Day 18- Indian Ocean and St. Lucia

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Day 18 and I’ll have to say I’m getting a bit homesick . I find myself counting the days until we return. It will be very busy the next few days, so there will not be any time to think about it. Today was a great time for all I think. Instead of a Safari we loaded up our luggage, dropped it off at the “tent camp”, and were off for St. Lucia. We stopped and did some shopping at a little cultural center. Beautiful baskets, carvings, etc. We went to St. Lucia, ordered lunch, and went to the Indian Ocean(for some sandblasting, akin to microdermabrasion on our legs & arms.) Despite the wind, it was a beautiful fine sanded beach, and we enjoyed watching the wind surfers, and walking in the surf. I have forgotten to tell you our guides are Pen & Absulum, and we cannot go ANYWHERE without them. We believe it is partly for our security, and partly to keep us a captive audience. Anyhow back to our day. We returned to the restaurant where our meals were served. The food was wonderful. Our group ordered quite an array. There was seafood platters, shrimp, ribs, ox-tail soup, snails, and alligator steaks. The salads are served Mediterranean style with olives, onions, and goat cheese. We have to say the food is wonderful here, and there is plenty of it. After lunch we walked to the docks for a 2 hour cruise on St. Lucia.. St. Lucia is a lake and wetlands park,.and a world heritage site.. We had a wonderful guide, and the pleasure of photographing hippo’s, alligators, and some fabulous birds. There is also an Estuary at this site, but time didn’t permit us to take it in. We returned to camp, checked out our good sized tents, and went to dinner. We are feeling somewhat like we are on a cruise with all this eating. We went to bed early (as we have a 5:15 leaving time in the morning) and all attempted to sleep. Our tents have large bathrooms, spacious bedrooms and beds, but they are tents. You can hear every sound. There were zebra grazing through camp, bugs, frogs, birds, zulu drums and singing, and every voice around. The wind picked up and the tent moved around on the beams making some interesting creaking and squeaking sounds. Sounds abound.

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