Deja Vous, but Different – September 29, 2013

Carol was interested in taking a tour of the island so we decided to do it again with a different driver, Anthony B.  We told him we had done the traditional tour last week so he went out of his way to make it different.  He started with the panoramic view on the hill close to the hotel. Last week we were at the same spot,  but we never get tired of the view.  Being able to see the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea on each side of the island at the same time is just fantastic.

The view of the resort from on top of the hill is not bad either!

Although we drove to many of the same places, the narrative was different so we learned more about the island from a different perspective.  Anthony is a younger man than Dennis and he seemed more willing to talk about himself.  He used to be the Bell Captain at the Marriott up until three years ago when he began his own taxi business.  His wife is a gemologists at Port Zante and they have four girls; 20, 17, 15, and 13 years old.  He said that’s why he has no hair!

Anthony told us that St. Kitts is a very religious island with strict standards of behavior.  If anyone uses obscene language, the F word in particular, they pay a $500 fine or 90 days in jail.  The jail was built a long time ago without A/C to house 75 and holds over 168.  Most Kittitians would rather die than be in jail.  There is no vandalism of historical sites like you might see in the US because children are taught consequences for their actions by parents, teachers, and even neighbors.  Kind of like I remember life in the US in the 1950s.  Our driver also told us that there is very little racism on the island because they are so multicultural.  Not only are the islands filled with descendants of the slaves brought from Africa, but the original French settlers, English, Asians (China and Taiwan) and Americans.

We opted to skip the fort this time because Carol and I outnumbered Jim.  But Anthony stopped at some public lands with guava and star fruit trees and picked some for us to taste or take back to the hotel.

Early in the tour, we passed a man selling sugar cane and stopped to buy a bag so now we had a fist full of groceries.

We stopped at the black rocks which are from the volcano and where the Atlantic tide and Caribbean tide come together in the water.

(The waves on the left are from the Caribbean and the ones on right are from Atlantic)

For the past nine days, there has been a quest to get accurate information on whether one of our favorite restaurants is opened or not.  Before we left for the tour we were told it was, so we asked Anthony to drop us off at Mr. X’s Shiggity Shack.  NOT!  So we had something to drink and some marlin sticks which were wonderful.  While we were sitting there, we had the pleasure of witnessing a spectacular sunset and then walked back to an Italian Restaurant (the one that is closed on Thurday) and had pizza before we walked back to the villa.  Not a bad day at all.