Cottonville, NC to Charlotte Amalie, Thomas, USVI
One of our rules for this trip was that in order to keep anxiety to a minimum we had to cater the worries of everyone. That meant we needed to be at the airport 2 full hours before the flight as SOMEONE was worried about it. Since our flight was at 715 am, and it would take us an hour and a half, we really did leave the farm at 345am. I thought this was remarkable, as we got up at only 330 am and everyone was ready.
We met Bob at the Delta counter (he had driven up from Anniston the night before—Delta wanted to charge him $1000 to change his ticket so he could catch the SAME FLIGHT in Atlanta rather than having to start the trip in CLT. Delta would even have sold another ticket to Atlanta for Monday morning. As it was they lost that sale and Bob took Airtran down. Their loss.) The flights were uneventful, which is the best that can be said about air travel.
We arrived in St Thomas to sunny skies, and sweltering heat. We had a long wait for the luggage and a longer wait for the toilet. Some young women had decided they needed to change IMMEDIATELY into their sundresses, which for some reason took them each about 15 minutes (whatever could they have been doing in there??). They did look nice when they came out, but when there is only one toilet and a long line, I personally didn’t think it was worth it!
Travel around St. Thomas is just like everything else there—expensive. There is no public transportation. Walking is dangerous and hot. You can either rent a left-hand (US style) drive car and drive on the left side of the road (UK style), or, you can hire a cab. These are also left-hand drive, but the cabs seem less restrained by the rules--they tend to drive on whatever side of the road makes them happy. And at great speeds, too. Cabs charge per person by distance and I think over the course of our 4 days in Charlotte Amalie, we paid the mortgage on at least one cab drivers house.
The Green Iguana, our hotel for our first and last nights on St. Thomas, is a funky hotel about 1/3 of the way up the hill behind Charlotte Amalie. The rates were reasonable, the rooms clean, and we were allowed to add airbeds to the rooms so the kids could share with the parents. Small kitchenettes in the rooms; a nice patio outside with a little breeze; a partial view of the harbour; and a hallway behind a locked gate where we were allowed to leave our luggage after checkout.
Having missed lunch, we headed downtown, which was literally DOWN, to find something to eat. We walked down the 99 steps, which really number 102, and which are then followed by another 46 steps that are apparently not important enough to rate an entry in the tourist guide books (the “99 steps” sounds memorable—the “148 steps” just sounds like a darn long hike up a very steep hill.)
We passed a small park, brightly colored old buildings in the island style, lots of long-legged chickens strutting about and a classic Caribbean style US Post Office. Down a long street full of jewelry shops and watch shops (do people fly down here just to buy Rolex’s? WHY??). But it was too hot and we were too hungry, so we headed to the Green House Restaurant on the waterfront for drinks and snacks.
The St. Thomas waterfront is beautiful, but could use some urban revitalization. The waterfront itself appears to be public space, but there is a busy, crazy highway between the business district and the somewhat unimproved waterfront. The GreenHouse was set back a bit further behind the taxi stand.
The GreenHouse was open air, but at least it had a roof to keep the sun off and some ceiling fans spinning uselessly up near the ceiling. It was hot. Cold drinks helped and everyone had something to eat. The kids had ice cream while the cabbies tried to talk us into taking their cab…somewhere.
One driver asked Lydia where we were from.
“North Carolina”.
“I used to live in NC. Stanly County” he said.
Merles’ farm is in Stanly County. Lydia graduated from Stanly County High School. Her jaw dropped.
“Where?” she said.
“Norwood”
“No way”. And off they went talking about the pizza place and the stores in town and trying to figure out if they knew anyone in common. It was surreal. Stanly County only has 60,000 people.
Ready once again to tackle the shopping district, we headed back downtown. Unfortunately, it was 5pm and the sidewalks roll up at 5pm, or more precisely, as soon after 430 as they can get away with—probably the only time Islanders are EARLY for anything. The black coral jewelry store was the only store that seemed happy to have us in at 450 so we spent a half hour there.
We headed to the tourist market at the park just as they, too, were closing up. Lydia bought Ed a wedding ring (it was about time—they’d been married for at least 18 years!). Actually, Ed’s old ring was…damaged, to put it nicely, and the new one has a cool spinner part that allows for infinite fidgeting.
We then headed back down the waterfront to a restaurant we had seen with tables on the second level. But the outside tables had seating for only 4 (we were afraid 7 of us might bring the whole balcony down) and the inside was way too hot, so we adjourned to the Green House once again. Following our meal, we headed back up the 148 steps to our hotel.
It was hot.
