Antigua-journal

2-17-10(Antigua)

I woke up at 7:00 and as every morning, Wil has already been up and on the deck before I get up. No sleeping in for him. Today I am journaling as we are docking. From my window, this Island looks lush from the get go. Today we plan to do zip lines and swinging bridges and I’m excited for what the day holds. I am also feeling much better this morning.

Breakfast done and then we tried to shop. The taxi people are almost as bad here as at St. Kitts, except this time we knew enough to ignore them. Shopping was painful and really stressed me out. You can’t just look until you find something. Everyone wants to help you, so you buy from them and they all pretty much have the same thing. They don’t take no, for an answer. Wil had a hard time not buying something if they helped us. I got so stressed, that we just came back to the ship.

We did it!!! The Antigua Rainforest Canopy Tour was fun and a great workout. By the time we were done, my heart was racing and my hands were shaking. It included 9 zip lines, the longest 300 feet and the highest 350 ft. After that we had a challenge course … we had to do a lot of very scary rope and cable walking. It reminded me of things people do to help them get over their fears. Had I known all that we had to do, I would not have done it, but I’m so glad that we did it. Great fun and a great accomplishment. We were with Mark and Sarah, who we met in the Chicago Airport. We have seen them almost every day, and today unknowingly, we booked the same tour. It was great to be with them and cheer each other along.

Tonight the boat is rocking even more than last night. We seem to be moving at a pretty good clip. We were told that in St. Lucia, no one is advised to get their own Taxi tours. They don’t think it’s safe. We have a tour through the Cruise but they cancelled some of them. Tonight we ate with our regular group, learning a bit more about each other. The couple from Sweden has 2 thirteen yr. olds and one 16 yr. old girl, Joe & Ellen from Philly, have only been married 2 yrs., she has 2 boys and he has 2 boys and 6 grandkids. Jesse and Yarani, have a 2 and 6 year old, the couple from Norway & Italy were missing tonight.

After dinner, we went to the lounge where they had 4 couples from the audience play the newlywed game. Lots of laughter!!!

Me, wearing a shirt and jacket borrowed from my sister, Anna and jewelry from Ten Thousand Villages, which was a gift from Melissa. 

I discovered that we have very few pictures from this day.  On our supposedly tour to the zip lines, we were packed in like sardines in a hot van.  At the zip lines, we weren’t allowed to have our camera’s with us.