Everyone was so friendly!

We decided to rent a car on St Martin as it's such a small island and the easiest way to get around was by driving. We walked over to the car rental place and were immediatley hounded by a row of men in their booths shouting prices at us and flashing pictures of cars and heeps at us. As soon as we walked over to them, a few of the guys started racing round in their various jeeps to show off their wheels, blasting out their tunes and calling us over to check them out. However htese were all way too pricey for us so we asked one of the guys for his cheapest car. He walked us round the back and showed us two old bangers, both pretty rusty, but he assured us they were in perfect working order and for $19 usd for the whole day we couldn't complain.

We decided to go for the Toyota Corrolla, the one with a number plate, and only a few brown patches on the seats, and she started up first time! We named her Lolita / Gangsta Bettie. Two seconds on the road, and over the first speed bump and we heard a load scraping of the muffler on the bump... next time take it easier on the speed bumps!

First stop was Point Paradiso, an pretty hard hourish hike up a very steep road, but very beautiful view when we finally got there! After that we went to Friars Bay Beach and met up with Loraine and Aiyana and a very wrinkly topless lady from Rhode Island. We had lunch at Kali's Reggae Beach Bar, and met Kali the owner of the bar who was smoking the biggest spliff I've ever seen! They were very friendly and said they were expecting us coz the guy we rented the car off had told them a white rasta and a chinese rasta and friends were coming their way.

Sadly we had to leave the bar to get back to the boat, but now we had 6 people so poor old Gangsta Bettie had a bit of trouble getting up and down the many hills on our way back. Her muffler was basically hanging off by the time we got there, and we got stuck in some bad traffic, but we finally made it with only 15 mins to spare before the boat left the port.

Next stop: Dominica