July 29th to August 2nd Honeymoon in the Caribbean, St. Lucia!!
We finally got to honeymoon in July and it was totally worth the wait, it was relaxing and really was a vacation with my new husband! We were going to go to California and stay in Del Mar at aunt Catherine's condo for a couple of nights then stay a night at Hotel Del Coronado and a night in Los Angeles and see a Dodgers MLB game but a week and a half before our planned honeymoon Lucas surprised me!! He surprised me first by telling me that his work schedule changed, originally the honeymoon was going to be July 26th through July 31st, and I was like oh no we wont be able to stay at aunt Catherine's that week and I wasn't sure if our honeymoon was going to be fun. From there I canceled the room reservation for Hotel Del Coronado and we talked it out. The surprise I actually liked was him saying we could go to Hawaii or St. Lucia in the Caribbean. So we checked flights and it was decided we would go to St. Lucia because the flights were open. Which I owe us being able to go to the Caribbean to Sam, thank you for the buddy passes Sam!! It made our honeymoon possible!
July 28th and 29th ~ Our flight to St. Lucia
We left for the airport Saturday July 28th around 10pm for our flight to New York. From New York we would connect to St. Lucia. It was a long flight but we had the Olympics to watch on our own individual TV screens and from New York to St. Lucia we had free movies.
On the ride from Las Vegas to New York we were a row away from Flava Flav and boy was he entertaining!! Before we even took off, no kidding, he whipped Fried chicken and started eating it! After fried chicken he opened his Coca Cola, which exploded in the isle and he nudged his buddy and was like "watch this" and he drank his Coca Cola bottle and water bottle at the same time, it was quite entertaining!
Once at the JFK airport in New York Lucas and I ate delicious hot breakfast, an egg Mcmuffin but way better and fresher, and got some free Dunkin' Donuts donut holes and then were on our way to St. Lucia!! We landed in St. Lucia around 1 pm and then took a 45 minute taxi ride to Soufriere, which is a town on the west coast of St. Lucia and was were we stayed . The taxi ride involved winding roads up and down mountains and riding through small little towns. By the end of the taxi ride I have to admit I was a little car sick, mostly from the fact that the taxi driver was driving so slow on winding roads and partly because it was a rip-off ($70 American dollars, which on the taxi ride back to the airport it was only $40 American)
The town of Soufriere, St. Lucia
We finally arrived at La Haut, a bed and breakfast that used to be a Plantation, and it was beautiful! It was a quaint little bed and breakfast that had the most amazing views! We had a little kitchen in our room and a bug net over our bed (a life-saver!) and we had a balcony with an amazing view!! We also got fresh fruit in our room daily and so when we arrived we ate some of the local fruit from the comfort of our hotel room, out looking the view on our balcony. The fruit was a green fruit with black bumps all over it and it was called Sour-Sop. It was a weird fruit but tasted really good, it tasted like a nectarine but had a pineapple/coconut feeling to it because it had a white pulp that you would suck on and chew on order to get the juice. The only down side to the hotel was that we didn't have AC, we only had a little ceiling fan that wasn't even over the bed but luckily it was no where even close to as hot as Vegas! Which after being hot the first night we moved the bed so it was under the fan and got a little personal fan the third night and then we were actually cold!
The sour-sop fruit!
After
we scoped out the place we went immediately to the infinity pool that overlooked the Piton Mountains. I would have to say that the best view of the entire trip was from that pool!! It was just so relaxing to be in the pool and then it felt like paradise to be able to look up and see such an amazing view! The pool actually belonged to the owner of the resort and he just allowed guests to come use his pool 8am to 5pm. At first it was kind of weird because we were just wondering around his huge house trying to figure out how to get to the pool in the backyard but we figured out.
Oh and on the little walk down to the owners infinity pool there were donkeys, cows and a bird coup!
After a relaxing swim in an amazing pool we decided to go to the hotels restaurant to get something to eat...but man did we leave that restaurant quickly!! $18 fries...no thank you!! We just barely missed the free shuttle down the hill to the town and Cindy, the front desk lady, said it was only a 15 minute walk down the mountain so we decided to just walk into town. We soon found that Cindy doesn't have a very good sense of time because it was a 35 to 45 minute walk down the mountain, not so much a hill, into town but it was a beautiful walk so we didn't mind that much. We were just starving by the time we got into town. We got down the hill and there was a huge "Beach Bash" with 300 plus locals on the beach and loud music and good local food being sold everywhere. It felt like an outdoor club because there was a fee to get into a walled off place on the beach where there was a ton of people dancing and alcohol and fried chicken and other food was being sold outside of the "club" walls. It was really fun to watch and get some cheap fried chicken and johnnycakes from some locals that were just frying them up on a grill but man did Lucas and I feel out of place. You would think that their would be other white people there considering we passed 10 other hotels on the way down the mountain and the beach bash was only 1 minute away from the hummingbird resort but no, we were the only white people...and they were all staring at us.
The beach bash, you can't really see because it was dark but there is a tan fence and then on the other side there are lights and music and like 300 locals dancing and partying it up!
We were outside watching the beach bash from afar but then it started to rain so we went inside the Hummingbird resort to finish our Fried Chicken and Johnnycakes.
July 30th ~ Hiking the Gros Piton
We woke up bright and early and took the free shuttle from the hotel down to town at 7:30. We ate at a local restaurant that was good prices and good food (we ended up eating most of our meals there). My stomach was kind of hurting so I only got a grilled cheese sandwich and Lucas got an egg and meat sandwich. Since my stomach was hurting we were debating on whether we should still do the steep hike up the Gros Piton mountain today but we decided to still do the hike. The lady that owned the restaurant was really nice and her husband was a taxi driver, Brian. They were a really nice couple and Brian gave us the best deal we could find for driving us to the Gros Piton mountain for hiking.
For the hike there was an entrance fee of $20 each US but it included a guide that hiked with us the whole way, which at first we thought was unneeded but it was actually extremely needed! Which Lucas knows how to travel and he is really smart so it would have been a ton more expensive if we didn't ride to town and find a taxi in town and go to the hike that way. If we would have booked a "tour" through the hotel (which included the taxi ride to and from the hike, the entrance fee, lunch and the tour guide) it would have been $120 US for both of us but since we went the streets route it was only $80 for both of us (which included the taxi ride to and from the hike, the entrance fee, and the tour guide)!! I am so grateful for Lucas :) Anyway, the hike was actually really steep and hard, people told us it was steep but they never mentioned how hard it was! They even had railings on parts of the hike because of how steep it was, and the railings became our best friends near the top of the mountain where it was the steepest! It was 2 hours up and 2 hours back and it was up hill the whole way up! It was helpful to have our tour guide Damascus though, he kept us moving and told us the history behind the mountain and St. Lucia. It was crazy though because Damascus was in kacky pants, a button up shirt and didn't even break a sweat or even drink any water for that matter and Lucas and I were sweaty the whole time and drank a lot of water. But then again Damascus did mention how its his job 6 days a week and he sometimes climbs the mountain twice a day!! The Gros Pitan is only 771m high or about half a mile high but the trail up the mountain was switch backs so I would guess the hike was around 2 miles long.
The entrance to the hike.
Some Volcanic rock that formed a cave that the Plantation slaves would hide under when fled to the mountain to become a free people.
One of the look out points that the Plantation Slaves used to watch for British ships when the French aided them in gaining their Freedom from slavery. August 1st is when the Plantation Slaves became free to work when they wanted and were actually paid for their Labors. They celebrate Emancipation August 1st and its a country holiday, everything was closed until noon. St. Lucia only gained Independence from Britain 30 years ago!
Another look out point!
This is how steep the second half of the hike was!!
A video of the top of the Mountain. We Made it!!
The top!!
Lucas, me and our tour guide Damascus :)
The Gros Pinton mountain...ya we hiked that!!
After finishing the hike we were exhausted but it was well worth the view from the top and the beautiful views along the way! After finishing the hike it rained for 20 minutes and we were just happy it didn't start to rain while we were still on the hike!! Once back in town we went grocery shopping for breakfast food and we thought it would be fun to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches but man was their honey expensive!! It was 8 dollars for a little, about 10 ounce, thing of peanut butter! So we settled for muffins and vanilla wafers. We ate dinner at Brian's place again because it was good food and affordable. After dinner we decided to go back to the hotel and swim. The owners pool was closed since it was after 5 so we swam in the hotels pool, a good view still but not as good. But when Lucas was warming up to the water the hotel dog Prince came up and ran off with his flip flop!! It was hilarious but horrible!! We chased him around the hotel and finally down to the owners house where he dropped the flip flop. There were mango's randomly along the road to the owners house so I picked one up to bride the mutt but luckily we were able to get the flip flop back finally without wasting the mango. After chasing the dog we finally went swimming. In the pool we did this cool trick where I stand up on Lucas's shoulders and then he launches me and I do a front flip, it was fun but the second time I landed right on my back and got the wind knocked out of me. After all the activities of the day we had a good nights rest and slept like babies. Play
July 31st ~ The Beach and Snorkeling
We were able to sleep in a little today. I woke up and did my quiz for Medical Terminology class (I actually had to do a quiz every morning but forgot to mention it) and we ate the breakfast we bought at the grocery store then took the 10 am shuttle to the beach!! Lucas and I brought goggles and so we went snorkeling in the Caribbean and it was so pretty! I wish I could have somehow gotten pictures of the coral with the pretty bright fishes. It was kind of hard to stay in one spot and look at the fish though because there was a little bit of a current, so it was tiring but really fun.
After snorkeling we had really good Steak burgers with a plate that we piled high (because it wasn't buffet style) with potatoes, steamed vegetables, salad and rice.
After eating we went on a little hike in the rainforest that was off of the beach. It was a beautiful little trail that lead us to some old Sugar Plantation ruins. The ruins were actually really beautiful because they were made of large bricks and had all sorts of plants growing out of them.
Around 3:45 the shuttle picked us up from the beach and we headed back to the hotel for the infinity pool before taking the shuttle down to town at 6pm for Dinner at Brian's restaurant again.
August 1st ~ Volcano and Waterfall
The city of Soufriere was closed untill noon today because of celebrating Emancipation but luckily we had breakfast food from the grocery store and we found a taxi driver. On the way to the Sulfur Volcano we stopped at a look out point that had a really good view of Soufriere, it was so pretty!
At the Volcano we got a tour guide and she gave us some interesting information about the Volcano. The Sulfur Volcanoes smelled like rotten eggs and its a actually a good thing. The warning signs for if the Volcano is going to erupt is that the volcano will stop smelling like sulfur or rotten eggs and the trees around the volcano will die because of the hot lava coming to the surface of the earth. It erupted last in the 1970's and when it erupted is was like St. Helen and just got ashes everywhere. The volcano is supposed to erupt in the next 10 years and when it does erupt its supposed to be like an atomic bomb and destroy everything, good thing they have some warning signs!
These are hot springs that are heated by the volcano and boy are they hot!!
After the Volcano we went to a Boutanical garden that surrounded a waterfall. The garden had lots of tropical, colorful flowers and plants and it truly felt like a rainforest. They also had Bamboo trees and they grow 6 inches a day...yes 6 inches a day, it is because of the high concentration of sulfur in the soil because of the nearby sulfur volcano.
A little chinese water garden with huge goldfish in the pond behind Lucas.
The Bamboo that grows 6 inches a day.
The "Sexy Pink" flower.
After all of our adventures with seeing the volcano and the waterfall we headed back to La Haut for our complementary drink from the hotel at the restaurant at the hotel. The name of the drink was tamarind, and it was juices from a root that they had growing on the plantation and it was actually really good! I don't know how to explain how it tasted though. We went to town again for dinner and we were really in the mood for chicken again, considering chicken is the food they eat all the time, and so we found a Chinese restaurant in town (surprisingly) and it was really really good, way better than panda express! Which today was the last full day in paradise but it was a nice honeymoon and I felt like we were able to do all of the fun things that were available on the island.
August 2nd ~ Heading Home
It was sad to leave St. Lucia and all of the beautiful green mountains everywhere but we had a nice honeymoon but I was ready to get out of the humidity and was ready to stop getting eaten alive each night by mosquitoes while I was sleeping. It was fun though because we were able to get a picture with the airplane before we left St. Lucia because it was a small walk on airplane!!
Us at the St. Lucia airport waiting to board.
