Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (not Jamaica)

 Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

We’re in the Caribbean Islands and enjoying the variety of topography.  Our ship was still cruising when we awoke, and we anchored at around 11.  We’ve been spoiled up ‘til now that we’ve not shared ports with other cruise ships.  We found them here in the Caribbean and around Mexico!   In a surprise to us, and it sounds like it was a surprise to the ship's authorities as well we were not cleared to go ashore once we were docked.  Our cruise director came on the ship mic often, reporting that independent people were being delayed from getting past the terminal.  They did clear the people going on ship tours.  This meant that those of us who had a tour (reason to leave the boat) via the ship were able to get on land soon after docking.  As we left at 1:45, the problem still existed for non ship tour passengers.  A new snag.  Apparently nobody except ship tour participants were able to leave the ship. 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines are a grouping of 12 small islands, only 7 are inhabited.  About 110,000 populate the island on which we landed; 15,000 more are scattered throughout the other 7 islands.   On St. Vincent, about 71% of the people are Anglican.  We saw the Anglican Church, a Catholic Church and our guide said he attended the Methodist Church.  Rum is their specialty, especially Sunset Rum which is 85% alcohol.  (Taste it.  It’s fantastic!   You won’t remember a thing.)

This island is layers upon layers of volcanos clothed in tropical colors, smells, and wildlife.  Sighting the national bird, the St Vincent parrot, was our goal for this island. Our tour left at 1:45 and was scheduled to last for 3 hours.  An exhilarating drive in a minibus whisked us on the Mandela Highway through the village, past colorful houses securely built into the layers upon layers of hills/mountains.  Our guide pointed out the outdoor marketplace as we whizzed by; each stall was a haphazard structure of wood with upshoots in the corners with plastic tarps flapping in the wind.  After about 20 minutes of zigzagging through traffic and steadily rising in altitude, we’d have quick snapshots of the bay or vistas looking down over homes spilling down hillsides and congregating at the shores.  For the next 15 minutes, we had no traffic and the road narrowed into elevation and more scattered housing. Another hairpin turn whooshed us onto a narrow road with a sign that said “Vermont Nature Trail.”

Our guide introduced us to many plants and trees as we approached the visitor center.  One of the photos shows a tree with yellow pods.  These are cocoa pods—when they are yellow, they are ready to be picked, dried, then crushed into powder.  

He picked a taro leaf and showed us some magic:  the broad leaf has invisible hairs on it that cause a large drop of water to coagulate into a shining ball that looks like liquid mercury, then when immersed, the entire leaf looks iridescent.  

Yet another small plant near the path has a unique method of self-protection.  We think it is the Mimosa Pudica a so-called sensitive plant.  As he flicked on his Bic and gently held a flame under the leaf for just a moment the leaf reacts in a most amazing fashion.   Look at your hand spreading the four fingers apart.  Close them from the top, one finger at a time.  Now imagine a fern-like leaf about an inch in length with 8 tiny fingers on each side of a capillary.   This little leaf attaches to a vein with a similar leaf attached to the vein on the opposite side. There are multiple pairs like this attached to the vein, but for the demo we are only interested in one pair.  He closed his lighter, and two by two the fingers (which must be about a millimeter long on both sides of the capillary) closed backwards one pair at a time towards the vein.  When it reached the vein the leaf on the other side of the vein sort of curls up in the opposite direction forcing the heat out the tip.  I'm sure this description does not capture the event so maybe someone can find a video and share it.  Five minutes later, the leaves returned to normal as the threat passed.  He picked some lemon grass for us to smell then explained that it served as a tea for illness.  Then he surprised us by grabbing a marble-sized ball that had thin red licorice-stripes wound around the ball.  The red peeled off and it is mace.  The ball underneath, when broken open, is nutmeg.

Then the jungle swallowed us and we began climbing. We started the trail at about 1000’ and were told that the platform to spot parrots was at the elevation of 1450’.  The nature trail was surrounded by the best classroom possible with plants and trees similar to what we saw in the tropics of Polynesia. The path was narrow but maintained with small volcanic gravel.  But the gravel disappeared among the roots and mudpuddles that caused us to slip and slide as we climbed and climbed then descended then climbed some more.  It became evident early on that a few of us shouldn’t have taken the trip at all.  After slipping behind early, they asked if we could pick them up on the way down.  Unfortunately it was a circle route, so they sucked it up and gutted it out, grabbing thick twigs for walking sticks.  Even for us it was a tough hike—and we were the youngest of the group (not counting the cruise ship rep who was probably 25 and the guide who was 60.)

By the time we reached the platform—almost 2 hours--to watch for the shy parrots, we were ready to sit while also excited to perhaps glimpse this elusive bird whose raucous chatter we had been hearing on the path.  We watched for about 10 minutes while we waited for the brave stragglers to reach us.  Yes, we saw some parrots flying but quite a ways away.  They mate for life so are almost always seen in pairs.

Then we began the rigorous hike down, down, down.  It was supposed to take 40 minutes, according to our guide, and I think we and a few others made it in that time.  Fortunately, back at the visitor center, we could use a brush under a spigot of water to wash the mud from our shoes and rinse off the splashings on our legs before being rewarded with a cup of Sunset Rum.  OMG that was good!

We were relieved to finally get back to the ship and have a good meal before hitting the sack at 9 cuz we had no more poof in us!