The clouds cleared out overnight, and the sun was shining this morning. We put our west-coast road trip plan into action.
The first part of the plan was breakfast in the condo, circa 8 AM. The French whole milk did, indeed, make for some tasty scrambled eggs.
We loaded up the Suzuki for a day out in the sun, and headed north on the only road that goes anywhere, which is conveniently right behind our accommodation. We were out the door by 9 AM.
Halfway up the hill, we stopped at an overlook for a view of Soufrière from the north. There was a vendor just setting up for the day, who tried to sell us souvenirs. Instead, we bought two mangoes and a few guavas.
The first village on our west-coast tour, seen from the southern scenic viewpoint, was Canaries.
I found this... billboard? interesting. I think it was painted on tiles that were adhered to the rock wall.
Much of the West Coast Road is in rough shape, with potholes, washed-out areas, and lumpy pavement, but some of it has been resurfaced recently. Even in these freshly-paved areas, heavy rain has washed mud and rocks onto the road in a few places. It's also full of hairpin turns, blind corners, steep grades, stray dogs, chickens, etc.
This section of road, in particular, was some fun driving. (Not in Sabrina's opinion.)
It probably wasn't any worse than the drive from the airport to Soufrière, in hindsight.
The next settlement we encountered was Anse La Raye, where a muddy river flows from a gorge into the ocean. There wasn't much to see there, so we just continued on our way without stopping.
There wasn't much else to see between Anse La Raye and Castries, other than a few random cows, goats, and horses grazing on the side of the road, here and there.
As we came down the hill towards the city, we stopped at a scenic viewpoint for a break, and were somewhat surprised to see a cruise ship in port.
A brief interlude about Castries:
We managed to forget to bring beach towels on this trip, and the condo does not supply any, so we decided to stop in Castries and buy a few towels. A quick google search for "home goods" turned up Courts, so we navigated the insane streets of the capital city on a busy Saturday morning in search of this store.
Courts (in Castries) was three floors of miscellaneous home goods, ranging from kitchen appliances to furniture to lawn equipment to motorcycles, but no linens/towels. A helpful employee pointed us to "S&S, left a few blocks", which turned out to be a department store. Towels acquired.
The stores here (including the Massy grocery store, yesterday) have someone at the door checking temperatures with an infrared thermometer, and also spraying hand sanitizer on everyone's hands. (And presumably checking masks.)
Driving around Castries was absolute chaos; probably 1/3 of the traffic lights worked normally, another 1/3 were just blinking red, and the remaining 1/3 were out completely. Pedestrians walked in the street, crossed the street, without so much as a glance at traffic. Motorcycles split lanes and passed cars stuck in traffic. Roads were closed or blocked for construction, loading/unloading, or discharging passengers.
(I didn't even remember to take any pictures, it was so chaotic. I think I literally said to Sabrina, later in the day "I feel like finding and buying towels in Castries today was a significant accomplishment.")
We did briefly flirt with the idea of stopping at the Castries Central Market, but the mere thought of finding somewhere to park, and then fighting the hoard of semi-masked shoppers, was horrifying.
Instead, we took our new towels and continued north from Castries, towards Rodney Bay... and then past Rodney Bay, to the public beach by Pigeon Island, where we parked right on the beach. The road from Castries to Rodney bay is actually a 4-lane, divided highway, and moves fairly quickly.
Between the fun roads, the scenic viewpoint stops, a few spots of heavy traffic, and the adventures in Castries, it had taken us 2.5 hours to get from Soufrière up to the northern tip of the island.
We managed to find just about the only place on the island with decent weather all day; in the distance, we could see clouds and rain back where we started.
After a lengthy dip in the pristine water, we snacked on cheese, crackers, grapes, and fresh mango.
We spent a solid two hours at the beach, before I couldn't take any more sun.
Having reached the apex of our road trip and/or beach excursion, we slowly made our way southwards, stopping a few times along the way.
The first stop was just at the other end of Rodney Bay: Reduit Beach.
The beach was lovely, but also (relatively) full of tourists and pushy vendors, especially compared to the empty beach where we had just spent the afternoon.
After a quick swim to cool off again, we headed back to the car and continued our return trip. We were only there for about half an hour.
I remembered to get a photo of the road in Castries, during a calm moment.
Our next stop on the return trip was Marigot Bay. It was lovely to look down from (what I decided was) the scenic viewpoint, but it was a metaphorical ghost town when we actually got down to the water.
Everything was closed, except for one street vendor selling baubles to people going to/from the ferry dock. I think maybe there were boat trips leaving from here? It wasn't clear.
At some point, I stopped to take a picture of one of the goats on the side of the road. My brief efforts to get him to look in my direction were futile.
I think we made it back to the condo before 5 PM, which gave us plenty of time to unload, clean up, etc., before dinner. We had a 6:30 reservation at the Rabot restaurant. (It seems that perhaps the resort restaurants are exempt from the curfew?)
En route, we stopped at the gate to Ladera, to inquire about a lunch reservation for tomorrow. The guard told us that they only offer dinner for non-residents, but we were neither interested in, nor capable of, meeting their fancy dress code for dinner.
Being affiliated with the cacao plantation and/or chocolate company, the menu included many chocolate-related options, starting with the garlic-and-cacao-nib bread and the trio of dips: chocolate balsamic, cacao-something... butter, and pesto that somehow involved cacao nibs.
The view was exquisite, and we watched the sun set behind Petit Piton as we reviewed the dinner menu.
How could I pass up a cacao-encrusted pulled-pork mini Piton?
Sabrina had mahi, and I had coconut-curry chicken, both of which included cacao bits.
We got a little carried away with the chocolate lava cake (and the rum baba cake, not pictured). Everything was delicious.
It was inevitable that we were going to get caught in the rain at some point on this trip. I just wish it hadn't been on the drive home in the dark, after dinner tonight. Thankfully it was only 3.5 miles, even if it took us almost 20 minutes.
Tomorrow, we plan to exercise our new towels, hopefully at the sulfur hot springs and/or a waterfall (or two). The forecast is, as always, questionable, but that doesn't seem to matter very much here. Beyond that, we need to find somewhere to get a big/late lunch (or eat at a resort restaurant again), to make it through the (early) Sunday night curfew.
Also, we need to figure out how to get a negative test, for our eventual re-entry into the US; it seems like not much is open on Sundays, though, so we're unlikely to make progress on that objective until Monday.
The tree frogs and other critters are still very loud. I uploaded a video, if you want to enjoy the rainforest ambiance from afar.
It's still weird to be wearing a wristband. I suspect it's going to give me a watch tan.
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