A trip maybe?

I've been in St. Lucia for four months now, and I've done most of the big tourist things to do on the island, often more than once. I'm thinking it may be time to take a long weekend and head to somewhere else in the Caribbean. Book a resort (or hostel, but I don't know if they have them in this part of the world) and spend a weekend and have a "real" Caribbean holiday.

I'm trying to think of places to go... Grenada? St. Kitts? Suggestions??

Friends!

Wow, long time no blog.

I guess since March not much has really happened until last week when my friends Terry, Chris, Robi and Robert came down for a week.

It was great to see them again, but it was too bad about the weather. They came during the rainiest April in St. Lucia's recorded history. So it pretty well poured the entire time they were here, but we had a few good times anyway.

I met up with Robi and Robert in Vancouver, and from there we flew from Vancouver to Toronto. In Toronto we met up with Chris in the airport, and the three of us travelled down to St. Lucia. When we got there it was nice and sunny, and we went back to my place and hung out for the night, then walked around downtown and went and checked out the beach at night.

The next day on Monday we hiked Pigeon Island and got some great views of Rodney Bay. We then did some swimming in the bay, had dinner at a restaurant in Pigeon Island park, and were joined by Terry.

The next day it started and pretty much didn't stop till Saturday. We spent the next few days at my boss's house, making up our own version of Marco Polo to play in the pool, and heading out see the Rodney Bay nightlife during the evening. We met some fun people and got to see the Gros Islet Street Party. We even went deep sea fishing during a rain storm and caught two tuna, a mackerel and I caught a barracuda!

Finally on Saturday it cleared, which was good, because it was the day of our day long boat cruise down the west side of the island. We finally got to see the Pitons, and swam on the beach and enjoyed a day of cruising, sipping on rum punch. I'm very glad we got at least that one day, since all the guys but Terry left on Sunday.

It was great seeing them all again, and I hope I can convince them to come down again for some better weather.

Parents!

I'm in the middle (past the middle now I guess... sigh) of my parents visit and it's wonderful. My parents are extremly.... let's say "mobile" people. They aren't really into "hanging out" or "relaxing" as most people do it. Instead, they focus on getting as much out of an experience and/or opportunity as possible. I'm the same way when I travel, so it hasn't been an idealogical conflict, but boy has it been tiring!

I've been on vacation on the island with my parents for 6 days now, and I think we've hit almost all the major tourist activities that you can do here. So far we've:

1. Hiked the British fort ruins on Pigeon Island
2. Gone to the sulfur mud bathes
3. Hiked the Tet Paul nature trail
4. Snorkeled in Anse Conche
5. Traveled to the French island, Martinique
6. Sampled most of the popular local eateries
7. Ziplined in Dennery
8. Checked out fabric shops (this one was more for my mom)
9. Shopped at the craft market's in Castries

I'm not sure what's left to do!

I have a car!

So a bunch of stuff has happened.

The weird thing about working in a foreign country, as opposed to just traveling, is that most days are like the days before them. Five days out of seven I go to work, go home, make dinner and go to sleep, repeat. It's a lot like being at home, but warmer. The result is that I rarely feel the need to blog about my adventures because, well, I don't have that many!

I'm also getting sick of the bums on the main tourist drag (that I have to walk down to get to the grocery store) asking me for money. Why don't you remember that I NEVER give you anything? I've been here for a month and a half! You must have seen me before. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person on this island that looks kind of Mexican.

So anyway, about those things.

I went to Marigot Bay and Soufriere the previous couple of weekends. Both beautiful spots.

Marigot Bay is a little upscale for my tastes, but that's okay sometimes. It's almost exclusively yachters and people who can afford to stay in the upscale Marigot Bay Hotel (starts at $600 a night, but it looks nice). So very high end in all. But a nice spot, and there IS a little, weird guesthouse I got a tour of (without any prompting on my side, by the way) that has tourist and resident rates. Since I technically live here, I get the resident rate, so if you want to stay in Marigot let me know, and I'll hook you up.

Another little detail of St. Lucia life is the tourist and resident rates for many services. Every where you travel you know there's the "tourist" price and the "local" price (there's also the "Isreali" price, which they negotiate to be lower than the local price, and is annoying). But I never knew that it was actually an enshrined thing. In St. Lucia it seems to be an official thing, and they will tell you outright what the resident and tourist prices are.

Which came up the following weekend, when we went to Soufriere. Soufriere is a little town nestled in a valley just before the Pitons. The Pitons are two dormant volcanoes that are the two primary natural landmarks in St. Lucia. I went with my boss, his wife and the wife's folks. I'm getting tired of writing, so I'll just say it was great, we went snorkeling and hung out on the beach.

Oh, and the reason for the title of this post! My boss dropped off the company car, so for the first time in St. Lucia I can go where ever I want, when ever I want! I'm going to go to Mega J's. It's like Costco.

I also got a new place! More on that later...

Checklist

So from last week's list, this is what actually got done:

1. Go to the capital, Castries - Check! Drove down with my boss and his wife on Saturday.
   
2. While in Castries, get my phone unlocked so I can pop in a local SIM card and start calling and texting people again. - Check. I had to leave it there for a few days for them to unlock it. My boss had to go down to Castries yesterday, and he picked up my now unlocked phone for me.
   
3. Check out the Castrie's art and farmer's markets - Semi-check. I did SEE them, but didn't really spend any time there.
   
4. Go on an exploratory mission to Marigot Bay - Nope. Turns out getting to Marigot Bay is more challenging than I thought. But I'm going to try again this Saturday.
5. Actually spend time on the beach. - Kinda. I went down to the beach on Sunday, but it started raining. It seems like it only rains on the weekends here...
   
6. Hike Pigeon Island. - Super checked! I want to go back there, it's the nicest part of the island I've seen so far.

Here are some pictures from Pigeon Island:

Back Half of the Work Week!

As I've mentioned before, there's not much I can get up to Monday to Friday. I get up, go to work, get home around 5:30 or 6, and the sunsets at about 6:30. I don't have a car, and walking that gravel road by myself in the dark is always slightly unnerving (although I do it quite often anyway). So when I get home I eat, do some laundry/ironing, then sit on the couch for a few hours until it's bedtime. The cable has been out since the weekend and the internet is painfully slow for someone used to megabit speeds and a constant stream of entertainment and information, so my options to entertain myself are limited.

The weekday grind gets a change tomorrow, when my project manager gets in to St. Lucia. He's my semi-boss, middle aged with kids and my roommate. So that will be... interesting.

But more than anything, I look forward to the weekends in St. Lucia when I am free to really experience the island. Here are the few things I've got planned for this weekend:

1. Go to the capital, Castries
2. While in Castries, get my phone unlocked so I can pop in a local SIM card and start calling and texting people again.
3. Check out the Castrie's art and farmer's markets
4. Go on an exploratory mission to Marigot Bay (what is supposed to be one of the more scenic areas of the island) and check out the Doolittles bar, unbehalf of an interested YK buyer (I briefly looked it up. It's ranked 6 out of 7 for bars in Marigot Bay. Less than promising...)
5. Actually spend time on the beach. Something I have yet to do despite the beach being - literally - two minutes away.
6. Hike Pigeon Island. This thing:It's supposed to afford you great views of Rodney Bay. Where my path to the beach comes out is on the exact opposite end of the beach that Pigeon Island is the bookend of.
   

So for now, I guess I'm living for the weekend!

Pictures of St. Lucia

People have been asking for pictures of St. Lucia and since every is closed on Sundays and the weather wasn't good enough to go for a hike or hang out on the beach, I walked around the Rodney Bay area I live in and took a few pictures.

Looking goofy on the porch

The view of the beach from my porch

Sailboats on the beach

The mountain and beach

My apartment building

Lessons Learned...

I had a -mostly- great night tonight.

We finished up work today and I was VERY excited to be done my first week onsite. For the first time, out of all the time I have been in St. Lucia, I was able to really cut loose and do what ever I felt like, without having to consider that I have to be ready to work in the morning.

I started off the night when I got home very low key, just checking FB and my email and playing some Civ 5. After a bit at home, the project manager for the St. Lucia electric company (who lives next door from me) came over and invited me to come to his deck and hang out with himself and some other neighbours in our complex. I did so, and had a great time chatting with them for the next two and a half hours.

After that I came back to my place and asked some trusted advisors (Lindsey Allen... ahem) what I should do next. It was already 11:30 pm, but my "advisor" said I should go out and see what the St. Lucian nightlife is like. That turned out to be great advice, since at my second bar I met a great group of people who I spent the rest of the night with.

They were a group of sailors who I suppose were in the "expiditionary" side of tourism in St. Lucia. We went to a couple different bars and stayed at one well past closing. At that point, John (an English seaman) said he wasn't done partying, so we should come back to his yacht. A few of us did so, and John promptly passed out. Regardless, his wife and another able seaman (Shawn) gave me a crash course on the basics of sailing. It was very informative and very cool. Not being a sea-faring sort AT ALL, they were still very patient at explaining the ins and outs of sailing a ship. I understood and retained none of it, but good on them for trying.

Once Shawn and the Skipper's wife were sick of explaining the same thing over and over to me, we decided to call it a night.

Shawn and I walked out to the main road and eventually flagged a cab. Shawn was going in the opposite direction, but he flagged down a cab going my way and said he knew the driver. He pre-established the cost to get me home at 20EC (Which is about $7.30 CDN... which really, considering it was a 15 minute walk away, was kind of outrageous, but whatever).

When the driver got close to the landmark I gave him (There are no "real" addresses in St. Lucia. It's all based on landmarks) I asked him to let me out, but he insisted on dropping me off at my door for my own safety.

I asked him how much more it would cost to drop my off at my specific address, but he ignored the question. On the way down the road to my apartment, I again asked him how much this "extra" service would cost, and he said $20EC. When we actually got to my apartment, I gave him the $20EC and he said "Give me $10 more".

I did so (I was tired and somewhat drunk and it was 4:30AM and I really just wanted to get home).

I really wish I had written down his cab number so I would know in the future not to call him. That's the lesson learned. I think most service industry people here think that because you're likely a tourist, that they can treat you like crap and it will have no repurcussions. I want them to know early on that I am going to be here for a while.

It's a shame that this is my last experience with tonight, because the vast majority of it was overwhelming positive. I connected with my neighbours in unexpected ways, and made some random good friends for the first time since I've been here (Yay approaching random peeps in a bar!).

I guess if I want to go all Doogie-Howser style here, the life lesson is that when you're in unusual and foreign places you'll encounter some bad experiences, but if you stay open and friendly, the good will out weigh the bad.

Crap, now I've got the Doogie Howser theme music stuck in my head...

Initial Impressions

Finished my first work day. The jet lag really hit me around 11am and the rest of the day was a struggle, since it was just one long meeting. But I'm home now, and just getting settled before going out to try out "The Lime" restaurant near where I live. It's supposed to have good local food, so I'm excited! I haven't had any of the local stuff since I got here (went to Subway for lunch today :P).

Since I'm hungry and it's getting late (it's 4 hours ahead of Vancouver, so it's already 7:30pm) I'm going to jot down a few quick impressions.

1. St. Lucians like their drinks SWEET. I bought some dark beer last night and it was like drinking straight syrup. I took two sips and poured the rest down the drain. Then I tried to wash it down with a little orange juice I got out the grocery store and THAT was sickly sweet, so then I figured "screw it" and tried out the rum I had also picked up that is advertised all over the island. I think you know how that went. And today at the office I tried some coffee...
2. License plates seem to be put together with what ever paint/stencil/piece of metal you have on hand at the time.
3. Watching the local weather channel right now, and the weather guy has a puppet parrot on his hand.
4. The sun goes down here at 6:30 pretty much on the dot. It goes from "bright" to "pitch black" in about the span of 10 minutes. My apartment is at the end of some very dark gravel roads, so I stumbled home today after taking too long at the grocery store.
   
5. Most places are airconditioned inside. Hurray!
6. There's an Irish pub down the street. I don't think I've ever been in a city outside of Canada without it's own Irish pub :).
7. "Guke" is a slang term in St. Lucia, but no one will tell me what it means....
   

That's all for now, off to taste some local St. Lucia food.

Day 1 in St. Lucia

I figured I would revive this ol' thing for the next year and a bit that I'm in St. Lucia. For those who don't know, I accepted a position with a new company in November, and part of my new job means implementing my company's software for the St. Lucia electric company. The project goes from Jan 2011 to April 2012, and during that time I will be back and forth between Vancouver and St. Lucia, but mostly in St. Lucia.


St. Lucia is a tiny little Commonwealth country in the Caribbean, west of Barbados. It's a fairly poor country. Compared to other places I've been in this part of the world, I'd place it below Panama but above Nicaragua. They were also hit by a hurricane this October that did a lot of damage to the island's infrastructure.

Stepping off the plane on the island you're hit with this wave of heat and humidity. It instantly took me back to my time in Central America. Time to get used to feeling slightly sticky all the time! It's great though, the heat and humidity create this really lush jungle landscape.

After going through the fairly simple customs procedures I stepped outside and grabbed a cab to take me to my apartment on in Rodney Bay, on the north tip of the island. Due to the infrastructure damage, we had to take the longer route up the east side of the island. The east side is also the less developed side, so you really can see a lot of the natural beauty of St. Lucia.

After getting to my apartment I went down to the beach a hundred meters away and found a little beach front "restaurant". It seems like pretty much anyone with a shack and a burner can set up a restaurant here, so these tiny little operations are EVERYWHERE. You'll never go hungry in St. Lucia, that's for sure.

Now I'm getting settled in and getting ready for my first day on the project tomorrow!