White Cliffs and Kenny

What a wonderful hike! 

First the hiking group, some of their family and friends, met at Lameshur Bay for breakfast. Bruce made pancakes and bacon, and there were Mimosas. I didn't participate in the meal, it was a social snack for me because I wasn't going to hike on a loaded stomach. 

After a gab fest, avoiding one politically opinionated loud-mouth and making some group decisions, 11 of us set out for the White Cliffs. The loop covers about 4 miles of pond, beach, one steep climb and the view south across the Caribbean Sea from atop the rugged "white" cliffs. At the Reef Bay ruins we got onto the Reef Bay Trail (yes, I'm back on the RB trail, AGAIN) we followed along till we took a shortcut and picked up the Lameshur Trail, the 500ft elevation steady climb up - then down, down the rocky descent to the beach.

When we were about halfway along the White Cliffs we lost all but 3 of us. Heinz, who is 82, cut his leg badly enough to be bleeding through his pants, his wife had already turned back at Europa, Friend Steve got stung on the head by something, Bruce had his 13 year old granddaughter in flat soled sneakers and as white as this page. The others, George, Su and Bob just decided to go back.

Orchids were blooming, the wind had picked up, there was a luscious cloud cover to keep us cool when otherwise it's relentlessly hot and sunny. I couldn't believe when we were suddenly back at the beach, it went so fast.

Too bad it's been so overcast and hazy. It's good for hiking but not for pretty photos.

Nothing tastes better after a hike than sliced naval oranges! 3½ hours later, everyone was still at the beach; poor George was stuck there because I had the car keys.  Some of the people were making a full day of it. They had chairs, umbrellas, and the BBQ was smoking. Time to go......

George and I decided to stop at the Tourist Trap for lunch. What a find! Nice people, cheap food, the right portions and all freshly made. I had homemade key lime ice cream for desert. I could have scarfed down a gallon of it! It was creamy and just the right amount of sugar to the tang. NOM! NOM! I am such a sugar addict. 
We now have a second favorite lunch spot.

HA! Driving back home from the Tourist Trap we pass Kenny sitting by the side of the road with a small gas can. He waves us down. George knows Kenny from his morning trip to Sena's market to get coffee. Agnes is the St Lucian woman who sells the coffee, and Kenny is her whack job boyfriend. George always said Kenny was in the store every morning drunk, but it turns out Kenny is just out there, might as well be drunk, but he isn't.  You know the kind of person I mean.  We give him a ride the ¼ mile to his car, he tells us he'd wanted to drop off the empty can. Uh, ok.  It took longer to get him in and out of our jeep than it would have taken him to walk. He gets out, he and George do the fist bump (Whoa... George is getting cool!) and Kenny disappears, already forgetting about us. 

So another day has passed, doing things you can only do here on this island; all unique, with unique people to do them with. We're living here for our own reasons, brought together for a short time or intermittently intersecting like George and Kenny, and it works. It has to work, or why bother? Isn't that true of everything? STJ is a little world, small in some ways but just right in others.