Category Archives: St Kitts 2013

Our plan for the last day was to stay on property and thoroughly enjoy the place we have called home for the past two weeks. The weather was perfect this week with temperatures and humidity in the comfortable range, and breezy winds.  It was even cool enough for the beach more than one day.

Carol and I decided to get a massage on the beach which was great.  They use pure aloe on your skin and the surf sounds are real, not just a tape.  Very relaxing!

We went to the BBQ on the beach again.  This time Jim brought the camera so we could have pictures of this fun event.

We also had to make one last stop at the Casino, Carol is the big winner.

Today is departure day.  Carol was up early taking sunrise pictures

and our morning plan is just packing and late brunch, then to the airport around noon.  We will have to go through customs and security here in St. Kitts which shouldn’t take too long and then just wait for the plane to Miami.  In Miami we have a several hour layover that will help to get through customs  back into the US.

We have had a fabulous two weeks in St. Kitts.  We’ve done things we did before, and some things for the first time and the company of our friends Joe and Louise and Jim’s sister Carol made each moment memorable.  The pleasures of this life are so much better when you share them with people you love.

It was another early start because we were being picked up at 8:30 to go zip lining, an experience Carol had never had.

Waiting for driver

I have to say, I was impressed with her calm demeanor, not one I experienced prior to my first time.  As has been our experience, we had a very pleasant driver who made interesting conversation and was willing to answer all our questions about island life and himself.

Once we arrived, the sign in process is easy.  First you pay, then you sign all kinds of waivers that say if you die or become paralyzed you can’t sue or get any help to pay the medical bills.  Then they weigh you to make sure the cables can handle your weight.  Our lead guide, McGyver, told us the weight requirements are over 60 pounds and under 300 pounds.  We all fell within those limits, although Carol and I just barely made the minimum.

Then they take you to suit up.

There we met our other guide, Leroy.  When Carol started singing,” Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown”, he told us he was the good Leroy Brown.  Then they put us on what they call the Monkey Trainer.  This is the practice run where you learn what to do and get your first taste of flying through the air.

There were three workmen, two of which getting suited up with harnesses too.  After two weeks, I was able to understand some of the dialect that was going on between them and it seemed one absolutely refused to go and the others were calling him various names appropriate for scared to death!  Anyway, the group consisted of we three and our two workmen whose job it was to measure the platforms so they could replace them each year.

After our practice run, we got into a truck, the ladies in the cab and the guys in the bed, and headed up to the highest and longest of the zip runs deep into the rain forest.  The line is called De Boss because it is 1,350′  long.  It’s also the best one to take video and pictures because you spend a longer period of time on it.

The other lines are Mango Tango (1,000 feet) because it starts by a big mango tree, Brimestone Blast (900 feet) because it’s the fastest and has a view of the Brimestone Fort, and River Rocket (500 feet) which puts you side by side with a partner to race to the end.  It is so much fun, we hated for it to be over.

In the evening we went to Kathy’s for some local island food on the beach while we watched the Caribbean Sea and stars.  The food was really good, but was more spicy than any of us are accustomed to.  We just walked home from there hoping to work off some of the good food we have been eating.

Since it was still early, we decided to back to the Casino determined not to lose our winnings from last night.  Before long, Carol was at my side flashing another cash out ticket worth $45.00 which is in addition to her $30 something from last night.  Time to leave!

When we were in St. Kitts in 2011, we found a great restaurant called Serendipity but they were closed the entire month of September.  September is considered off-season and many 5 star restaurants close during that month for rest, renovation, and re-tooling.

On one of our island trips, we noticed Serendipity was opening so we made our reservation for the second day they were opened.  Unlike so many of the other restaurants we like to go to, this is not on the water but high up on the mountain  which offers the cool breezes and a view of the lights of Basseterre at night.

It’s an older building with most of its seating on an outdoor covered porch.  Wednesday night was particularly breezy and they had their wind curtains down to minimize its effect which made it very comfortable.

The food was every bit as good as the Pavillion Restaurant with different ambience.  Again we got a complementary appetizer from the chef which was a tiny portion of a lobster stew type dish that was seasoned to perfection.  I could have eaten this dish for a main course and been extremely happy.

For our main course, I had scallops, shrimps and crawfish Jacqueline, a recipe they model after a dish served at a famous restaurant in France.

Jim had grouper and christophene in sauce he thought tasted so good he cleaned the dish completely.

Carol had grilled shrimp with rice that was done to perfection.

With food this good, dessert has to be an option!  Carol had their version of key lime pie with a chocolate crust, I had blueberry chocolate mousse, and Jim’s choice was a blackberry-apple crisp with custard sauce that our waitress called “the bomb”.

After we got back to the resort we went into the Casino and Carol and I won $30.00 each.  If you are not a hardcore gambler, when you win, you quit!

Back in the States, several big things happened today; the government shut down and Obamacare started with a thud!  Here on the island, life went on and we didn’t let the news from home stop our fun.

By 8:30 a.m, we were in Anthony’s van on our way to a pick up site to the Rain Forest.  Costilla, one of the few female taxi drivers on the island, met us at a prearranged site with her equally new, clean van and took us to pick up our guide, Belta, for the 2 1/2 walk in the forest.  Costilla has 6 children, four grown and two teens, and has lived on the island all her life.  She has very little accent and is very easy to understand so we asked her lots of questions about the people including about the dreadlocks.  It seems the dreadlocks started as an alternate religion, Rastafari movement, and has progress to more of a style thing, which has upset the true believers.

Belta lives in the village close to the entrance of the Rain Forest and once worked in the sugar industry.  Now he supports his family by making art from coconut shells and giving tours.  We originally questioned his expertise, because we spent several minutes talking about some tobacco plants only to see a sign as we moved on that identified them as cotton plants.  But once we got into the forest, he seemed to be more comfortable. We stopped to see and experience various fruit producing trees like sour orange, guava, wild mango, and avocado.

MG & Carol in Rain forestI wonder what is in this nut?

He also showed us an almond tree and broke open the nut so we could taste them.  The flavor was milder and the nut softer than the almonds we get in the States.  With a single hit with a rock, Belta broke open the nuts so I found my own nut to crack open.  By the time I finished there was nothing left of my nut but almond paste!  Good thing I am not planning to live off the land in the Rain Forest anytime soon.

When we were here in 2008 we hiked through this forest with our friends Faye and Lanny and took a picture at the base of a tree that had long flowing roots.  Belta took us to the same tree and this time we took the picture with Carol.

We walked up the hill to where the government has the water collection sites fenced off because all the water for the island comes out of the Rain Forest and they want to keep it clean and pure.  This meant we had to cross over several shallow streams with slippery stones with Belta’s help pointing to the proper stone to step on. On one of these trips across, I was doing fine, as illustrated by the photo below,

Take note of water bottle in back of MG’s jeans

and then suddenly I was in the water and soaking wet!  Lucky for Jim, his first instinct was not to take another picture but to rush to help me.  I was wearing jeans shorts that managed to hold the water for the rest of day.  Yuck!

At the end of the walk in the forest, Castilla met us at the starting point with a cooler that had cold water, juice, and some native foods to snack on.  We tasted golden apple, and banana bread made by Anthony.  The golden apple was not like any apple we have in the States and had a very prickly pit in the center.  The bread had a different taste as well.  Anthony told us later that he grinds cashews to a powder and adds it to the batter.  He also made us sugar cakes, a candy treat that we did not taste yet.

Some flowers we saw as we were having our snack.

We asked Costilla to take us to Basseterre to have lunch and do some shopping.  We ate at a restaurant called Ballyhoo on the circle across from the clock and had lobster sandwiches which interestingly cost the same as a fish sandwich.  Why not!

We had time to walk around Port Zante and have ice cream before heading back to the hotel.   We only had an hour before we had to get ready for dinner so Jim and Carol went to the pool and I stayed on our back porch and rested. I was really happy to get those wet jeans off.

Anthony picked us up at 5:20 pm so we could see some of the sights on the way to the Pavillion Restaurant.  We stopped to take these pictures.

Do you see the rain in the background?  Some of those rain clouds hit the resort before we left and had us trapped for about 10 minutes.  That was the only rain that impacted our plans since our stay began on September 21st.  We arrived at the restaurant early enough to take lots of pictures of this beautiful place.  When we were here last week, we arrived too late to see all this.

They have a special menu and price on Wednesday nights so most people wait for that to go to the Pavillion Restaurant.  We decided since we did that last week, we wanted to go this week and sample their full menu.  As a result, we were the only people there and had the restaurant to ourselves.  Talk about good service!  For my foodie friends, I had a coconut crusted pork tenderloin with apple chutney, sweet potato pancake, and cucumber-tomato salad.  All of which was outstanding.  Carol and Jim had mahi-mahi with pumpkin croquet and christophene vegetables.  They also thought the food was perfect.  The chef’s complimentary appetizer was lobster sausage brochetta and complimentary dessert was a chocolate cookie.

When we got back to the hotel, we stopped into the casino for a while and I won 11 cents.  as you can tell, we are really big gamblers.  By the time we got back to the room, we were done.  Thank goodness tomorrow is a stay-on-property-except-for-dinner day.  We need the rest because Thursday we plan to go on the Zip Line.

We were up and out yesterday morning by 8 a.m. so there was no time to write about Monday before we left.  It was not a problem because it was a day to stay on property and make arrangements for the rest of the week.  You know the drill by now; leisurely breakfast, water aerobics at 11, lunch outside at the Bohemia, then reading and laying around until it’s time to dress for dinner.  Life here is so taxing.

Actually Jim and Carol went to the beach and Carol said she saw a sting ray swim by her in the ocean.

We enjoyed the special event at the Blu restaurant so much last week, we went back again.  This time, Jim brought the camera and took this picture of the Caribbean Lobster.

 Steel  Drums provided music at the Blu restaurant

The salad bar still had the banana croutons and the dessert bar was actually better than last week because it concentrated on chocolate!

Today was change over day at the Marriott.  Our friends from New York were leaving and Jim’s sister Carol was arriving and we were still living the dream.

We had a plan to make the transition smooth for everyone and from our perspective it worked well.  While we were at the airport swopping guests, the villa was being cleaned to start our second week.

We waited until 10 a.m. to have breakfast at the Calypso Café which was a buffet with a pancake and waffle station and omelette station besides all the breads, fruit, and breakfast meats and potatoes.  This gave Louise and Joe a good food base for the long trip home.  They did not expect to be home before midnight not counting any unforeseen delays along the way.

We left for the airport at 12:30 and had to wave goodbye as they joined the lines into customs  and security.

Then we went to the arrivals portion of the Basseterre Airport to wait for Carol.  The plane she was arriving on would be the plane that carried our friends back to Miami.  The air conditioning made it a comfortable wait so we sat down for the one hour wait.  I noticed a rack filled with booklets of some kind and took one to read.  Then I noticed they were dated 1998!  I guess people don’t spend much time reading in the airport.

The plane landed and we saw Carol walking to go through customs.  After customs came baggage claim and then finally we could officially greet our sister. Carol had spent the last week in Florida visiting with Lyle, and only had one day of sunshine the whole week.  She was glad to see the sun shining here until she realized how hot it was going to be.

We had a great time getting caught up on family and friends and went to La Belle Vie for dinner.  Louise, you didn’t miss anything that great!

Today was the last day our friends Joe and Louise would be in St. Kitts with us.

They leave around noon tomorrow and we pick up Jim’s sister Carol at the airport to share the next week with us.  We decided a good way to spend the day was to stay on property and just take in the sun, pool, and island culture.

Cross word puzzle was the activity for the day, take notice they used the computer to get answers

At night, the Royal Grille a property steakhouse, hosted a special event  set up on the beach.  A path of torches led the way to a section of beach lit with electric lighting, tables and chairs set up in the sand with table linens and restaurant   flatware and flowers.  There was island music playing in the background and two bonfires give it the final touch of atmosphere.  Dinner was served buffet style with a scrupulous salad bar and dessert bar.  Dinner consisted of coconut rice with peas, corn, baked potatoes, BBQ ribs, jerk chicken, mahi mahi, and a roasted suckling pig!   Not a bad way to end the week.

Early in the morning we met our favorite taxi driver, Dennis, and headed to the St. Kitts/Nevus ferry to explore the sister island.MaryGrace, Louise and Joe walking toward ferry to Nevis (what good looking legs) Continue reading →

Our big plan for Wednesday, was to spend the day on property and then go to our favorite restaurant that we found in 2008 called the Beach House.  Our first reaction when we walked into the area was “awe” when we saw the white linen draped posts,  multiple burning torches to provide the soft lighting, and heard the soothing flow of the surf on the beach.  Here’s the picture we took then.

You can imagine our disappointment when we heard the Beach House was no more.  Then we called and realized they had changed location and name but was still in business.  The Pavillion was our destination for dinner tonight.  Like The Beach House, The Pavillion is located on the Caribbean side of the island in an area that is not overdeveloped.  It was almost dark as we pulled up to the restaurant so it was hard to see much of the property.  What we did see, was very tropical.  Then we were greeted at the door and welcomed to the restaurant like we were famous or important.  As we entered the dining area, our eyes were immediately drawn to the magnificent stone columns with soft lighting forming lines down the center and elegant surroundings.

We were led to our table which gave us a view of the Sea as darkness fell and a luxurious looking swimming pool lite only in the water and reflecting stately palm trees around it.  There was a gentlemen play wonderful music on the steel drums and we felt confident the evening was going to be as magical as it would have been at The Beach House.

For my foodie friends, we had a special appetizer of small scallops in sweet and sour chicken sauce, Lobster pho soup with rice noodles, and steak with lobster croquet and garlic mashed potatoes and vegetables.  The steak was one of the most tender I have ever eaten and everything was wonderful.  Even the china was unique and elegant.  I took a picture of the coffee cup that was delivered with a small piece of carrot cake to show you its style.

After we got back in the car, our driver told us this is just a facility used for million dollar homes in the area during the day (a private club) and they open in the evening to the public.  The other location is now used for private parties only.  On the way back our driver also pointed out the mansion and lands Robert Redford owns and is developing for his friends and wealthy buyers.  It’s called Sundance Ridge  (how appropriate)!