Our Travel Days

Christa Unruh
Nov 4 · 4 min read

Travel days 1&2

I’m so thankful to say that our travel days were completely uneventful.

Our flights were fine, it poured rain in Toronto so much so that the sky was a green tinge and you couldn’t see very far, but we still managed to get air bound and landed in St. Lucia just after lunchtime.

The clouds would come off the Islands and follow along in a line.

The airport in St. Lucia is tiny and to disembark the plane we had to walk down steps and onto the tarmac to get into the airport. The initial first step off the plane felt like a whole body slap in the face with humidity and heat. It was delightful lol.

After lining up to go through customs, waiting for our luggage to come on this tiny conveyer belt, and then lining up once again to say we had nothing to claim, we were finally getting the keys to our brand new Hyundai. As I climbed into the right side drivers seat my heart started racing, people kept telling me that the roads here are crazy and the drivers are even crazier!

Just about to start driving on the wrong side of the road!

Before we could head north towards Castries, where we’d be staying for the month, we needed to go to Fort Vieux to get a SIM card for my phone so that we would know where we were going. The lady at the car rental said to drive into the town and look for Clarke Street and it would be easy to find. The problem is that if the roads are named we never saw them!

My introduction to driving on the wrong side of the road included a round about, traffic lights that are there but don’t work (like not even powered), single lane roads for two directions of traffic, and massive drainage ditches on both sides of said single lane road!!! Oh and every time I tried to signal the windshield wipers would turn on instead of the signal! Why the wipers and the signals needed to be switched on the steering wheel is beyond me! We ended up getting so turned around in this little town that we pulled over and asked someone for help. We were told, “Just turn left and go to the main road. It will be on your left.” We said thank you and carried on only to realize that we had no idea where the main road was!!! We drove to the end of the single lane, two way traffic road, lined with the massive drainage ditches on both sides, and with people, and dogs, and roosters all wandering in the middle of the road. Somehow we managed find the main road and sure enough, further down the road, there was Digicel, on the left. We pulled into a random lane and got ourselves connected to the internet! Finally we had a map! Thank the Lord for google maps!

We spent the next hour and a half or so winding through the mountainous rainforest, being passed by the crazy St. Lucians, cautiously avoiding the drainage ditches, and being absolutely stunned by the scenery. I felt overwhelmed by the massive ferns hanging over the road and the canopy of green massive trees. Just then I knew we had chosen the right island to visit.

We arrived at our Airbnb just before night settled in surprising us an amazing sunset and an incredible orchestration of nature.

The view from our cottage

We’ve settled in nicely into our cottage. It is exactly what I hoped for with high peaked ceilings, beautiful colours, and lots of space. The only draw back is that there isn’t any air conditioning and it makes the nights a bit hard to sleep.

There are two cats here, to Rob’s delight. Their names are Ginger and Maple and he goes out every chance he can to snuggle and pet them.

There is also a dog named Charlie here but we can’t let him because he’s “dirty”. It breaks my heart honestly because all he wants is to be loved and he’s so kind and happy to see us but we have to ignore him and tel him to go away. It makes me really sad.

One of the learning curves Rob has experienced is how to turn on the stove without blowing himself up! 🤣. We have to light a match to ignite the stove and it took him a few tries to figure it out. It makes me giggle.

The view when I wake up is a true delight and I’m so thankful that I get to see these trees and ferns every morning!

We sure are in for some grand adventures!!

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