Southern Caribbean Ports of Call

This has been way overdue, we're convinced you have been waiting very excited for the continuation of our Southern Caribbean cruise-story... with photos and reviews on our 5 Ports of Call:

•    Samana (Dominican Republic)
•    Tortola and Virgin Gorda (British Virgin Islands)
•    Antigua
•    Barbados
•    St Kitts

So here you are, enjoy it! Click on our Caribbean Map (to see the entire itinerary...)

(Believe it or not, we have very good reasons for taking it so long for us: Krisztina had some long working days, whereas Zoli studying with all his efforts - and time - for his coming exam ... meantime visitors, a wedding dinner and Zoli's training in Strasbourg... and lots of snow in Switzerland this year, so we couldn't leave out skiing either :-))

For those participating at our Gulliver-quiz: thanks for playing and Gulliver is looking forward to hand over your prizes in Kolozsvar!

Dear lazy Reader, if you're just looking for a quick link to reach ALL our Caribbean Albums, click here.
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St Kitts Island Tour, 30th country

St Kitts was our last Port of Call on our Southern Caribbean cruise and ... the 30th country we have visited so far. Our ship docked at the Port Zante cruise terminal in Basseterre, the capital city of St Kitts.

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

We learned from our taxi driver later that hurricanes in the late 1990s destroyed a huge part of the island, but the terminal - providing plenty of duty-free shops and restaurants - is finished and there is still an ongoing program of restoration running and, although the island still depends on sugar cane rather than tourism for its living, the restoration has made it a big hit with cruise passengers.

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

Palm-filled Basseterre has an old town charm filled with local color - one of its main landmarks being the Circus Clock Tower:

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

After a short walk around in the old town, we have easily found a nice taxi driver, who was not only willing to drive us around the island, but also offered local guidance and plenty of stories about the history and current life on Saint Kitts and Navis.

Our first stop was at Romney Manor, a huge garden containing the ruins of an old sugar plantation, a batic 'factory':

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

and a tree to be believed more than a 350-year-old:

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

It was also here where we learned that the travelers' palm name is coming simply from the fact that is always showing the direction from east to west, which helps travelers find their way across the deepest jungle:

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

Next, we headed towards Timothy Hill, a very spectacular look-out point, offering a gorgeous view over the southern part of the island, a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean (to the left) and the Caribbean Sea (to the right), with the volcanic hills of Navis, St Kitts' sister island in the background:

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

Being a very hot day, it was time to find a nice beach and take a little rest... so we just relied on the local expertise and let our taxi driver drop us off at the Cockleshell Bay, where we enjoyed a nice lunch, a relaxing massage with real Aloe Vera and our very last swimming in the Caribbean waves ... while Gulliver took his surfboard and headed towards the Big Caribbean Waves - however, he found a big barrel of rum on his way, which made him change his mind about his plans for the rest of the day:

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

We only returned to our ship after the sun went deep down the ocean, sadly thinking that our Caribbean holiday was almost over.

From CARIBBEAN - ST KITTS

You can visit here our entire Album on St Kitts.
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Barbados

Barbados is one of the most popular Caribbean cruise stops, there was a real "traffic jam" of cruise ships waiting to be docked when we reached the cruise terminal at the Harbour:

From CARIBBEAN - BARBADOS

There were plenty of cabs lined up in front of the cruise terminal; however, we weren't quite sure that we understood the 'rules of the game': taxi drivers apparently were not allowed to negotiate themselves, but there were some 'big guys' just asking (or rather shouting) around where everyone wanted to go and they tried to fill up the bigger cabs with passangers heading towards the same destination. It seemed to be a little chaotic, but it did work and was definately the most economical solution ... although we were wondering, why didn't they just place some signs with the name of destinations instead of running and shouting around? (but then, of course, what would the 'big guys' be doing??)
As usually, everyone was eager to head towards the beach, so it was not a big surprize for us that Big Guy couldn't find anyone else interested to go to the Flower Forest. After we managed to negotiate down the price to about 60 Bucks with Second Big Guy (First Big Guy having an offer for 80$), our taxi was finally allowed to leave...

From CARIBBEAN - BARBADOS

The Flower Forest was located inland, so on the way to St Joseph we could see the rolling countryside with sugar cane fields and plenty of plantation houses and sleepy villages around. In the Flower Forest, we walked down a pretty walking trail through lush tropical gardens,

From CARIBBEAN - BARBADOS

...trying to spot some green monkeys (as advised by our guide book), but without any luck. Mr Monkeys seemed to be too lazy that day, so all we had left were the very few (but really beautiful) flowers still blowing despite the "winter" temperatures in Barbados:

From CARIBBEAN - BARBADOS

We were booked to a submarine tour afterwards, but unfortunately this didn't work out due to the water conditions which were not "safe enough" to bring the people onboard, so all we got was a little introductory story and a ride back to the cruise terminal... thus we decided to settle for a lazy lunch at the Waterfront Cafe in Bridegetown

... and have some relaxing moments at the Bronze Beach later: From CARIBBEAN - BARBADOS You can visit here our entire Album on Barbados.

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