Tag Archives: beach

Summer in May

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It’s summer in May – global climate change, anyone? Seemingly overnight, the temperature here on the rain coast has gone from 9 degrees to 25, and the cloudless skies continue … We decided to hop on the aquabus and head over to Habitat Island for an afternoon exploration of the area around the Olympic Village.

Approaching the area along the south seawall, you can see the highrises of Main Street and Telus Science World in the distance. Habitat Island is the small peninsula directly in front of them.

The bushes and undergrowth along the shoreline here are home to more than one resident; along with a colony of crows whose rookery occupies the higher trees, folks sleep rough here.

The rotting remains of a public art project are still here; this was once a card- and particle-board replica of a caterpillar digger.

From the City of Vancouver website, here is a blurb about this area: “Habitat Island is an urban sanctuary along Southeast False Creek. Deep layers of soil have been added to the area to provide nourishment for new trees to grow. Boulders and logs commonly found along the coastlines in this region of British Columbia provide a home for plants, small animals, insects, crabs, starfish, barnacles and other creatures. Surrounded by water at high tide, the island is also a sanctuary for birds.

More than 200 native trees, as well as shrubs, flowers, and grasses that grow naturally in this region have been planted along the waterfront path and on the island. The island was created as part of the development at Southeast False Creek, site of the 2010 Winter Games Athletes Village. To build Habitat Island, shoreline and inlet, about 60,000 cubic metres of rock, cobble, gravel, sand and boulders were used. The ebb and flow of the tide on the rocky shoreline creates an ideal home for starfish, crabs, fish, shellfish and other creatures.”

The tall leave-less trees jutting up in front of the mountains provide resting places for birds, including bald eagles.

Habitat Island is interconnected with the adjoining wetlands which take in water from the storm drains in the area and rehabilitate it before it enters False Creek. This shoreline restoration has resulted in herring returning to spawn in False Creek; often you can see great blue herons fishing, too. Originally, this peninsula was to be an actual island but the powers that be were afraid that people would be stranded on it at high tide; the small causeway connecting the island with the seawall was raised to prevent that possibility.

These wetlands were also recently home to a young urban beaver; although we hoped to get a glimpse of it, the beast was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’s moved on to a larger watering hole.

Along with the mysterious beaver, another wild life visitor has captured the hearts of Vancouverites, the juvenile elephant seal currently molting on Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver. Barb and I rode our bikes over to take a look.

As you can see from this photo, the moss on the trees along the stream at Ambleside is incredible, a testament to this area’s status as temperate rain forest, not that you would know it from our current weather.

From the beach we watched as a Turkish freighter came into the port.

The elephant seal occupies a fenced off area on the west end of the beach. Looking decidedly unhappy, this day he was lying mute and stationary near the water, seemingly indifferent to all the curious spectators.

While over there, I took the opportunity to gather some drift wood for an art installation I’m preparing.

Farther down the waterfront a woman was feeding the seabirds and crows near John Lawson Park.

There are quite a few arts spaces along this stretch of water; we stopped in at the Silk Purse Gallery, formerly the home of an eccentric local who donated it to the West Van Arts Council some years ago.

See more photos here.

Cancun: El Meco and Isla Mujeres

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We are enjoying our little apartment in downtown Cancun. The neighbourhood is pleasant, with lots of small casita comidas and a gigantic Soriana grocery store. A few blocks away is the bus stop where we can catch a R-2 or R-15 down to the hotel zone beaches for 8.5 pesos each.

Today, since the morning was pleasant, we decided to visit the second set of ruins here, the El Meco, north of Puerto Juarez, where the boats to Isla Mujeres depart. Rather than taking two buses, we elected to splurge and take a taxi. After negotiating a cost of 90 pesos for the trip, we headed out through the downtown traffic, past Puerto Juarez, to the ruin site, a small area just across the road from the ocean. Just as we pulled up a truck was blasting pesticide into the place to take out any fugitive mosquitoes – blechhh.

El Meco is Cancun’s version of Tulum, the waterfront ruin site down the coast from Playa del Carmen, although it’s not nearly as large and not right on the water. “The city is … believed to have been a major commercial port for the Maya and overlooks the beach and docks from across the road at Punta Sam where nearby claims indicate that there’s the last vestiges of the ancient port hidden along the beach line.

The city’s importance to the Maya is thought to have occurred from its proximity across the coast from Isla Mujeres, its location along the coastal trading routes and the area of calm but deeper water for vessels.” Architectural evidence dating back to the early Classic period (300-600 ce) show that El Meco was a small, self-sufficient fishing village dependent upon the larger capital of Coba.

“At the center of the site is the large El Castillo Pyramid surrounded by a dozen or so smaller structures believed to be used for governmental, religious and commercial trading purposes by the Post Classical period Maya starting in the 10th or 11th century AD.

The site previous to this was believed to be home to a small native village going back to the 6th century AD. … Speculation based on artifact finds and architecture places El Meco at the heart of one of the Chichen Itza periods and further speculates that the city was amongst the then extended realms of the rulers of Chichen Itza.” (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g150807-d1108603/Cancun:Mexico:El.Meco.Ruins.html).

As has happened lots on this trip, we were the only visitors to the site, enjoying walking through the well-treed ruins and throwing bits of apple to the tiny iguanas.

We were surprised to see only very small, skittish lizards here (except the medium-sized guy below), none of whom were willing to come near enough to get the pieces of apple we placed for them.

Ty speculated that the lizards are not well-treated here and as a consequence those that survive are afraid of humans. Can they be eaten for food, I wonder? If so, this would explain why there are no big iguanas here.

After our visit we walked along the very quiet highway, saw a beachfront chapel, and flagged down a collectivo which dropped us at Puerto Juarez.

We took a look at the old dock where the first passenger ferry to travel between Cancun and Isla Mujeres runs – it’s almost deserted now that the new Ultra Mar catamaran plies the water between the newly-built Gran Puerto dock and the island.

Although we hadn’t planned to visit Isla Mujeres today, since we were there anyway, and the boat left in five minutes, we bought our tickets and hopped aboard for the twenty minute run across the incredible clear blue water.

Arriving on the other side, we walked through downtown Isla M, enjoying the bright colours of the buildings, the wares on display, the graffiti, and the laid back island vibe.

Not bad advice …

After having a dockside beer at the Bally-Hoo Inn, we walked five minutes down the road to Playa Norte, where we stationed ourselves beachside for the rest of the afternoon, swimming in the placid water.

Unlike in Cancun, where the high waves have prevented actual swimming (as opposed to frolicking in the waves), here it is possible to swim laps in the roped off area.

Unfortunately for Ty, his burned stomach meant no sun for him, just relaxation under the ol’ sombrillo. Yesterday, both of us had spent quite a bit of time in the high waves of Gaviota Azul beach and the glare from the water and sand must have been too much for the sunscreen to cope with.

See more pics here.

From Playa to Cancun: Last Stop on the World Tour

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One block away from us in Playa Ejido was a very nice small park – La Ceiba – which has colourful sculpture, a cafe with brightly painted furniture, several art studios, some for kids, and a cinema.

We had originally planned to stay in Playa for four weeks; however, by the third week, we’d had enough of the hard sell everywhere and wanted a change of scenery. I was, though, happy to meet world traveller Nikoya, a woman originally from Vancouver now staying in Playa via twenty years in Chang Mai, Thailand.

We spent a nice evening wandering the Fifth Avenue strip the night before Ty and I hit the road. And I was also happy to share my space with the two small frilled lizards that kept us company – here is the tiniest, and most skittish, one.

Our last few days were spent on the beach and the weather was grand, much better than it had been, pretty well clear and getting hotter. Just as in many of the places we’ve visited over this past year, here, too, the beach is eroding. Although people on forums that I’ve read say that beach erosion is a natural phenomenon (and, yes, it is), the kind of erosion we see here and elsewhere has two primary causes – rampant development and global climate change. The building of gigantic hotel and condo developments, and long piers jutting out into the ocean, disturbs and changes the ocean currents, taking sand from one area and depositing it somewhere else. Also, with global climate change, and the melting of glaciers, the sea level is rising. Just as we saw in Thailand, especially on Koh Samui, here, too, the rising water level means that some businesses along the beach are having to pile up sand bags (or sand whales as they’re called here) or put their sun loungers on an artificially raised platform of sand so that the sea doesn’t inundate them.

I think that the entire Mayan Riviera beach is human-made, with millions of cubic meters of sand trucked in from somewhere else (where, I wonder?) to the tune of millions of dollars. The new sand is just dumped on top of the remaining old sand, or onto rocky shores, and, in not very much time, much of it is eroded away again by the ocean. In the meantime, this sand has blanketed the reefs and killed the coral; as well, the water at the moment is a murky, turbid, milky-white (not sure whether this is temporary or the result of the sand trucked in). So, no sea life can be seen near the shore in developed areas except tiny fish.

In the middle of Playa’s main beach, in front of Fusion Restaurant, the beach has almost disappeared, revealing the original rocky shoreline.

One of the last days we were there, after a rain storm, we could smell the sewage that had obviously overflowed the storm sewers and was just gushing out from pipes into the ocean, turning the turquoise water a dull dark brown in places. Since swimming in that water wasn’t very appealing, we walked north, past the new Ultramar pier (one of the culprits for the beach degradation?), to the north beaches. Last time we were here there wasn’t much in this area but has it ever been developed since then. Many large all-inclusives and beach clubs line the wide beach along here, attracting young people and many locals. Right now this is the best beach area in town, from what I can see.

After checking out of the Casa Ejido we took the ADO bus up the highway to Cancun, our final destination on the around the World jaunt, before heading back to Vancouver the end of June, selected for ease of departure and, hopefully, sun and beach.

We’re staying for 2 days at the La Quinta Inn and Suites downtown before moving to an apartment in a local neighbourhood. La Quinta is almost brand new, has a small pool out back, and is nice enough for a brief stay. One really nice feature is a free shuttle bus which has transported us the last couple of days to one of the beaches in the Hotel Zone.

The Hotel Zone here is enormous, about 26 kilometers of peninsula jutting out into the ocean east of the city. And the hotels are also enormous; gigantic monoliths, huge mostly white condo developments, some older run-down and/or abandoned properties, line the beach and the lagoon the entire way.

These, and the biggest and “best” of American or Americanised culture, such as Hooters, Coco Bongo, Senor Frog’s and the like, and crappy little souvenirs shops with the usual junk, comprise the Cancun peninsula.

Unlike Puerto Vallarta, there is no malecon or beach walk here. The hotels have been built right on the beach, preventing access almost everywhere to what is public beach. To allow others who are not staying at these properties to access the beach, there are ten public entrances dotted the length of the zone but, unless you know where these are, they’re not easy to find. Yesterday, after spending a few hours at the Cabana Beach Club (not an optimum experience), we walked down the beach for about 45 minutes and could not find a public access point off the beach.

So, since we were tired and hungry, we decided to walk through a hotel property. Of course, since Ty doesn’t exactly blend into the background, we were accosted and about to be escorted off the premises until we told the security personnel that we wanted to see a man about a room. After being directed to the lobby we exited at full speed stage right and flagged down a bus outside.

Today the weather was wonderful and we rented two sun loungers on the beach at Gaviota Azul, having a lazy day playing in the big surf.

The large, wide beach was full of local families, with kids large and small enjoying the day. Because this area of the beach has a sand bar not too far offshore, a shallow pool of ocean water untouched by the big surf is created so it’s perfect for small children.

At the moment red and yellow flags are up so the water isn’t good for swimming; however, the high waves are a blast. Ty, floating offshore, was just about pounded by a gigantic one but managed to duck under it in time. Several people enjoyed burying one another in the sand, including this little boy who placed small handfull after handfull of sand on his reclining mother.

Below is a picture of what the beach would look like if no sand was brought in to Cancun.

Although Cancun is not at all our scene, if the weather holds, it will be a very pleasant spot to spend some time frolicing in the water before heading back to what sounds like a cold and wet spring at the moment on the west coast.

See more pics here.

 

Playa: Beaches, Ruins, and Beasts

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Playa del Carmen is a town divided: one small part, that along the seashore, is a playground for middle-class and wealthy gringos, mostly from the US and Canada but also Europeans; the rest, extending north, south, and west past the Carreterra Federal highway, is Mexican. Never the thwain shall meet.

Coming back from the beach the other day we got on the wrong bus; instead of taking us up Benito Juarez Avenue to 70th, it rolled along parallel to 5th Avenue and then cruised slowly back up past the highway, past the Hospital, and through the newish development of Los Flores, a vast subdivision of small row houses painted in tropical colours, catering to the locals who work in the tourist industry. Some rich dude must have sold his hacienda property to developers who are now erecting thousands of these small structures.

A couple of days ago we jumped aboard another bus, hopped out at the ADO station, walked the length of Fifth Avenue north and from there took a taxi to the Playa Cemetery. Cemetery visits are one of my little idiosyncracies; I enjoy walking through the grave sites and looking at the inscriptions and mementoes.

This cemetery has a lot of young men’s graves – a lot! – and also a section entirely for infants and babies. As I was photographing some of the memorials in the latter, Ty called out to me, saying “It’s time to go”.

Since we’d not been there very long, I was surprised but acquiesced. As we were walking back out, Ty told me that he’d seen a group of about ten young guys drinking around one grave, likely that of a fallen friend, one of whom pulled a pistol out of the back of his shorts. Definitely time to hit the road!

South of the Cozumel ferry terminal are many huge all-inclusive hotels and expensive condo developments. I find this area, known as Playacar, obnoxious. We had gone there to check out the Xaman Ha Mayan ruins and aviary. What remains of the ruins is very small, a few tiny stone house structures and an encircling wall accessed from the beach through the Xaman Ha condominium site that has been erected around them.

Walking past Playacar’s enormous mansions and condo developments to find the aviary was depressing. And when we did come to the small aviary to find that the entrance fee was 300 pesos ($22 American) each, we could not bring ourself to pay it. A total ripoff. In fact, almost any of the “tourist attractions” in this part of the world are ridiculously expensive and completely inauthentic. While all, except the Mummy Museum, of the many really cool museums and haciendas that we saw in Guanajuato were at the most 20 pesos, here it seems that you can’t get in the door anywhere without dropping mega bucks. [Grumble, grumble, grumble .... we interrupt this broadcast for a grumpy old lady grumble].

On the way back to Playa, walking along the Mayan ruin wall, we did see a wild capybara, a gigantic rodent not unlike a huge gerbil. This one was unafraid, munching serenely on grass, and about the size of a small dog.

After our aborted trip to the aviary, we stopped at the upscale shopping centre near the ferry for a coffee at Starbucks (there are no other coffee shops in this area) and had a bit of sushi for lunch, enjoying a break from the humid heat under a large leafy tree. [These two days were cloudy and rainy so the photos are not very good. And, although I've been wearing 50 spf sunscreen the whole time I've been away, I see that I have a tan ...]

At the Casa Ejido there are many small lizards: some are very tiny and black; others are larger, greyish, and have a head frill, looking like miniature dinosaurs. One of the latter (in the picture below) rears up and races on two legs along the edge of the pool almost daily in the morning. I love these guys!

See a few more pics here.

Playa del Carmen and Cozumel, Caribbean Coast, Mexico

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After a hot and humid time in Merida, we were delighted to get back to the beach, this time in Playa del Carmen, half way down the Mayan Riviera between Cancun and Tulum. We are staying at the B&B Casa Ejido, one of a three residence complex in the Ejido Colonia of Playa. In Mexican system of government, an ejido is an area of communal land used for agriculture, on which community members individually possess and farm a specific parcel. In some cases these ejido lots have been used for houses and hotels and are sometimes sold to foreigners, not always with happy results. Colonia Ejido is a local neighbourhood about fifteen minutes by bus and foot from the main drag and beach of Playa so it’s far away from the constant hassle of Mexican mass tourism, about which I am very glad. Most of the people staying here, and in the apart hotel across the way, are young students of local language schools, mostly glued to their smart phones and laptops who utter the occasional grunt in response to our “Buenos Dias”.

The B&B consists of one very large palapa-roofed house with six separate bedrooms rooms inside and a large communal living room, dining room, and kitchen which everyone can use, and two cabanas, separate small cabins. We were fortunate enough to get the cabana right next to the pool – huzzah!

Unfortunately, while the pool looks pretty, it is pretty dirty and not swimmable at the moment (and maybe never will be). Many of the many birds living here use it as a gigantic bird bath, swooping down from the bushes and trees above to immerse themselves. (And the number and variety of bird song here is incredible, all sorts of tweets, twits, screeches, trills, and shrieks, beginning about 5:30 in the morning).

Although it would be really nice if we could swim in the pool, even if it never comes to pass, we still are really enjoying the dim, cool interior space of our cabana – since the sun never shines directly into our room, it’s always pleasant even on the hottest day. We have access to the communal kitchen and also have a very tiny kitchenette with a one burner hotplate, a small fridge and a toaster.

We borrowed some of the B&B’s rickety bikes the first night here and rode around the area; although we headed off in completely the wrong direction, we eventually found our way down to the beach and back again as the sun was setting. We have spent our first few days here on the beach, first at a hotel with beachfront loungers, then, when that proved to be pricey,

at the Wah Wah Beach Bar. Wah Wah, the closest spot to Juarez Avenue, has free loungers and cheap beer so naturally it is our preferred watering hole. [Now, a week or so later, I can confirm that we really like Wah Wah - the service is good and friendly and they have one of the best locations on the beach].

Playa’s beach is bright white and the water is a gorgeous light green-blue, just as I remember from our last visit here in 2007. Fifth Avenue, the main tourist strip parallel to the beach, is pretty much the same, although some of the stores and restaurants have changed.

Even though it’s low season there are still quite a few tourists here, although not enough to keep all the tour touts and tequila sellers happy. Playa is high pressure sales all the time. “Mister Whiskers, Santa, Pancho Villa, Jesus Christ, John Lennon, Mr Harley” – Ty gets them all, every day – “wanna buy cigars, tequila, tours, rent a car, rent a bike … (more quietly) some smoke …?” I am more or less ignored, except when I’ve got my sarong over my head in which case I’m assailed with “Take off your cape; enjoy the sun, you’re going to die anyway” … nice.

One block off the strip, the place is dead – no tourist enters any of those stores or restaurants. And Benito Juarez, the main street leading back to our place, is where the locals shop; nary a tourist to be seen other than us – weird. 99 percent of the visitors here must never travel further into Playa than Fifth Avenue, a Disneyland of shopping, eating, and drinking that has no Mexican authenticity whatsoever – on Fifth Avenue one could be anywhere.

Yesterday we decided to visit the island of Cozumel, about an hour’s ferry ride offshore. Sunny when we left the cabana, a torrential thunderstorm hit when we were about ten minutes offshore, absolutely drenching Ty and I who were sitting on the back deck of the catamaran ferry.

We arrived at Cozumel’s enormous cement dock and had a walk about downtown, constantly importuned by touts for rental cars and timeshare presentations. Was it ever dead – Sunday on Cozumel is the only day that massive American cruise ships don’t visit (which is the reason we decided to go that day) but I didn’t think that the entire place would have rolled down the metal doors and shut down. Granted, a few restaurants and bars were open around the main square but the place was so void of people that it looked as if a bomb had gone off and vapourised the entire population.

We walked from the Plaza Mayor down along the main street, trying to find someplace – any place – to have a beer, finally stopping at the seaside bar of the Hotel Barracuda, where a big group of Mexico City federales were frolicking in the water and trying to learn how to swim.

It was a bit of a strange sight to see grown men wearing bright orange water wings.

A further bit of walking revealed not much other than a gigantic grocery store and some huge all-inclusive hotel complexes so we flagged down a cab to take us to Paradise Beach, a place we remembered fondly from 2003. Wow, has it ever changed. The last time we visited, there was no cost to enter and no cost to play on their floating plastic iceberg and trampoline.

Now, the place has a gigantic pool and poolside bar and a vast number of loungers and umbrellas set up for the hundreds of cruise ships day-trippers that descend on the place every day but Sundays. We were charged a relatively small fee to use the chairs and pool but were not told that this fee did not allow us to use the giant rubber floating “toys”, now expanded to six in number.

After swimming out to one slide and clambering on, we were informed by a staff person on a kayak that using these would cost an additional $12 US each … we declined the opportunity.

It seems that Paradise Beach is no longer a paradise; it’s been remodelled as an all-inclusive beach club aimed at American cruise ship people and was about as appealing as a trip to Disneyland (with apologies to those of you who like Disneyland, it’s absolutely not my thing). In fact, the entire island seems to have been pimped out for the cruise ships and there was none of what we remembered as a nice Mexican island vibe left – nothing, nada, nichts. Too bad.

See a few more pics here.

 

Puerto Walkin’: Camino al Mirador and Playa Manzanillo

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I had a vision of colourful flowers in the small pool here at the Swiss Oasis so, a couple of nights ago, when all the other guests were out, Ty and I set up the camera and I had some fun playing Ophelia floating amongst the flowers.

See more pics of this project here.

Puerto is still very much a fishing town, and lately the fishing seems pretty good, at least judging from the catch brought up on the Playa Principal, the main beach.

You just never know when you’ll run into a juggling clown …

or a piggie at the market.

On the weekend the beaches here at Puerto Escondido are packed out with local families, all laughing, having fun, and playing in the surf.

The kids here get introduced to the water very young; many of the families with tiny babies were in the waves with these little cuties, enjoying jumping in the big surf.

One couple had their very small child quite far out in the water on a tiny inflatable device.

At Playa Manzanillo the waves have been high for the last few days – olas altas took a number of people off guard, including one granny sitting on a walk who was completely engulfed, and the oyster lady, who suffered a gigantic wave up her shorts and jumped up laughing.

The Babylon Cafe near us has a fabulous collection of painted wooden masks – I am coveting all of them … (click on the link below to see more of them).

And we discovered a sushi restaurant on the beach … not as good as the one we go to in Vancouver, but not bad (don’t order a tequila drink, though – just juice, no juice).

Just a couple of days ago we discovered the Camino al Mirador, a walkway along the sea travelling from the Playa Principal to near the Playa Manzanillo.

It reminds me quite a bit of the Lovers Walk section of Italy’s Cinque Terre hike, with the same concrete and stone walkways along a steep rocky shore.The cacti here are absolutely enormous – like trees, and some have very soft brown fluffy attachments, flowers, I suppose.

In spots, this walkway has broken down and bits of it can be seen in the ocean; in other areas, the concrete is starting to crack and deteriorate – Ty figures that it will only last another few years before it drops into the ocean.

Along its length anonymous artists have tagged the shoreline and street philosophers have inscribed their thoughts into and onto the rock.

On today’s walk I floated some flowers on a small seaside pond,

while the female dog who joined us sat panting in the shade,

and installed 20 strands of coloured ribbon on a promontory viewpoint to watch them dance in the stiff breeze. These we left behind for passersby to enjoy.

Just another hard day at the office … Puerto Escondido is great – highly recommended!

See more pics here.

Aztec Dancing and Isla Cuale Culture, Puerto Vallarta

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Just hanging on the beach yesterday, we were treated to an Aztec Fire Dance by a troupe of five dressed in fabulous traditional regalia.

For a change of pace from the beach, we decided to visit the Isla Cuale, a small strip of island dividing the River Cuale into two channels and centro Puerto Vallarta from the south end.

The island can be accessed from the beach or by a couple of pedestrian only foot bridges. Its western end comprises a huge restaurant, pumping out “YMCA” as we passed this day, a small Pre-Columbian museum containing mostly pottery artifacts, an art-cafe,

complete with three parrots in a huge cage and lots of colourful abstract and surrealist paintings, and the usual stalls vending the same old stuff we see on the beach all the time.

Beneath an overpass, a couple of artists had their paintings set up in the shade.

Ty took advantage of the opportunity presented by this display of Jesuses to join his brothers.

We saw an iguana in a huge tree, moving slowly along the branches and sunning itself.

After my encounter with Peter the iguana at Yelapa, the first lizard I’ve ever been really close to, I’ve realised that these beasts are really awesome – very sentient.

At the eastern end of the island are several cafes and bars, some with live music, and the Cuale Cultural Center, a series of small studios for the visual arts and music, as well as a small theatre.

This morning none were open but they do offer courses at various times during the week.

For more info on the Isla Cuale, click here.

See more pics here.

Soufriere by Boat: Malgretoute, Jalousie, Anse Chastanet

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We’ve been on Bushman’s radar since we got to St Lucia; he wanted Ty and I to take his water taxi, or buy some fish, or purchase the best Bob Marley (code for weed, which neither of us took him up on), or …

But we hadn’t connected with him until today, when, as we were walking to the local beach with our snorkelling gear in tow, he appeared in front of us.

Since he gave us a good price for the trip, we decided to take his water taxi tour of the bay, cruising past Malgretoute, Jalousie, Anse Chastanet, and the bat cave near Soufriere Harbour.

After untying the boat with a little help from his friends, Bushman and we hopped abroad and headed south.

Our first stop was to pull up alongside a gigantic private yacht, the Starfire, for Bushman to see if he could sell some fish or other merchandise to the sailors aboard.

No takers for the goodies but they did contract him to come back later to take ashore their garbage. This huge yacht had another smaller motor vessel attached for use as a launch, as well as a couple of diving submersibles … mucho dinero!

From there, we motored along the cliff face at the bottom of Petit Piton over to Jalousie Plantation resort, a complex which occupies the beach between the two Pitons. South of Jalousie sits the villa of pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, just above the middle of the beach.

After checking with several motor and sailing yachts to see if Bushman could unload any merchandise (no takers this day), we zoomed back along the Marine Reserve area and across the bay to Anse Chastanet.

We arranged for BM to pick us up later and jumped out onto the hot sand, setting up our stuff under a couple of palm trees. Unlike the previous time we’d been here, there were few daytrippers – I don’t think the cruise ships come in to St Lucia on the weekend – and the beach was quite quiet.

We snorkelled along the cliffs between Anse Chastanet and Soufriere, seeing quite a few gorgeous dark purple fish, as well as a small swarm of torpedo fish. Although there’s very little live coral here, it’s nice to see that fan coral and brain coral are making a bit of a comeback. As I was swimming along, I was stung by an unseen jellyfish … bastard!

On the way back to Soufriere, we stopped at the Bat Cave, a long gash in the cliff near the harbour in which thousands of bats make their home; we could hear them all tweeting from the water. Before heading back to the ranch, we visited our favourite coffee shop, Christine’s place above the Image Tree, for a coffee and a piece of freshly home-baked chocolate cake.

Christine has just opened her place; it’s kitty-corner to the Downtown Hotel and right next to the church and main square – a perfect location – and we are delighted. Sitting on her second floor veranda sipping a coffee, chatting, and watching the action is one of Soufriere’s gentle pleasures.

See more pics here.

From Barbados to Soufriere, Saint Lucia, West Indies

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We’d arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the Coconut Grove Hotel at 3:50 am for our 6:30 flight to Saint Lucia and set our alarm for 3:20. All was ready to go as we drifted off to sleep (well, Ty drifted, I listened to him snore …) Then, merciful oblivion … when I woke with a start to a blank-faced alarm clock and, checking the watch, realised it was 3:50 and we’d almost slept through our taxi ride. After 5 minutes of throwing on clothes and dragging the bags to the van we were out the door at 4:00 and on the LIAT prop plane to Saint Lucia, where we landed some 45 minutes later.

Marcus picked us up and transported us down the very windy up and down coast road to the old capital of Saint Lucia, Soufriere, in the south west. Soufriere is French for “sulphur in the air”, a reference to the island’s “drive-in” volcano and its sulphur hot springs. Although we can’t smell them, apparently there are no snakes in this area because they hate the sulphur fumes. Set in a narrow valley backed with tall palm tree carpeted hills, this town was designated as a Unesco World Heritage site in 2004. Just south of town are the two Pitons (peaks), Petit Piton and Gros Piton, narrow, steep spikes of rock jutting skyward on the edge of the coast.

The town itself has narrow streets lined with colonial shop houses, a small central park in which the cathedral sits, and a bustling waterfront, from which water taxis ferry people back and forth to farther away beaches. Soufriere reminds me quite a bit of Levuka, the old colonial capital of Fiji, although this place is much older and busier.

We’re hanging out at the Downtown Hotel, one of a very few hotels in town, and we have a very sweet large room with a wrap-around deck on the fourth floor, offering a view of both the water and the downtown area. We’re right across the street from the cathedral and from the minibuses that travel north and south up and down the coast. Many vendors on the streets downtown sell fresh fruit and vegetables, especially bananas – there are several banana plantations here and, as a result, no wild monkeys. We can see chickens crossing the road all day long here and a few dogs trying to steal food. Bob Marley lives on here, in the dreadlocks, colours, and music of reggaeland Caribbean.

After dropping off our bags, we grabbed a coffee and pastry at the nearby bakery and headed off along the waterfront in the direction of Petit Piton. As we walked, many locals wanted to chat and, of course, sell us merchandise and taxi rides. Walking south out of town, we passed many fishermen’s houses, their boats anchored and nets hung up to dry. I’m not sure what the fishing is like here but seafood is expensive. Once at the end of town, the paved road became a dirt track and led us along the edge of the tall coastline cliffs to Matgretoute Beach.

Coming down towards the beach, we passed a ruined structure with many, many rusting wheelchairs stacked up outside; we later found out that it used to be an old folk’s home and was closed just last year. It’s going to be torn down one of these days to make way for a resort.

The beach was virtually deserted; only a couple of tourists and one local guy were about, and the restaurant/bar was closed.

We were told that it couldn’t be done, but we decided that we’d try to walk all the way along the coast to Jalousie Beach, a beautiful area that lies in between the two pitons. Scrambling over rocks large and small and trying to avoid the pounding surf, we made it perhaps half-way around the base of Petit Piton before being stopped by sheer cliffs over which we couldn’t see a way. The walk was beautiful and we could see the water taxis zooming by as they deposited more visitors on the far off beaches. After making our way back again, luckily the restaurant was open for business and we were able to down a pint and some food just as we were feeling quite bedraggled.

For you history buffs, here’s a few tidbits: Like Barbados, the first peoples here were Amerindian; Spaniards arrived first in the 15th century but didn’t bother colonising the island because it had no gold. The English first landed in 1605, and the French in 1651. The two countries fought over Saint Lucia for 150 years, the country changing hands between them 14 times; as a result the country is often referred to as the “Helen of the West Indies”, a nod to Helen of Troy’s role in igniting the Trojan War. In the 18th century Saint Lucia was a slave-holding society, slaves beings used mainly as agricultural labour in the sugar industry. Slavery was abolished finally in 1834. In 1842 English became the country’s official language, but almost all the place names here are French and the locals speak a Franco-Creole patois. Saint Lucia became an independent nation in 1979 and its population is 172,000.

As usual, Ty’s everyone’s friend here; the guys call him the Hell’s Angel or Mr Pirate.

See more pics here.

More Monkeys

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I just can’t resist these guys – they are so amusing and devilish (from a distance, of course!)

Although it may seem from these pictures that the monkeys rule the beach, they’re only on the very far end of a very long stretch of sand, near the limestone cliffs and the rocky headland (easily avoided if they’re not your bag).