Hi, everyone!
We’re continuing to dock at a different island every day! On Monday, we were in Barbados! We took a bus tour to see some of the sights beyond the port of Bridgetown! There were some rain showers at the port, but it cleared up as we drove away from the shore.
Our guide explained that the island of Barbados was formed in three parts — two volcanoes on the east and west ends, and an upthrust of sea floor in the middle. That middle part is where all the soil for farming is. Our first stop was at St. John’s parish church, on the eastern end of the island. The British colonized this island, so instead of states or counties, the island was divided up for governing into parishes of the Anglican church. The church at St. John’s parish got the very best view on the highest land in the parish!
The church has been destroyed and rebuilt a few times, but the parish dates to the 1600s! LIC and I found some very old graves in the graveyard! When we went inside, we were surprised to find chairs just our size stored in the pulpit. Do you suppose little lions ever preach the sermon at St. John’s?
Our next stop was all the way down to sea level, at Bathsheba Beach! Our guide told us that international surfing competitions are held on the far end of the beach every November. The end we visited has big boulders in the water! Our guide told us they rolled downhill into the water during an earthquake a very long time ago. They’ve been in the water so long that the surf has eroded away part of the base of each boulder!
Then we got back on the tour bus and climbed back up into the high country. We stopped at the Highlands for a drink and some time to look at the view. It was very windy!
When we got back to MS Riviera, Grandma took us up to our cabin while Grandpa stayed on the pier. Then Grandpa took a picture of us on the balcony! Can you find us? We had a cloudy sunset with another rain shower, then Butlog brought us a balloon!
When we woke up on Tuesday, we were in St. Lucia! We were docked at Castries and it was raining! We were glad we were going on a bus tour of the island and not planning on snorkeling or kayaking! When we got to our first stop in the fishing village of Anse La Raye, LIC and I didn’t even want to get out of the bus! Then the sun came out, so we took a look at the beach. St. Lucia has two famous mountain peaks, called the Pitons. The rain stopped enough that we could see them!
We made two stops in the fishing village of Soufriere! The first one was at the Diamond Botanical Garden. There was a rain shower right after we got there, but it stopped raining after we waited a little bit. Lots of the flowers looked like ones I had seen in Hawaii, so I could tell LIC what they were. When we walked back to Diamond Falls, the sun came out! The water that flows over the falls comes from a hot spring and has lots of minerals in it.
Our next stop was Morne Coubaril Historical Adventure Park. The British and French fought over St. Lucia in colonial days. The French mounted a cannon overlooking the harbor to fire at invading ships. When the British took over, they turned the cannon around! In the past, St. Lucia’s main products were coconuts and cocoa. The guide showed us how coconuts are husked by pushing them onto a spike. The pile of husks was very big! LIC and I tried coconut water from a young coconut and coconut candy from a mature coconut. They were yummy!
Cocoa beans grow in a husk, too, and they are covered with white flesh. After the cocoa beans were partially air-dried, the flesh used to be polished off by foot power! After that, they were dried some more, then roasted to get their chocolate flavor!
We had a lunch of local Creole food, then we got in the bus and drove down to the harbor. We took a catamaran cruise back to MS Riviera! It stayed sunny all the way back and we had a nice view of the Pitons again!
There was a stop for swimming, then we motored into Marigot bay to take a look. That is a very pretty harbor with some very big yachts anchored! When we got back to Castries, LIC and I were very happy to see that MS Riviera was securely moored!
We had to go up on deck to watch sunset because MS Riviera was already under way. When we got back to our cabin, we found a new message from Butlog on our balloon!
Wednesday morning, we arrived at St. Kitts and Nevis, docking at Basseterre. We were able to watch the tugboat help MS Riviera tie up at the pier from our cabin balcony. Then we could watch another cruise pier being built right in front of us!
We were all set to disembark for our tour of St. Kitts, but it was raining again! Grandma and Grandpa had to put on their raincoats and zip LIC and me up in the backpack to stay dry!
We’ve been on buses and catamarans and clear kayaks on this cruise, but on Wednesday we took a railroad trip! St. Kitts used to be a major producer of sugar cane, but sugar is no longer a product they can sell profitably. The sugar cane narrow gauge railway has been turned into a scenic railway with double deck cars! We took a bus to the train station outside of town and climbed up to seats on the open top deck!
The first part of the train route runs along the Atlantic coast of St. Kitts! We saw beaches and went over narrow bridges. In some places, the sugar cane is still growing wild, but it other places other crops and trees have been planted. A trio of singers came to each car to entertain us with hymns and local folk songs. I knew some of the hymns!
At the tip of St. Kitts, the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean sea. The waves go in all directions! Every place there used to be a sugar plantation, there is an abandoned stone windmill base and a chimney. We saw a lot of them!
At the end of the scenic railway route, we got back on the bus and drove to a harbor. We went back to Basseterre by catamaran! It was nice and sunny, but the ride was bouncy because of the wind and waves. We could see the fort on Brimstone Hill from the catamaran harbor. That’s another place the French and British fought over an island in the Caribbean!
The catamaran docked right around the corner from the entrance to Port Zante, where MS Riviera was docked. We didn’t get back in time for afternoon tea, but we were able to see sunset from our cabin balcony. Butlog left us a heart to remind us that Thursday is Valentine’s Day!
Love,
Lion-san