St. Kitts – Part One

St Kitts is affectionately referred to by the locals as the “Mother Island” because it was the first British outpost in the Caribbean.  It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles.  Don’t worry, no one knows what the hell that means. Probably the best way to describe it is to say it is part of the West Indies.On a map, St. Kitts looks like a whale, and the neighboring island of Nevis sits at the end of the tail like a big round rock.  Technically, they both stand together as one country: the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.

There are about 45,000 people living on St. Kitts and the capital, Basseterre, is tucked away in a cozy bay on the south side of the island at the base of the whale tail.  Most people on the island are of African descent, speak English, and charmingly refer to themselves as Kittians.

Joan Armatrading, one of my favorite folk singers, is from St. Kitts.

Down To Zero

The neatest thing about St. Kitts is that the eastern coast faces the dark blue Atlantic Ocean and west side faces the turquoise-colored Caribbean Sea.
The second coolest thing about St. Kitts is that the national bird is the pelican.  I love pelicans!
We docked at the cruise terminal around 7 in the morning and were off the boat by 8, after a yummy breakfast on the sunny fantail. We were traveling with our friends Richard and Olga from Bethesda, and Peter and Esther, our Canadian buddies who we had cruised with once before.

When we arrive at a port, Peter always does recon, sniffing out the local tour guides and seeing what they have to offer.  And he always finds the best deal.

As we walked onto the expansive dock, Peter was there with a welcoming smile.  “I found a great tour with Ian, the Lion King.”

And while his words made little sense, we implicitly trusted Peter’s judgment and gladly followed him through Port Zante, the airy 27-acre cruise ship terminal and marina reclaimed from the sea.  The architecture was domed, yellow, neoclassical with duty free everything and pulsing reggae.  As usual, Bob Marley provided the soundtrack for our Caribbean experience.

Outside the terminal it was controlled chaos as dreadlocked tour guides in guayabra knockoffs hollered at the milling boat people, “Come with me, Mon.  I show you da very best of St. Kitts.”

The tour vans were parked in a line along Bay Road while vendors hawked their colorful wares from the crowded sidewalk.  We definitely were not in Kansas anymore.

Peter led us over to a cream-colored, 15-person van emblazoned with a flashy “LION KING”  logo.  

Ian, our friendly guide, welcomed us with open arms, giving each of us a big hug.  Joining us on our 6-hour tour of the island were a very nice couple from Cleveland and some newlyweds from Puerto Rico, along with the bride’s parents who spoke little or no English.

The cost of a tour was predicated on the number of people.  The more you have, the cheaper the tour.  With twelve people, the Lion King was only charging $25 per person.  What a deal!

St. Kitts is about 18-miles-long and 5-miles wide.  So, it’s easy to see the whole thing in a short day, even stopping at the premiere hot spots.

We all piled into the van and Ian drove through the center of town, describing the scenes outside the windows.  The first thing I noticed was that there were no roundabouts or traffic lights.  Traffic converged at stop signs and then jostled together in a honking scrum.

We drove past Independence Square, the capitol’s chaotic center where Eighteenth Century Georgian buildings and tropical gardens hearkened back to a time long gone.  St George Anglican Church and the Fairview Great House and Botanical Gardens stood in all of their glory like beacons to Colonial rule.  You could almost hear the sound of bullwhips cracking in the wind.

These days, all is not sunshine and roses on St. Kitts.
In Independence Square there was a large, but well-behaved, anti government, pro-democracy demonstration in full swing.

“What are they protesting?” I asked Ian.

He turned down the reggae blasting from the stereo and looked at me in the rear view mirror. “Dey are fed up wit da corrupt government dat has been in power for 18 years.  We have da second highest per capita debt in the world.  And it tis very hard for many people in my country.”

The monetary situation on the island is a bit sketchy.  All of the banks are Canadian.  And there is no income tax.   Massive debt would seem to be a given.

The history of St. Kitts reads like most Caribbean islands.

At a place called Bloody Point, 4,000 Carib Indians were massacred in 1626.  Supposedly the water ran red for three days when the French and English teamed up for a little ultra violence.  And then, when the country had been secured from the unruly natives, they divided the island into two and went back to fighting each other.

As we drove past Halfway Tree, the old demarcation line between the French and British halves of the island, Ian boiled the truth down to its essence.   “Once dey finished stealing all of our resources we were given our independence.”

We headed out of town on the Old Road, which is essentailly the coastal highway, past the rundown remains of the first permanent English settlement in the West Indies, founded in 1624 by Thomas Warner.

Ian waved at a spooky, palm tree-lined, white stone cemetery with a wee grey church in its center at the top of town, facing the sea.  “Dat is da Hotel California, Mon.  You can check in, but you can’t check out.”

Our first stop was Romney Manor.  The very nice brochure that comes with the tour of the grounds pretty much says it all:

“One of the most celebrated sites on the island is the oldest colonial plantation and its mansion, Romney Manor. Established in the 17th century during the first major stage of colonial development, the property has been owned by only six families in over 350 years.

Before colonizers gained control of the land surrounding Romney Manor, it is believed the site was occupied by the village of Chief Tegereman- the leader of the Carib Indian tribe. Soon after European colonizers defeated the native tribes, the land came to be owned by the ancestors of Thomas Jefferson. Many of the structures from the once-successful tobacco plantation known as the Wingfield Estate date to this early colonial period. Adjacent to the Wingfield Estate, the Earls of Romney established their own sprawling plantation and resided over both estates by 1735.

The story of Romney Manor in the 18th century is, in many ways, the story of the Caribbean. In the fields, African slaves focused on the cultivation of sugar cane while the Romneys tended to their airy Caribbean mansion. After the emancipation of slaves in 1834, sugar production slowed considerably – not just at Romney Manor, but also throughout the region. As more Caribbeannations gained independence in the 19th and 20th centuries, plantation farming came to a halt and colonial structures such as Romney Manor fell into disrepair.

Today, Romney Manor features one of St. Kitts’ most celebrated local businesses – Caribelle Batik. Using the traditional Indonesian method of treating fabric with wax to resist dye, the artisans of Caribelle Batik have been creating their apparel and tapestries for over 30 years. When you visit the site, you can watch the artists at work and even learn the technique during hands-on demonstrations. Known for their durability and inventive designs, handcrafted artworks from Caribelle Batik are some of the finest souvenirs you can find in St. Kitts.

Outside the main home, you will find some of the most beautiful botanical gardens on the island. Spread over six acres, the gardens feature many varieties of tropical flowers and plenty of animal life. At the heart of the gardens’ diverse plant life is a 350-year-old saman tree, also known as a rain tree. Having seen all stages of St. Kitts’ diverse history, this giant tree – it covers nearly half an acre – has long been one of Romney Manor’s most popular sites.

At the farthest reaches of the botanical gardens, you can even spot the beginning of the island’s dense tropical rain forest. As you walk amongst the ruins of the oldest plantation in St. Kitts, you can hear the creatures of the rainforest calling to one another and see the land rise to the volcanic peak of Mt. Liamuiga.”

What I remember most about Romney Manor was the batik shop where I bought a beautiful blue tropical shirt.  And the web-limbed rain tree in the front yard was so bloody big it dominated the entire hillside, drawing us to it like a magnet.

After that, it all starts to get a bit blurry because when I came out of the batik shop, there was my buddy Richard with a big smile and some frosty Caribs – three for $5.  And when you start drinking beer in a warm climate at nine in the morning, you are definitely in for some silly surprises.

Many of the houses we drove by were unfinished.  Some folks just build the first level with the second floor doubling as a roof, and then construct the rest of the second floor later on when they have the money and time.  Rebar stuck up in the air like spiked hair above the temporary roofs.

There was a large subsidized housing community on the outskirts of town where the owners were charged $250 a month for 25 years.  So, they end up paying $75,000 for a brightly-colored shack with an ocean view.  I guess that slavery comes in many different forms.
There are several international universities on the island, including the Ross School of Veterinary Medicine.  Why are there so many medical schools in the Caribbean?  It seems like every island has at least one.

Our next stop was Brimstone Hill, a 38-acre stone fortress that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It was built by the British and was besieged by the French at the battle of St. Kitts in 1782.  The views from the towering ramparts were out of this world, with several nearby islands shimmering in the sunlight. 
Next up was Sandy Point, St.Kitts’ second biggest city, located on the west end of the island.
Ian was, of course, as is the British custom, driving on the left-hand side of the incredibly narrow road.  And it seemed like we were having near misses all of the time, trying to blindly get around parked vehicles because there was no on-street parking.  The houses were perched right on the edge of the road, giving the place a fishbowl feel.  Driving on St. Kitts in some places takes nerves of steel.

We came upon the Carib Brewery in the middle of town and asked Ian to stop so Richard and I could load up on some fresh Carib and Skoll lagers – one for each hand.