true).
His name was John, and he was from Clearwater, Florida. He and his friends had rented a boat through "The Moorings", which he explained to us as "Enterprise Rent-a-Car for boats". He had been doing it for about 11 years, and always had a good experience. If you had sailing chops, you could charter your own boat. Or, if you didn't yet have the experience, you could get boat and a crew (for a little more money, of course). All told, he said, it's not that expensive if you can split it between a group of friends. John told us about his sailing expeditions to the Caribbean, Monaco and Greece (he looooved Greece). "Best vacation I've ever taken. You have to go", he told us in a surprisingly southern accent, considering he was a Floridian (though, I guess Florida is down there and borders the deep south states. I just tend to get a different picture of people from Florida, than people from Alabama). He told us about how they came upon a small island in Greece, after having left the mainland, with not too many supplies left. They found a place to dock, and looked around for food. The only place they could find was a house up on a hill, which, they were told, might offer some food if they had any. And so they went, and met with the owners of the house, who cooked them a meal of the food that they had available (which was simply the fish that they had recently caught, the vegetables they had recently grown, and the giant kegs of wine they had been making). They ate and made friends and drank all the wine they could handle (which was about 11 pitcher's worth), and ended up only being charged $120 (for 8 people), which the locals thought was a very expensive meal.
John then proceeded to tell us about a trip to Monaco, in which he and some friends boarded jet-skis and went yacht-watching. They saw quite a grand yacht and decided to zip over to it to check it out. Only to be greeted by machine guns from the guards on board, as they approached. The guards were American, and after they questioned John and his friends, they let down their guns (but probably not all of them) and got to chatting. Turns out George Bush, Sr., was on the boat, which happened to belong to the Prince of Monaco.
John liked to tell stories. And we liked listening to them. So we obliged him once more as he began to tell us about his experience with the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He had been living in Atlanta at the time, and, through a friend of a friend, offered to host a group of field hockey referees at his house. Which meant John was free to go to the games as he pleased, since he was providing a much needed service to the participants of the Olympics. And so he decided to go to the Gold Medal game between Spain and "oh, I don't remember who they were playing. Germany maybe?". He noted that no one was really there. It's not an overly popular sport, so it didn't really get much of a draw. He started chatting up a guy that was sitting next to him, who was from Spain. Neither had really been intent on going to the game, but John did because it was free, and the Spaniard did because he "had to be there". When John asked why he "had to be there", the man nonchalantly replied, "Because I'm the King of Spain and I have to come to these things. It's a gold medal game, so I must show up".
Now, I couldn't tell if John was bullshitting any or all of the stories he told us. And it didn't really matter. He was so friendly, and really just wanted to tell us about sailing and the cool things he had experienced. I tend to think every word he told us was true.
He had to be on his way, but offered to give us a couple of beers, since they had too much alcohol on the boat already. We agreed and headed down to a the water-facing restaurant to rest our feet. We decided that drinking outside beer might be frowned upon, but really, I don't think anyone cared. In any case, we bought a couple of beers from the restaurant, as a gesture. I'm fine with drinking an extra beer. Sure enough, 10 minutes later, John came over with a couple beers and a couple cups of ice. "I'm glad you guys got those beers, all we had were these warm ones". A few more words and he was off with his friends to the next destination.
We took in the view, finished our beers, and talked about how old people just like to talk and share their stories. Whether its about kidney stones, or meeting the King of Spain, they just want to chat. We talked about how little kids do the same thing, although slightly less-refined, as they really just try one-up the other kid ("Oh yeah? WELL I have 17 transformers toys!"). And how you smooth out the bumps as you get older and find ways to smoothly segue into talking points, and relate with the people you're talking to. And how, as you get even older, the talking slowly turns into lecturing and story-telling, positively passing along your experiences that are, in some way, related to the talking points of the conversation. And then, as you get even older, you simply just talk at people, spurting out any chunk of knowledge you have about anything remotely related to the conversation (or sometimes not even related at all). The smooth spots are ragged again, and we end up sounding like the toddler, waiting for his turn to speak; to show-up the speaker and have the final word. Ok, too deep, I know. I'm done here.
We were hungry by this point, and so headed up the hill to check out Mama Sheila's, if it was open. It didn't look open. Then again, nothing looks definitively open in St. Lucia. Aside from the KFCs, and the Dominos, and the Subways, which have their fancy neon- or LED-lit signs that let people know the state of the store.
We parked, and I popped inside, seeing a completely empty restaurant, and hearing only a local radio talk show to my left. I peeked around the corner to see a guy sitting behind the bar, just hanging out. I asked if they were open, and he emphatically responded, "Oh. Yes, yes!". I said OK, and told him I'd be back in a minute. I grabbed Maggie and we headed back into the restaurant. We asked if we could sit at the bar to order food and chat with him, and he was fine with that. We introduced ourselves, and he told us that his name was Ferdi ("short for Ferdinand"). He was a pleasant guy. We didn't look at the menu, as he went on to tell us what they did and did not have available for today. What a concept: Serve only the food that you have locally available. I wonder if St. Lucia will also eventually go through a mass-processed, 24x7 availability, food serving phase, only to slowly return to the original way of things.
We both ordered the fish plates, which would come with a little of everything: rice, fried plantains, salad (which they call provisions?), cheesy potatoes, and of course, a fish steak with a vinegary salsa. It was the best meal we had yet. We were both stuffed by the end, and all of the food was flavorful, without being super-greasy, or overly spicy. Sure, the fish had bones that you had to pick out as you ate it, but who cares? If the meat around the bone is tasty, then its worth it. We chatted with Ferdi a little bit, talking about all of the typical things that tourists talk about, and he did his best to entertain us. A great meal and experience, and it cost "$55…Eastern Caribbean!" He hurriedly, worriedly spouted out "Eastern Caribbean" when he realized that we might have thought the price was US$. We probably would have paid $55US if that was the case. 2 generous, stomach-stretching meals and a beer might run that much in a place like Boston…though I'm sure overhead is a lot lower in St. Lucia than it is in the South End. And so we got out of there with full stomachs for about $24. Not bad.
We headed back to our place, but not before stopping at the music store and chatting with Nathan, an employee who quoted us $86EC for a daily guitar rental. They're not used to renting for an entire week. Typically its a guy who wants the guitar for a day to serenade his wife-to-be on the beach sands. We talked a little bit about Jazz week, and Carnival; two of the biggest music-type events on the island. And we came to the island right in between them. We missed both by about 2 weeks.
We stopped off at the supermarket to grab some ingredients for Lu, who was going to prepare some food for us the next day. We grabbed some plantains, and almost immediately were asked by a sweet older woman what we were going to do with them.
"We'll just boil them with some salt".
"And you'll peel them first, right?"
"Oh yes, yes. We're going to peel them before we do anything."
"Well then, it seems you've become St. Lucians overnight!"
We grabbed some more supplies and came across a smooth, light- and tight-skinned pear-shaped vegetable. I picked it up, and, seeing that the sweet woman hadn't wandered too far, asked her what we could do with it. It was a Christophene.
"You can boil it, and then cut it up to put in a salad. Or you can cut it very thin and sauté it, like you would an onion"
Both sounded wonderful. We grabbed on, hoping that we'd figure out what to do with it.
We dropped off the food, and decided to wander a bit to a beach on the eastern side of the island called Cas en Bas. We weren't quite sure how to get there, but it looked it was the closest beach to our villa. it didn't take long, as one of the roads down the street from us took us directly there. 5 minutes, tops. We passed by a small resort called Cotton Bay, and onto some dirt roads with some homemade signs. A quick right turn towards the beach, and we were headed to the Atlantic. We pulled up, directly in front of a little kite-surfing shack. We hopped out and saw a few people kite-surfing along this large, semi-circle of a beach. It was totally empty! No lounge chairs all the way down, no giant behemoth buildings, no massive branded American signs. Just a few cars parked on the beach, and a handful of kite-surfers. We watched them grab air for a little bit, and chatted them up after they came off the water. Jonathan was new to the sport (less than 5 months), but was totally addicted. He was born on St. Lucia, to a British mother and American father (or maybe the other way around), went to school in London, then came back here to be around his family (two brothers?). He publishes a local restaurant magazine (the kind you find in every hotel room, which reviews some of the higher-end restaurants on the island), and loves to talk about food and kite-surfing. He gave us a copy of his magazine, along with his personal recommendations. We met Beth, who is a kite-surfing instructor, and seemed pretty intense. She kite surfs pretty aggressively, and is a woman of few words. Kite-surfing seems pretty amazing. We just might have to give it a shot.
A local man tried to convince us to eat at Marjorie's, a shack-like restaurant on the beach, next to the kite instructor, which was supposedly okay, but we didn't feel like sitting down to a meal again just yet. We did notice the part of a rocket booster that must've floated to shore some years ago. There was a hand-painted sign in front of the rocket booster which said as much, and we were inclined to believe it.
We headed back out, wandering around the rest of the north tip of the island, finding some empty lots for sale, and finding some absolutely gorgeous homes with views of both the Atlantic and the Caribbean. One road took us nearly to the northern tip, but we were stopped at a gate by a security guard who wouldn't let us continue on. The resort was called Mount du Cap, and must have some spectacular views.
After some more wandering, we stopped off in a little strip mall to pick up some Chicken Roti. It wasn't as good as the Roti from Jambe de Bois, but still hit the spot.
The sun can zap your energy. After a long day in the sun, we were ready to relax.
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