St Kitts

Here is the map of where we started and how we crossed the Atlantic.  Everyday on the cabin tv's you could look at this and see your progress, like on a plane! 

We are already on Barbados and this is our last night on the Azura.  This is when my blog gets a bit confusing even to me.  But I would like to go in order of the places we visited, so this would be St Kitts.

I was a bit concerned about visiting this island because last year it got a lot of bad press due to violence against some tourists.  Many cruise ships chose not to go there and made other arrangements in their itinerary.  However, this is a darling little island, with so much character that Alan and I have fallen in love with it.  This island is undeveloped and so far, not ruined by tourism. But it is just around the corner. 

We got a taxi to take us around the island with a few other people. 

It was the best island tour we have had!  We saw rain forest, monkeys, volcanic rocks, an old sugar plantation that is now Carabelle Batik. They also sold and demonstrated batik there.  Fabulous! 

I had to take a picture of this one because it is signed by a "Patrice":

This idyllic day was not meant to last though.  After so many days of complete togetherness, Alan and I got a  bit impatient with each other.  Mainly because it started raining cats and dogs and we got stuck on the ship instead of getting to the bar with free internet.  Of course this was all Alan’s fault.  And he took exception to this.  Ok, did he not read the marriage contract?  Of course it was his fault, isn’t everything?  Anyway, we managed to swim to the bar and he went shopping while I stayed at the bar and got more caught up on Facebook and this blog.  We met some cruise staff and other fellow passengers and ended up having a great time. 

About this time, we also decided to give up on formal dining altogether.  It is a real waste of time – 2 hours spent dining with people who are not your friends and not interested in you anyway.  Actually I think we gave this up after how free it felt to go to the Trattoria the day before and enjoy Bollywood dancing. But then, my days are so confused now……

Murphy’s Law came in to effect with a vengeance though.  On the first night of freedom, Alan and I innocently arrived at the buffet after 7pm and learned that it was a seafood buffet. Alan does not like fish at all, and there were no alternatives.  And the pizzeria closes at 7.  Hence, he had 3 different kinds of potatoes for dinner, while I really enjoyed my selection.  The next night was another Indian buffet.  After reacting to airborne cumin at the week before’s Indian buffet, I didn’t even want to be in the same room. So he enjoyed his Indian dinner and I sat poolside with a delicious pizza!  Last night, the third night, was country/western buffet, lots of barbeque and spicy fried chicken and loads of things that might have cumin, so I went a bit hungry again.   Our last night onboard is tonight and it is a carvery.  I think this will be a good last dinner….fingers crossed anyway!

St Kitts is shaped sort of like a guitar. At this smaller part of the "guitar" you can see the Atlantic on one side and the Caribbean on the other.

I am going to finish this now and start a new entry so that next time we visit, I can see the individual islands as titles.  I didn’t do this last year and St Lucia and St Vincent are actually in the blog chapter listed as Trinidad!

I have also run out of proverbs.  I saw a cool book of island proverbs today, but felt it did not warrant the space in my overfilled suitcase.  Sorry!