Honeymoon

This is going to be a long post folks so prepare yourself. As most of you know Jeff and I honeymooned in St. Lucia at one of the Sandals Resorts (Halcyon to be exact). It is the smaller of the three Sandals St. Lucia resorts but it was quiet and relaxing. We arrived at the airport just as our plane was boarding (yep, that's when we got there) and tucked in for a 4 hour flight. We deboarded (correct word?) and then waited in line in customs for over an hour. Then we were scooted off to the Sandals waiting room and then shuttled to the resort which was over an hour away. By this point we were starving as our last meal was at breakfast and it was after 4pm. Once at the resort we had a little welcome session and then we were taken to our room. Big disappointment. I booked our reservation over a year ago for a beachfront walkout room which means a ocean view and you walk out to the sand. This was our view; a bush.

If I stood up I could see the ocean. So, we decided to get something to eat because it was already 5pm, the main restaurants weren't opening until 6:30 and we needed food.

The meal, burgers and fries, was cafeteria quality at best and our waitress was very ill tempered. Not a good start to the honeymoon. We talked to the concierge folks and they said they would have a different room available if we wanted the next day. This seemed promising so the rest of the day we explored the resort and hung out at the bar for drinks and to unwind.

The next day we got up for breakfast and then attended a tour of the resort (even though we already did our own), took some pictures and then planned our day.

First was a kayak ride with a stop at the island we saw the night before. Then we were going to relax at one of the pools and then get ready for dinner at the La Toc resort (they shuttle you to the other two resorts on a two hour schedule for dining and fun at no extra cost). We also scheduled two excursions for Tuesday and Wednesday of a land and sea tour and deep sea fishing. This was our new room view and porch. Much better!

The water sports attendants said we were not allowed to get off on the island, even though we saw many people doing just that at random times during the week, so we paddled around and took pictures instead.

Dinner did not go as planned. Our resort was having a BBQ party with a calypso band and an open pit BBQ. It turns out La Toc was having a beach party and all the restaurants (except 2) were closed.

We were not dressed for a beach party so we ate at the Italian place. Not the reason we came there but it would have to do. The anti pasta was fantastic but my meal was pretty yuck but Jeff's salmon was great. The next day we had breakfast and then headed to the lobby to begin our land and sea tour with the Joe Knows tour crew. The shuttle took us to a dock to load up on a boat with J.R., big Al and big Willy.

We stopped across the harbor to pick up some more folks from the La Toc resort. We had to fuel up at Merigo Bay where we saw this gorgeous yacht.

I wish we could have had a little more time to explore Merigo Bay because they had some really nice shops. We traveled on to see the sights which included a view of Oprah's home. I did not take a picture (not sure why) but it was very high on the mountain/hill and very large--like 4 houses that created a compound. Next we saw the majestic Pitons.

They really are a spectacular sight and our pictures don't do them justice. We did some picture taking and then it was on to snorkeling. This was my first time snorkeling and my breathing was really rapid the first few minutes but I calmed down and started to enjoy all the beautiful sights of fish and coral. After about 30 minutes I started to feel sick from rocking with the waves and breathing in the diesel fumes. The snorkeling session was under an hour so we got back in the boat and prepared to dock and start the land portion of the tour. There were about 6 young boys (aged 10 to 16 or so) cliff diving near the dock. It was crazy how high up they were. They then asked for money. We didn't give them any but we felt bad about it later but we could have gone broke just giving out money because we felt bad for the locals. Poverty over there is nothing like poverty in the U.S. Our next stop was the volcano and mud pits.

The smell was horrendous, like rotting eggs and feces. It was an interesting place but I was already feeling ill and the smell did not help. Then we walked down to the mud pits where they expected us to get in the mud and rub it all over ourselves (it supposedly has healing qualities). Jeff and I were the only ones that didn't do this. Looking back I wish we had because when are we ever going to have another opportunity to do something like that? However, at the time I just couldn't stomach it. Everyone washed off in a natural hot spring, very hot, except their faces which they would wash off in the waterfall; our next stop.

The waterfall was beautiful but we couldn't wear our water shoes and there were so many sharp rocks on the bottom. And it was freezing! We dried off and went to have lunch at a creole restaurant. The food was delicious.

Jeff didn't eat any because he was worried about getting sick but I cleaned my plate. After lunch we drove around and then headed back to the boat. We saw a bat cave (with thousands of bats!)

and then this spot which looks like a key and 

this spot that big Al said was in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I'll have to look into that.

The tour was supposed the be over at 3pm but we didn't get back until after 5pm. We had time to get cleaned up for dinner. We ate at the Pier Restaurant on our resort. We had seafood and dessert and it was a yummy meal. A couple on the Joe Knows tour suggested I try a motion sickness patch for the deep sea fishing excursion the next day. They were going with us so I grabbed one and put it on that night (you can keep it on for up to 3 days). We had to be in the lobby at 7:30am to ride over to the dock to get on our boat.

About 10 minutes into the ride I started feeling sick again. The same couple with the patches also had pills so I took one of those. The trip was awful, like 4 hours on a roller coaster ride and I never did feel better. We caught 2 barracuda which apparently is a crumy fishing day. I think I was the only one relieved to be going back to land. We all met for lunch at the cafeteria place and then Jeff and I crashed for like 5 hours. We got up and went off to dinner at our resort's Italian place. Again, the anti pasta was fantastic and my meal was really good this time. The next day (our last full day in St.Lucia) we relaxed on our porch and then headed off to lunch at the Grande resort. We walked around and took pictures and Jeff could not get over this gigantic boat.

We had pizza and then headed back to Halcyon. We walked on the beach and then hopped on a Hobie cat which was really fun and relaxing.

Then we swam in the beach and dug in the surf for shells because there were none on the shore.

I tried to take a bunch of sunset pictures that night before our candlelight dinner.

We chose the gazebo just off our room.

It was very nice and we had our own waiter for our 5 course meal. Everything was delicious.

I don't know if you can tell but the name on our menu says Altmeger. I booked our stay so my name was the main name on the account but then they misspelled it on top of that. We've been laughing about that for a while.Our pictures from that night were horrible so we didn't buy any from the photographer. The next morning I walked around and just took pictures of the whole resort before breakfast.

Lizards were everywhere and I got a few good shots in.

You probably can't tell but the black smudge to the right of the yellow flowers is a hummingbird. They were huge in St. Lucia. A nice visitor took pictures of us outside our room.

The ride to the airport was uneventful except I got a few pictures. This SUV slid down the hill and stayed there all week (I remembered seeing it on our ride to the resort from the airport) and it's probably still there.

It's very hilly and steep everywhere and people drive like maniacs. Many of the roads had portions that were caving in or falling off a cliff.

Several places also had cattle barriers in their driveways to keep the cows out. This one was outside the airport.

Bananas are abundant there and they are wrapped in blue bags on the trees to speed up the ripening process. Oh, I forgot. The bugs are supposed to be pretty bad in St. Lucia and we did bring repellent but never used it. This was what my legs looked like when we left.

This is what they looked like when we got to the U.S.

Yuck! They're better now for the most part but I only wore pants for several days after we got home. Sandi and Remy were super happy to see us and relaxed on the bed while I unpacked the next day.

Can you see Sandi's little face behind the pillow? This was waiting for us in the fridge.

It was a wonderful trip, very expensive but a great experience. Jeff and I still love each other (several people asked that specifically so I want to clear it up) and I hope we can go on more trips in the future.