Hike to the Unexpected & Creepy Crawly Things

Ok, so I withdrew from society for a bit and then decided that a hike was in order. Ever since our last Sunday morning hike with Dave in the Bayford area, we've been trying to meet up again, but it's poured the last couple of times we attempted it. We aborted the hikes, while Dave soldiered on. Not this time, although it did look like we'd see some rain action.



You remember Cosmo and George? Um, Michael had a weird expression, so I thought I'd help him out.

There are two dogs tied up along the route and Dave brings them doggie treats (one dog is friendlier than the other). Their owner had dumped some meat nearby and boy did it smell. I'm pretty sure the poor pooches liked the biscuits better. I don't get the point of having them here (they're tied up so can't "get" trespassers), but at least they had some kind of shelter.



Along the way, we picked up some passion fruit off the ground and gave it a try. It was not the most appetizing thing to look at but you just put the slime and seeds in your mouth and chew. Get ready for a tart surprise.



After a not too difficult jaunt, we ran across a newly cleared little farm nestled up against a bubbling brook with tiny waterfall and pool. Dave's lived here for years and never knew what he had in his own backyard (so to speak).



Dave had no problem getting in, but you know I wasn't putting more than my hand in that cold water. Cosmo wasn't getting in either.

Michael found some wild raspberries and my tastebuds didn't know what hit them. Yummy. Of course, if we tried to grow them ourselves it'd never happen. As it is, things keep eating the veggies we planted - the last casualty was our corn to ants. Grumble.

Can you see the donkey in this picture?

We heard a peacock off in the distance too. It was a really pleasant hike. On our way home we noticed the small hydroponic farm going up. Faster...faster...

Then it was beach time. As soon as we got there, it started pouring.

Luckily, it was a quickie. After a nice time to ourselves and two hours later, big, cold drops were falling from the sky once again. We decided to call it a day.

On our way there, we had noticed a car that had hit one pothole too many. This time I had to run down and take a picture of it. I'm not sure why they didn't just put their bumper in the backseat and carry on, but maybe something else fell off. We seem to have inherited the worst vehicle in the fleet ourselves and announce we're coming by the squeaky shocks and springs - SQUEAKer...SQUEAK...SQUEAK...SQEAKer...  Like rusty bed springs. Embarrassing, but better than not having a car at all, I suppose.

Upon our return, we had a little kitty mewing at us. The neighbors have been feeding this thing for months, but were gone for awhile. The cat would sit outside their door wondering why no one was feeding it anymore, so we started putting food out for it. Now it's our friend. She's skittish but will let you pet her if you're slow about it. Maybe we can grab her sometime and get her fixed. We'll put her back outside on her own, but at least there will be one (or 10) less litter(s) in the neighborhood.

Then for our evening entertainment, we had another centipede invasion. Just last week, the cats woke me up by going after something at the corner of the bed. The nasty thing had scrambled up under the lip of the mattress top, but is there no longer. I managed to get that one without being stung. Last night, Jack was staring at the bottom of our desk leg. That's never good. I moved it and saw the biggest centipede we've had in the house yet, probably about 5-6 inches long (the biggest I've seen was during a run and it was longer than my shoe and two finger's thick). It came wriggling out at full speed toward my foot.  Aack!  I yelled at Michael to grab the broom, he yelled at me to get the camera (the camera?! forget that!) and then he took off for some paper towels.

Are you kidding me? This thing was huge. The last 2 times I got stung, it was because the darn things had bent around the towel and zapped me (the 3rd time I leaned on one that was on a railing - that hurt for 3 weeks). I ran for the broom intending to just sweep it outside, but by the time we both turned around it was gone. Uh oh.  By now, Zura was in on it too and let us know it was in our black shag rug. Ding-bat Michael starts looking for it with his hands - hello?  He finally grabbed the cat brush that was on the table and nailed the thing between the bristles. Of course, nothing kills these things, so he just shook it outside and slammed the door. And stay out!

Kevin Salt

To get that vision out of your head...For those of you have read Idiots, you'll recall that we considered another couple that had left a few months before us for a similar adventure our mentors - Amanda and Kevin on Solstice. They've since sold their catamaran too, but still have the traveling bug so have bought a small camper van and are heading to Alaska (from Arizona)...slowly. It's kind of strange because we were thinking about doing the same thing around Australia (only in something bigger because we have 2 cats). So once again, we watch and learn before we decide if we want to copy. Anyway, they happened to be in Monument Valley for the eclipse that could only be seen from the west coast if in the U.S., and took some great pics. Here's one, but you can see a couple more on their blog.  I still think the west coast (Arizona, Utah, & Oregon in particular) is one of the most beautiful places anywhere and would move back there if we had to go back to the States for some reason. That is not the plan, however...

Canyon of Death/Bloody Point

A while back when we took a trip around the island in order to plot everything on the blog map, we passed by a sign for Bloody Point and weren't aware that just up the river (Stone Fort River/Bloody River, to be exact) were some interesting petroglyphs and a lot of history. I recently saw a reference to a hike of the Bloody Point Trail and thought - Hey! - we need to do that. So we did.

We met up with Pat & Steve and headed up the dry riverbed to see what we could find.



We were surrounded by canyon-type walls and lots of hanging Tarzan-like vines, which all of us have learned the hard way not to grab onto and swing from.



Within 15 minutes, we were staring at petroglyphs created by the Carib/Kalinago Indians.



Several have been outlined to make them more obvious, but if you look hard enough there are many more etched into the canyon walls. A little further in, you reach the end where a huge rock blocks your path.



During heavy rains, this amazing structure converts to a roaring waterfall. The story behind this river and its name is that in 1626, the Carib Indians, who had been living peacefully with everyone for 3 years, caught on to the British and French plan to out-populate them and decided to ambush the Europeans. A recently arrived slave woman, Barbe, from the Igneri/Arawak tribe ratted them out, however, before they could carry out their attack. As it turns out, the Igneris had been wiped out by the Carib Indians in St. Kitts in the 1300s and paybacks are a bitch. Add the fact that Barbe was in love with Thomas Warner (the English head honcho) and the Kalinagos were doomed. An estimated 2,000 Carib men, many who had come over from what is now Dominica to help, were massacred and dumped into the river. The river purportedly ran red for weeks, lending it the name Bloody River/Point. Any survivors were shipped over to Dominica, where about 3,000 still live today.

As it turns out, Pat has some Carib blood in her veins. When I asked her if she sensed her ancestors calling out to her, she just stared at me. I'll take that as a no. Maybe that's because in 2002, a ceremony of atonement was held at Bloody Point to release the Kalinagos spirits from the area. Since the trail had been so easy and all four of us are avid hikers we found some nearby trails and gave ourselves a workout.



Upon our return, we found this left of our car!



Just kidding, our ride was fine. This isn't New York. Here that kind of work takes at least a couple of days.



While reading about the genocide that happened in Bloody Point, I read a few other interesting things. The island was shared by the English and French for years in the 1600s to early 1700s (of course, turning on each other every once in a while). Although the island grew tobacco and then sugar cane successfully, Spanish and French incursions really screwed up the island's agricultural side of things. Despite that, by 1776, St. Kitts was actually the British Empire's richest Caribbean colony (per capita). The end of slavery, the Great Depression, and lots of other factors ended much of the island's profitability. Wikipedia makes an interesting point that the sugar cane industry created a "large class of wage labourers generally resentful of foreign influence. The nature of the sugar industry itself—the production of a nonstaple and essentially nonnutritive commodity for a widely fluctuating world market—only served to deepen this hostility and to motivate Kittitian labourers to seek greater control over their working lives and their political situation."

This resentment spawned what is now known as the Labour Party. What I thought was even more interesting though, was why that party (currently in office) fell out of favor in the mid 1960s: frustration over a raise in electricity rates (electricity came to certain parts of the island in the 1950s). Hmmmm. Today, the government who owns much of the island's land is selling it to foreigners and electricity rates have doubled. Past meets present?