10.12

Today Stelian took me on an excursion in St. Lucia for my birthday. He had gotten tickets to a 4x4 excursion that traveled to the rainforest. We met on the pier at 8:00 and loaded into the back of a Range Rover. It as about an hour drive to the rainforest and along the way our guide told us all kinds of information about the island. We stopped to look at various fruits and other vistas along our way to the rainforest. 

The ride in the Range Rover was insane. We were going so fast up and down these twisty roads that everyone kept falling into each others laps in the back of the 4x4. The tires would squeal every time we'd take a turn because of the speed. Apparently this is just how people drive in St. Lucia. Also, everyone honks their horn as they fly around corners to let oncoming traffic know they're coming and to get out of the way. Literally every corner there was honking. Every single corner. In a country covered with twisty roads. It was loud. 

As soon as we entered the rainforest it began to rain (go figure). It was just a little rain, it was and all out Caribbean downpour. Now usually these intense downpours last for about 10 minutes and then it goes back to pure sun and heat, but in the rainforest the rain was relentless. We all gathered under this little hut where a man lived "off the grid." He grew his own food and lived on his own without any electricity, plumbing, etc. We ate some of his fruit that he had grown (mango, bananas, apples, cocoa, pineapple and some other strange ones I can't remember). It all tasted amazing as it was literally on the plant/tree minutes before eating.  

As we stood under the hut it looked like the rain wasn't going to stop before we had to leave to go back to the ship and we hadn't gotten to explore any of the rainforest on foot. Stelian and I decided to brave the rain and go out on our own. We were wearing bathing suites so it didn't really matter if we go wet. As we meandered through the forest, we came across a really cool waterfall. The water was really silty because of all the rain, but I decided I wanted to try to walk behind the waterfall. As you can see (hear) in the above video, Stelian was pretty excited I was doing this. His narration says it all. 

After getting our fix of the waterfall, we returned to the hut where everyone was loading back into the 4x4s. It was still raining so we had to put the flaps down on the trucks. As you can imagine this made things rather stuffy in the back of the Range Rover. Did I mention one of the Range Rovers broke down so we had to wait with it in the rain until another truck could arrive? I was glad to climb out of the back when we finally made it back to the ship. But even with the rain and breakdown it was a really cool excision and made for a great birthday!