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Excursion: Stony Hill Estate and Local Farm
Time for our first excursion. We are going to an ‘estate’. The masses gathered for the buses in front of the hotel and it’s like the last chopper out of Saigon. No organization. We just got on the first one we could. That seemed to work out for everyone ultimately. Although we sat for a bit until they were sure.
It took 3 buses to get all of us. Bus may be an overstatement. 14 or so seats. But anyway, off we went on winding bouncing roads up into the hills/mountains. Our guide’s name is Magarvin but since that’s apparently too difficult for the tourists he goes by ‘MG’. He’s very nice and friendly and proceeds to tell us all about Saint Lucia.
For example, the meaning of the St Lucia flag – blue for the ocean/sky, black and white for the people, yellow for the sunshine. And 2 mountains for the iconic twin peaks that are a world heritage site, named Gros Piton and Petit Piton (although the smaller one isn’t much smaller than the ‘big’ one).
He pointed out various plants. We learned there are 4 types of coconuts – yellow, orange, green, and brown and 65 types of mangoes on the island. Plus, examples of all the other tropical fruits – papaya, guava, pineapple, etc.
He explained about how addresses work – there are no house numbers, just house colors. You specify your address by the street and house color. If there are two houses the same color, you just stop at the first one and ask. If it’s not them, they’ll take you to the right one.
For mail, there’s a centralized office. You send your letter to name/town/St Lucia and that’s enough for them to find you. There’s no home delivery. You go to the office in town and pick it up. MG said people often don’t go get their mail because they don’t want to get their bills.
People keep goats and chickens as pets. Until they run out of food, then they might eat them!
Education is mandatory. It costs about $100 US for pre-school, $200 for primary and $500 for secondary. There’s a 2-year community college, but people go offshore for university and often don’t come back because there are no jobs for what they studied. But if they were given a scholarship to go, then they have to come back. People need to pay for uniforms, books, and tuition. There are government subsidies if you’re poor.
We passed a couple of schools. It’s cool to see all the kids in their uniforms. I wouldn’t have liked them when I was in school, but I always like to see them when it’s *other* people. And it solves so many issues (and granted creates some).
A good part of the island is rain forest and a national park. It’s where their national bird (a parrot) lives and the only poisonous snake (out of 4 on the island). MG assured us that he’d lived on the island his whole life and had never seen one of the poisonous snakes and today was not going to be that day, so we didn’t have to worry. We found that the guides spent a fair amount of time assuring us that things wouldn’t hurt us. The snakes aren’t poisonous, there are no predators, the local gangs aren’t interested in you, etc. I suppose if the general makeup of these tours is ‘senior Americans’, they get asked about it a lot.
Hibiscus is the national flower. Bougainvillea is also popular and comes in 3 or 4 different colors.
The estate we’re going to is called Stony Hill. It’s someone’s house high up in the hills. He is a neurosurgeon, I think. A doctor for sure. And it was apparently lucrative. Plus, he figured out that he can rent it out for tours of the gardens (and other events) to help offset the costs.
The road up to the house is very narrow and parking is limited, so the buses had to back up the fairly steep hill, through the gate, and then park in a space barely big enough for them all. Very impressive driving I must say. Our driver is Kim. MG said he had a PHD in driving. The most impressive was the third guy who had to put his bus between the other two with about a foot on either side. It would have been tricky doing it going forward let alone backwards.
The house has a great view of the harbor where our hotel is and beautiful gardens they’ve been working on for 20+ years. The house is nice too, but we can’t go in. The doors are open so we can peek in though. It’s very nicely appointed. Their CD player looks like Marion’s. They have built-in bookshelves under the stairways which is a model I’ve always liked.
Across the way on another hilltop is a grand palace of a place. We didn’t find out who’s it was. But someone suggested they probably only showed up 2 weeks a year. Marion said the caretakers probably enjoyed living there.
We had a nice wander through the gardens. It’s on a fairly steep hillside but there are nice paths running through it and steps and railings. There was quite a wide variety of plants in kind of a mishmash, not orderly, like a formal garden. We liked it that way. Lots of colors. We saw a few lizards and one of the black hummingbirds we saw at the hotel. The place had a great little pool that Marion wanted. Just the right size.
We wandered around a bit, then had ‘snacks’. We got a taste of banana ketchup, which is quite tasty (enough that we bought some at the next place). Marion befriended a kitty (briefly). We spent about an hour there. I discovered there are at least 2 other people with SLR cameras (and a few more on the main trip as it turned out). So I wasn’t the only one lugging a big camera around.
On to the next place – a working farm. On the way MG told us today was a special day because they were having a race they do where people make a team from each town, they run to the next town and hand off a baton to that town’s team, etc. ultimately going all around the island. The idea being to show unity across the country. A very cool idea. We didn’t see any runners, but we passed some stations set up for it.
The farm is part of a program (didn’t get the name) to help local farmers – especially female ones. The T-shirts called them Farm-hers. Clever. The woman whose farm it was showed us around. It wasn’t a huge farm but since she was pretty much running it herself, with a guy who comes every few days to help, it was plenty big. Multiple acres anyway. She grew lettuce, celery, lots of various herbs, spices and fruit trees. It sounded like a LOT of work. She’s up at 4 every day gathering stuff to sell to the local markets (her stuff is all sold locally). The farm originally belonged to her parents who passed on their farming knowledge to her. And she’s now trying to pass it on to her daughter. It’s impressive what she’s done.
This was our first introduction to all the herbs being used for pharmaceutical purposes, but it was a theme across all the islands. Turmeric and ginger are good for colds. Something that was for pain that they make into a tea. Something else for bruises. Something for diarrhea. Sorrel is good for cancer. I should have paid closer attention. They don’t go to the doctor much. The nutmeg nut has a red coating that is used for preserving food like gelatin. The outside fruit of the nutmeg makes the nutmeg jam (which Marion didn’t like but I did).
They mix rosemary and coconut oil for skin care. Breadfruit they barbecue then cut open. She used fermented garlic as a pesticide. And another combo of garlic and cayenne pepper to keep insects away.
They were selling stuff (of course). We bought some banana ketchup. $5 US but we only had East Caribbean Dollars (ECD) and they didn’t have change. Marion tried to give them a 10 (she thought) which was really a 100 but she figured it out. Ultimately, she found a spare USD 20 and they had change for that so we still have our ECD money.
We got to sample bread fruit (bland but interesting), saltfish, which was good, some kind of fried bread thing like a beignet (that was good but needed powdered sugar), chocolate tea, which was as weak ass as all other teas are, just a vague sense of chocolate, and sorrel juice which was quite tasty – kind of a grape/cherry. Apparently, it’s in season around Xmas time and is a traditional drink around here for the holidays. MG had pointed out a sorrel plant on our drive in.
Then a jarring bumpy ride back to the hotel and it’s now 12:30 and we’re on our own for lunch. Well, I am. The only real option is the restaurant, but they are SOOOOO slow. But there’s no choice. 15 minutes to get someone to take my order, 30 minutes for it to show up, 10 to eat it, then 30 minutes waiting for someone to bring me a bill. I was off in a corner by myself so no waiters to flag down. I finally got up and confronted the hostess when she brought another group in. “I’ll get you something to sign”. 10 minutes go by. “Here you go, do you have a card on file?” I dunno. Can I just give you a card? “I’ll get the reader”. 10 more minutes. Jeebus.
A rest after lunch, then we gave the pool a try. The water was very pleasant. But after a bit I suggested we go back to the ocean. The scenery is better and it’s not all the same depth and the wave action makes you work a bit harder.
Then back to the room to await the cocktail reception and dinner. Marion noticed the sky getting interesting so I grabbed my camera and headed down. I ran across our new friend Scott waiting by the restaurant to see if the sunset would do anything. We chatted for a bit, while we hoped the sunset would do something, but it faded out to nothing. I told Scott it was important to wait a bit after the sunset because sometimes the sky will light up after it goes down. We did, but nothing happened.
We met some new folks at the cocktail party, Kevin and Katrina. They’re from Virginia. He had missed the day’s activities because he runs a social services company that does work in other countries (somehow related to USAID). It had its funding cut by the Trump administration as part of the ‘kill off everything we spend money on that I don’t like’ policy. He was having to lay off a bunch of people. What a nice way to spend your trip.
It turns out she’s an artist and also very interested in recycling, so she and Marion had lots to talk about. He mostly wanted to tell me everything he could think of that he knew about Portland and Oregon. Which turned out to be a fair amount. His Mom was from there (she went to Grant High School and Marylhurst College). Nice people though.
Dinner was a buffet. We had been told it was for us, but it was for the whole hotel. Just our seating area was for us. We managed to get through the line before it got really long. Another ‘meh’ meal. We were by ourselves for a bit but as we neared the end of our meal the tour manager (Alanah) sat with us and we talked with her a bit. We got up to leave and were informed we had to sign our bill. Dinner is included in this deal but for some reason we have to sign something. You couldn’t bring that to us? Whatever, go get it. This after being asked our room number about 5 times (really). First, by the person who seated us, then by the same person who came by 3 times to ask us, and then again when they went to get our bill and again when we signed it. I felt like stamping it on my forehead. Getting the bill took them about 15 minutes to acquire. Where do they keep these things? On another island? I have to go to the restaurant one more time tomorrow morning for breakfast then it’s good riddance to them. The rest of the hotel was fine but the restaurant, boy howdy.
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