St. Kitts part deux!

Finally, St. Kitts: the sequel!

Where we last left Kristina and Kurt, after a day of scuba diving for Kurt and sun bathing for Kristina, they had mistakenly ordered Kittitian pizza.
Ew.

The next day--Thanksgiving--we hopped on the ferry and sailed over to Nevis, St. Kitts' sister island to the south.


They're only separated by one mile from the tips, but the ferry takes off from the capital of St. Kitts, about 10 miles or so up the coast. While we were waiting for the ferry this crazy guy kept trying to shake my hand. Here's the thing, after a summer of living in the Big Apple, homeless people don't really bother me. But I still washed my hands as soon as I could.


Nevis has only one calm beach, as far as we could tell.


We went snorkeling, even though the visibility wasn't good. We saw a sea snake and a sting ray, so it wasn't a total waste. Nevis is not very much into the tourism business, but their few hotels are VERY nice. As in, Four Seasons Resort Nevis. The beaches, while too rough to snorkel or even swim, really, were gorgeous. We rented a little car and drove around, mostly just enjoying the scenery.



I was really excited when we went back to the ferry because it took off from Nevis' capital, Charleston. I was in Charleston for Thanksgiving! Not quite the same, but oh well. Once back in St. Kitts we had Thanksgiving dinner island-style, with conch fritters and steamed pumpkin instead of sweet potato, and listened to live steel drum music.

Friday morning we woke up bright and early (7 am... not easy to do on those hard beds) for a hike through the rainforest to the mouth of a volcano! Oooo, ahhhh.


Action shot!


I'm an explorer! Just call me Magellan!


Rainforests are hard to take pictures in:

either it's way dark...


or there's too much light behind you.


Finally we made it to the top. Kurt was sad to hear that there was no safe way down into the volcano bowl, so we just had to settle for the rim. Drat.



From this outcropping we could see...


this view. Beautiful, huh?

On the way down, we decided to climb into a tree's abdomen. Good idea.


Saturday morning Kurt woke me up with a surprise!


Horseback riding for my birthday (which was also our last day in St. Kitts, tear)!!!


Happy Birthday to me!

Horseback riding came complete with fresh coconut (literally, off the tree) and Coke. Everyone drinks Coke for everything on St. Kitts, because they bottle it there. I wasn't complaining.


This is how Kittitians cut their coconut. I tell you what, fresh coconut is amazing.

I found something very exciting...


the cacao bean! Or coco bean.. or whatever it is chocolate comes from!

Here I am, loving my birthday spent horseback riding through the rainforest...


And Kurt did his famous George Washington impression.


Back at home, we found an AMAZING Italian restaurant called Ciao. I had gnocchi in gorgonzola sauce... out of this world good.


Since we're such hard-core fans, Kurt and I spent our last night in paradise listening to the BYU-UofU game on-line (the Cougs won it!!)...


and watching the sun set over the Caribbean sea.


The end.