St. Kitts - Paul left without us!
Trip Start
Feb 21, 2008
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4
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Trip End
Feb 26, 2008
Basseterre,
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saturday, February 23, 2008
George, our bus driver, told us all about the sights as we passed by on our way to the train and later on our way from the train back to downtown. He had a habit of repeating about 70% of everything he said. Don't know if he wasn't sure we understood him or was repeating for emphasis. The train tour was a great way to see the island, at least along the coast. We had entertainment, rum drinks and coconut cookies. We saw lots of sugar can fields, but in 2005 the island stopped processing and exporting sugar because it was not profitable
A choir group sang to us...
. The cane is still grown, but to control soil erosion. When we got off the bus in downtown, we went to the shops around the circle. This was the downtown St. Kitts we knew. However, now a new pier/shopping area has been built - Port Zante. This was our first shopping day and our special shopping offers were at stores in Port Zante. We had about 90 minutes until we needed to get to the ship. We decided we would head back about 5..."all aboard" was at 5:30. We started at the jewelry stores at the far end of the shopping center, planning to work our way forward. Well, it took us a while in the first store, so Paul decided to shop for his shirt.
Paul encourages Lisa to buy anything she wants on vacation, then balks at buying a $15 shirt for himself. This drives Lisa crazy. When we were at Hard Rock in San Juan, there was a perfect shirt for Paul, but he wouldn't buy it. He finally promised to buy a shirt in St. Kitts. Now we were 1 hour from going back to the ship, so Paul had to find something. Sarah, Mike and I continued to shop in the jewelry stores. When it was getting close to 5, we started toward the taxi area, where we assumed Paul would be waiting. He was't there, so we went back and looked in the stores along the way. A taxi driver approached us, we told him we were ready to go back to the ship, but one person was not back yet
Lone palm in a sugar cane field
. The taxi driver started combing the stores, too. Finally, at 5:15, we decided we HAD to go back to the ship and hope Paul had done the same. Needless to say, Lisa was mad and a little worried. Our taxi driver kept assuring us Paul had gone back to the ship, on St. Kitts they love tourists, he kept saying "this is not Aruba." And, when we got back to the pier, Paul was waiting at the boarding area. He claimed he looked for us, and decided we went back without him when he didn't see us. We don't think he looked very much, because we were right there, practically where he left us.Saturday night was formal night at dinner. We had much better food the second night. Our waiters were excellent, again. After dinner we had our portrait taken, then went to the show...world famous singing sensation....someone we had never heard of. We decided to sit in the back so we could make an easy exit if the show was really bad. And, we were all wondering when we heard the first few notes he sang - it sounded like we were in for some opera or other "classical" singing. We were pleasantly surprised. The singer had a good voice, he mixed singing with funny banter and we really enjoyed the performance.
