St Thomas:- the good the bad and the not at all ugly.

 

We were up at the
crack of dawn this morning and off the ship at just after 7am. I think we must have been one of the first
people out because the port itself was very quiet as we walked away from the
Crown Princess. We decided to walk into
the town of Charlotte Amalie and our plan was do the walk, look around, then
get a taxi back because it was quite a long stroll. None of the port shops were open but we
figured we could get to them on the way back so we were not overly
worried. The first thing which struck us
about St Thomas is just how similar in landscape to St. Maarten it was. Gorgeous rolling green hills and mountains
with villas dotted around on the sides and a harbour or marina equally as
beautiful as the one yesterday. This,
however, is where the similarity ended. 
From the beginning of our walk there was something distinctly different
about St Thomas and we put our finger on it quite quickly. This is an American
owned Island and part of the United States Virgin Islands and, boy, does it
show. There was a "WENDY'S burger
bar on the first corner for one thing! 
As we walked along the marina toward the town, people would stop and ask
us what we were looking for. In St
Maarten, the way the locals spoke was friendly and engaging….there was
something about the way the people of St Thomas spoke which made me feel
distinctly uneasy. Their tone appeared
to be more demanding than helpful and, even if Dave and I were just chatting to
one another, someone would invariably ask us what we wanted or what were we
looking for.

We tried not to let
this worry us too much and we enjoyed a nice cup of tea (I had coffee) in a
side street just on the outskirts of town. 
None of the shops were open, even after our one and a half mile walk
from the ship. The way the streets were
laid out was quite lovely….tiny side alleys so narrow the (already blazing hot)
sun could not get through to us. At 8:30
am it was almost unbearably hot.   Even
little little was feeling the heat and opted for a lift in the rucksack rather
than walking along beside us. We
wandered around until the shops opened and this is where we felt the most
disappointment with the town itself. 
Unless you were in the market for some loose diamonds or any other
number of gemstones, watches or rings, then you were not going to find anything
interesting in the town of Charlotte Amalie. 
Almost every single shop was a jewellery store and each of these stores
had at least one person outside trying to get you to go into theirs. I have never seen so many Jewellery stores in
one tiny place and it really was overkill. 
This was a shame for us because we like to wander around the small towns
and go into the shops at our leisure. 
There was very little inviting us to stay on the main streets because
the shops were just so dull to us. The
redeeming feature was that the streets themselves, including the alleys I spoke
about earlier were pretty to look at.

At one point, again
we were stood talking about what to do next, a man said to us "what are
you guys looking for?" He appeared quite respectable, in a suit and
carrying a case…We explained that we were just looking around and he told us
not to go beyond the main road into the other streets because it was not
safe. This was the first time on any of
our trips that we had been told this and I think it kind of underlined our
feeling about the town itself. Just a
few minutes before this man had spoken to us, Dave had suggested walking off
the main street up one of these roads! 
We were glad that we had decided against it.

The town of
Charlotte Amalie was really the only disappointment of the day. We found a nice little market as we came away
from the main hub and back to the harbour side. 
By now, most of the shops were open and there were a lot more tourists
and locals around. Little little
purchased a Caribbean shirt but she might need Nanny Adams to do some work on
it…..a tad big is an understatement! She
loves it though and is wearing it right now. 
We did try cutting the bottom off of it but that is about as far as my
needlework skills go. No needles…just
scissors.   :-)

After we had spent
some time on the market we decided to head back to the port side of the Island
and see what shops there were over there. 
Our plan, if you remember, was to get a taxi back but I think we were
both feeling a little unsure now as to whether a private taxi would be a good
idea. When a man in a car with blacked
out windows pulled alongside us and offered us a lift, our decision was
cemented….we would walk the mile and a half back! He didn’t even have a taxi sign and the
blacked out windows was just plain scary! 
I think we were both very glad we did walk back because it was a lovely
journey. We took a mapped out shortcut
actually cutting through the marina with all the gorgeous boats on their
moorings.

As we got back to
the port we walked over the road from the ships to the skyride which is a cable
car to a place called Paradise Point. 
The tickets were 21 dollars each and we made the right decision to pay
the money and go for it. Once we got to
the top, the views were absolutely breath-taking. I took lots of photographs incorporating the
bay with the small islands dotted around and also the cruise ships which were
at dock. It was getting toward lunchtime
and was unbelievably hot, it had to be the warmest day so far on the entire
cruise.   We enjoyed a rather expensive
beer in the bar located at Paradise point and also a frozen cocktail which was
really tasty. Rather bizarrely, there
was a lady who ran a parrot show on the top of the mountain too…..bizarre but
surprisingly good! We watched her
parrots, cockatiels and lovebirds performing all kinds of tricks and playing
games from skating to basketball with tiny little props. The birds themselves looked well cared for
and seemed to revel in the audience participation. When the show was over, we left a tip and
then headed back down the mountain on the cable car and on to the ship.

First port of call
on the ship itself was to cool off in the pool! 
We both enjoyed the water for about an hour before heading off in
preparation for the quiz. The whole team
was there today, the two Julie's and the American/Hungarian duo we had met a
couple of days ago. This is exciting
guys…..we were on fire today and, when the quiz master was asking who had got
ten right? Who had at least 15
right? Who had at least 18 right? Every other team stopped cheering apart from
us….more than 19 right? (cheeer!!!) TWENTY OUT OF TWENTY??? The place went
wild…..(well our team was leaping up and down anyway) We blew the opposition away and it was a
genuine team effort. Everyone
contributed something today and we knew we had done well even before they gave
the answers. We didn’t expect full marks
though. Woooooooooooooot! The team who had marked our paper were
equally as excited as us I think….they couldn’t believe it. :-D

Anywaaaaay….we won
another giant magnet thing to go with the last one….but it isn't about the naff
prizes….it is about winning!!

We have set sail
already for our final stop of Grand Turk and we should arrive at about 1pm our
time tomorrow.