Thursday, May 26, 2011 5:35pm, just off the coast of St. Lucia

Today, we were in the tropical paradise of St. Lucia. It was beautiful. We are just now pulling out of port and sailing away. It is a very mountainous place, just sticking up in the middle of the ocean like so many islands. It is much more mountainous than Barbados was.

We went to the beach, to a place called Smuggler’s Cove Resort. We had 6 swimming pools and a beautiful volcanic sand beach to choose from and play in for about 4 hours. I could have stayed a month.

The beach was about 30 minutes by bus from the pier, and we had a pretty good group on our tour, except for one lady who reminded me, distressingly, of Helga.

We rode there while our bus driver/tour guide told us some history of the island and some folklore as well. He showed us some cool sights and asked us to tell our friends about the island so that they would come and stay. I will. It was gorgeous.

I’m pretty sunburned on my chest, so lathering on sunscreen was definitely the order of the day. I bet I used half the bottle! I didn’t get any more sunburned than I already was, so far as I can tell. I did feel better after I was in the water for a bit. Unfortunately I noticed my nose is already peeling, which makes me feel yucky. Oh well, people will just have to get over it!

Because the beach was volcanic, the sand was that wonderful dark brown/black color. It reminded me of San Francisco’s beach where my son and I went about 7 years ago. It wasn’t as dark as the sand on Elizabeth beach in Kauai, which is just black, but it was still way cool.

We hung out, swam in the ocean, and relaxed in our beach chairs while reading our books. It was very nice. This is what I will miss most when we get home – the fact that we have no beach and have to travel so far to find one. I hate living in the midwest.

We had hamburgers and fries cooked on a grill on the beach. When the time came to pack up and leave, we went to the restrooms where I encountered a lady who was deaf, while I was trying to ask about where the showers were. (They were by the pool.). She was very nice and understood what I was asking after I did my best hand gestures. I don’t know sign language, although my grandmother taught me the letters when I was a little kid and I still remember them. She worked in a shirt factory in Philly during WW2 and they made everyone learn basic sign language because there were some deaf girls working there, too.

On the way back from the tour, I chose the unsunny side of the bus. It was pretty hot, but bearable. What was almost unbearable was the rude female behind me. The driver was telling us more about their country, singing songs and teaching us a bit of Creole. It sounded a lot like French, which was cool since I still remember some of that from high school. (Look for another blog on that soon.). The female (can’t call her a lady, since she wasn’t) would not shut up complaining about the driver talking. She kept muttering under her breath and then got evem louder. Here we were, on a tour of another country. I LIKE learning about another culture. That’s one of the main reasons I travel. I love talking to locals to find out what they do, how it feels to live on the island, what their customs are like, etc. She apparently did not find the need for this, and it was frankly all I could do not to tell her to kindly shut up. But, I held my tongue and tipped the driver when we exited the bus. He was a great driver and tour guide. I hate that she might have made him feel bad in any way at all. I really wanted to tell her that if she didn’t want to learn about another culture, perhaps she should have stayed in whatever backwoods place from which she hailed.

Anyway, it was all-in-all a great day in St. Lucia. I will definitely visit again, soon I hope. As the mountains and lights fade in the background, and the sun sets in front of us, we head for the next stop on my magical birthday adventure.