St. Kitts & Nevis

We arrived in St. Kitts and Nevis (rhymes with "Beavis". Heh-heh.) yesterday afternoon. We had to go to three places to clear in with customs, immigration, and the port authority but once we were finished we had a little while to walk around Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts. (It's a two-island nation; the island of Nevis has its own capital that we'll visit in a few days.) We had a beer on the terrace at Ballyhoo pub overlooking the Circus (main roundabout/square in town) and discovered a new favorite beer -- Skol, brewed locally here on St. Kitts. We also arranged a taxi tour for the following day to take us around the island.

This morning as we hopped in the dinghy to head into town we realized that there was a big cruise ship (the Queen Elizabeth 2) unloading passengers. It turns out our taxi driver "forgot" that he already had a cruise ship tour booked, so we were left to our own devices to find a taxi tour. It wasn't too hard, apparently every taxi driver in the country was at the main dock looking for passengers and offering cutthroat rates. We selected one and off we went.

There is one main highway that goes in a loop around the island and every tour stops at the same three sights so we couldn't quite shake the crowds. The first stop, Romney Manor, was really cool. It was part of the Wingfield Estate, which was once owned by Sam Jefferson whose claim to fame is that his great-grandson went on to become a fairly prominent politician and writer (although some might find his writing a little dry). You might know him; his name was Thomas? Anyway, although Romney manor house is no longer standing the grounds have been turned into a gorgeous tropical garden. Caribelle Batik also has a workshop there where they make batik cloth (saris, headscarves, tropical shirts). Batik is kind of like tie-dye only instead of tying the fabric they draw designs on it with wax before they dye it, and some of the work is really beautiful. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing so I ended up buying a bandana with a monkey motif.

Continuing around the loop we stopped at Brimstone Hill, an impregnable colonial era fort built on the top of a tall mountain overlooking the Caribbean Sea. At the north end of the island we also stopped at Black Rocks which are lava formations on the coast that sprout up out of the surf like stalagmites from another planet. The rest of the tour was pretty much just a drive through the countryside, which is covered in sugarcane, some of it is grown by the government but much of it just grows wild. We had the driver pull over so that we could try it, and he came back with so much that we ended up carrying it around with us all day. The locals got a kick out of it as we went around town carrying it into the internet cafe, a local fast-food place, the park. Nothing says "tourist" like a three-foot stick of sugarcane.

Where we are:
Location=St. Kitts
Lat=17 17.538
Lon=62 42.787