St. Lucia

As we drove into St. Lucia, all we could see around us were trees. It was actually relatively odd, because we didn't feel like we were at the beach at all. In retrospect, this is because 5 ecosystems meet in St. Lucia--and one is the mangrove. Skye and Johnny, you'll remember my fascination with these from environmental science. Anyway, this was the forest part.

We drove into the small town (which resembles most small beach towns in lower AL) and checked into our backpackers only to have the owner say, "don't unpack yet, we're going to watch the sun set and have a drink." He only had to tell us once. On the way to see the sunset, we also saw vervet monkeys playing in the streets of St. Lucia. What a lovely place. We walked down to the Protea Hotel which has a deck overlooking the estuary and watched one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen in a while. Come to think of it, I haven't watched enough sunsets lately. We met some new friends, including Wolfgang, resident beach bum and weed enthusiast who proceeded to smash people from TN. When informed that there was a Tennesseean present, he said, "well, at least you're not from AL!" Double whammy, my friend. We did meet some other generally pleasant folks, as well, including Bree, a teacher from Australia who joined us on our night safari.

While cooking a lovely dinner of chicken spiced with the spices Niv bought at the Victoria Street Market, the owner of the backpackers burst in and said, "if you want to see a hippo, there's one across the street!" And sure enough, there was. Just grazing along. What a lovely place.

We embarked on our night drive at 8 and stayed out until 11 searching for animals, which we found...buffalo, hippo, and even this chameleon that our driver spotted while driving 50 kph in the dark! Good eyes!

The next morning, the girls and I loaded up for a kayaking trip on the estuary. Our guide was a former poacher who had decided to begin working for the tourism industry because it makes more money. I was glad to hear that. His major interest is birds, so we were fast friends! Now, I should remind you that the estuary isn't just your typical body of water. This is a croc- and hippo-infested body of water--two of the most dangerous animals in Africa. YES! Hardcore..it's how I roll. Sure enough, we found a large pod of hippo in the middle of the channel just sunning themselves. Of course, we kept a good distance from them for safety. You may have laughed when I said that hippos are very dangerous. In fact, they cause the most animal-related deaths in Africa every year due to their extremely territorial nature. Since those hippos were a bit in the way, and we weren't going to ask them to move, we turned around to search out some crocodiles. On the way we saw two beautiful fish eagles, which look much like bald eagles, but are bigger.

We finally found a crocodile on the bank of an island in the estuary. It was probably 6 feet long and clearly not hungry since two huge herons (one a Goliath heron--one of my faves) were hanging out there with him. We decided to go a little farther in search of another croc when the fun really began. We did, in fact find a croc--a big'un. And just as we rounded the corner, we hear Emily K say, "Um, I think we're sinking." In fact, they were! She and her rowing partner, not the brightest crayon in the pack were just rowing along when Emily noticed that they were getting further and further behind and rowing was becoming more and more difficult. When she turned around to ask her partner about it, she realized he was sitting IN the water. So our guide had to pull their kayak onto the island not 30 feet from the croc and proceed to empty the water. Luckily, we all remained unscathed. Lesson learned: kayak on cold days when crocs aren't very movement-oriented due to cold-bloodedness.

We returned to Niv in the backpackers to lay out for a while. Here are some pictures with our canine friend who decided to come with.

We then went on a walk to get a better view of the estuary. We also found this tree with odd green growths. No, they don't seem to be fruits. Any botanists amongst us?

We also found these wonderful signs which pretty much sum up St. Lucia. What a lovely place!

Next, we went for a walk along the beach which turned out to be a Broadway sing-along. That's what you get for taking me and Niv on vacation. Turns out we know all, and I mean ALL, of Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Evita, Les Mis, and several others.

Dinner was at a local restaurant which served pizza with bacon, banana, and pineapple. Niv and I couldn't resist. Turns out, as bad as it sounds, it tastes pretty good.

We finished the night with a power outage and a Zulu singing group which was wonderful. We sat and chatted with some friendly, witty Brits, and then headed to bed to prepare for the long journey in the morning through Swaziland to Mozambique.