Ethan’s Journey

 Well we are down two more shoes. The boys were not careful last night and left their flip flops out. Paul is down a flip flop and Seth is down a sandal. They were both pissed. They were both cussing the mongrul dog that took their shoes. Brian came today. Brian is the gardener. We shared with Brian how we are down two more shoes with a total of 4 shoes missing that the dogs took. Brian took a walk and started looking for the shoes.  About a half hour later he came back with two shoes. One was the match to Seth’s sandal. The other was a lady shoe that belonged to none of us. Apparently this dog takes shoes and clothes a lot. Brian went back and looked again. He came back with A shoe of Janice’s. He also found the match to Paul’s flip flop.  Brian became an instant LEGEND! Not only did they share a beer with him, Brian got a nice bottle of expensive rum as a thank you gift. Brian then shared a few things with us about his upbringing, how long he has been working for the fa...

 Today we had our super fun boat tour. Because the sun rises and sets about every 12 hours, we are finding that we are waking up fairly early. We made it to the place we were supposed to meet our tourguide. We were a little late due to not being able to find parking. We drove all around looking for a place to park as the instructions were not overly clear. I did have to hop out at one point and ask the locals for help. They were kind and pointed us in the right direction. We got on the boat and sat next to a family originally from Hungary, but lived in Boston. We also had a couple from Denver and a family from North Carolina. We traveled along the west coast of St. Lucia to see large mountains on the coastline with smaller towns nestled in the bay areas.  We traveled to Soufriere to see the Toraille waterfall. This was a land and sea tour. We met up with our driver, Alex. As we loaded into the van he had, Heather grabbed the seat up front because she gets car sick. As she went...

 We slept in today. When we woke up it was warm. We were in the pool by 9:00 am. Today was pool day. We could see the beach had lots of seaweed wash up.  The sun was in and out offering reprieve from the glaring warm temperatures. The pool was refreshing. We did lots of applying and reapplying of sun screen.  Later in the afternoon, Janice and I went to check out the beach. Yes, it was still gross with smelly seaweed washed up. We headed down to a rocky area to look for shells, sea glass, and anything else interesting. We found lots of coral, a sea sponge that we touched (it was soft). There were very few shells. The shells we did find had stuff living in it. We also found lots of debris. It seems like a dirty island with discarded trash everywhere. We ended up going to dinner. Most places close for dinner around 6 pm. We finally figured out that lunch is their major meal. Dinner is more like lunch is for us in the USA. We are ate at a place that overlooked one of the shi...

 I woke up early this morning and was able to watch the sunrise. I made coffee and sat out by the pool alone. The sun was dancing across the sky. Some guy stopped us as we were walking. He told Paul that he watched a movie last night and he was wondering if Paul was the actor in the movie. The movie was called Drop. We figured out later that the guy thought Paul was Ed Weeks.  Today I planned a day of excursions. Our first stop was the Latille Falls and Fish Spa. To get there, we drove on crappy roads that were narrow with multiple curves every second.  The drivers here like to be risky. They pass you on hair pin turns and we hold our breath each time as they escape a head on collision by fractions of a second. You can tell they are natives because they have different license plates than foreigners do. We arrived and were greeted by a man that shared with us all of the plants he has planted. He had multiple types of mango trees, but they weren’t in season. We meandered to...

 Happy Easter! Vacation Day 2 We woke up and sat outside to have our coffee. We all were up by 7:30 am. We commented on what we thought the buildings were across the way. One by one, we got our swim suits on, put on some sun screen and went swimming in the pool.  We would get out of the pool and take a break, then go back in. We did this until about noon. We decided to go down to the beach. We didn’t have a cooler so we improvised. Paul found a bucket. We washed it out and threw in some ice and beer. Perfect! The beach is about a 5 minute walk, if that. There are palm trees so we got a spot in the shade. I read that petty theft seems to happen at the beach and to never leave your stuff alone.  Some guy named Kevin tried to sell us bracelets. Denied! Then he tried to sell us coconuts with rum in them. Denied. He finally left us alone. We stick out like a sore thumb as tourists. We spent a few hours on the beach. The water was refreshing but warm. The water was a turquoise....

 Day 1  Vacation has started. We woke up up and had coffee overlooking the pool. The pool over looks a beach, palm trees, ocean and mountains. What a rough life. After coffee, we went to the grocery store. Groceries are fairly expensive, even with the conversion. Every US dollar is equal to 2.67 Eastern Carribean Dollars. There is nothing for sale in the grocery store that is “bulk”. The beer is individually sold OR the biggest amount you can buy is a 6 pack. If you wanted a soda, you bought them one at a time, there were no 6 packs. There also was no diet soda. We bought water, 6 apples, 4 6-packs of beer, a small bottle of vodka, some water flavor packets, deli meat and deli cheese. The prices made me want to pass out an little. Our total came to almost $271 Eastern Carribean Dollars. We spent the least amount at the group. Mid day we decided to go to the Castries Market, which is like a big farmers market with trinkets and souvenirs for sale. Paul and I each got a little me...