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Continuing on... After 3 straight days of sunshine, we decided we needed a break and made today our “visit St Thomas” day. We slept in, and then kicked back with coffee and books for a bit in the morning before getting ready.
I must throw in a side note here. I believe I have established that I am an animal lover. I also have mentioned several times the myriad of birds that were all over our villa. What amazed me was how fearless they were of humans. I have to think that all the guests before us must've fed these guys b/c they would get remarkably close to you if you sat outside. While I am a self-proclaimed 'fraidy cat of things with more than 4 legs, I don't generally run from birds. But these...they freaked me out. They were nice sized birds and would get incredibly close to me when I sat outside by myself. Like, are you hitting on me? close. It got to be laughable but these buggers kept me from hanging out outside with my coffee as much as I might have otherwise. Here's my buddy (sorry he's somewhat hard to see b/c of the brown deck behind him):
Anyway, we headed over to STT on the 1pm ferry to Red Hook (since CA ferry was still not running). There, we hopped aboard a truck taxi and for $2 a person were transported to downtown Charlotte Amalie. By the time we arrived after much traffic, I was famished so we stopped into the first place we saw: Taco Fiesta. We had nachos, burritos, tacos and chips. It wasn’t great—particularly since we’re all Mexican food junkies at home—but in a pinch, it was super. Afterwards, we did what we planned: stroll the streets.
On the ferry ride over, we’d been perusing a visitor’s guide and I spotted a shop called Royal Caribbean that offers every type of camera you could imagine. With one ship in port today (Carnival Valor) all the shops were open but it wasn’t so flooded with folks that walking around was miserable. We decided we’d check out this shop b/c our digital camera is 3-4 years old and, while it still works takes beautiful pictures, it is quite a bulky camera in comparison to what’s out there now. Namely, the Sony Cybershot that Lori and Joe had with them, a nice pocket-sized baby with lots of features and 7.2 pixel capacity.
At Royal Caribbean, the Sony was $199. Not bad. We were nearly sold when my husband pointed out that our camera works fine. However, what we could use to join THIS century is a digital camcorder. Ours is analog, takes 8 mm tapes and is at least 10 years old. So we checked out a Sony Handycam. Burns right to a mini DVD, full of features, size of your palm, lightweight. The sales guy tossed in some DVDs plus a camera bag for $499. We thought that was a good price but hated that we hadn’t researched this in advance. The guy said that their prices were generally 20-30% less than in the States. Guess we’d take his word for it, but worst case, we figured it was same price and we still saved the tax. So we went for it and are thrilled with the camera.
While this was taking place, Lori and Joe were in a jewelry shop debating among bracelets. In the end, they got a diamond bracelet (the fellow came down significantly in price as you might imagine he could) and the two links that had to be removed to fit her wrist, they made into a pendant for her. We then strolled into the Purple Papaya, where I discovered bathing suit heaven upstairs. I highly recommend this shop if you need a new suit. There were tons and tons of suits in all styles. And luckily they sold beer which bought me extra Hubbie-patience as I tried on suits. Ended up with TWO I really liked. It’s hard to find a pretty bathing suit that wears well, right? That was my justification. That, and the no tax.
We found cool stuff for the kids and then decided it was time to make our way back to Red Hook. Could we find a $2 a person taxi? Doubtful. We did find several $10 a person taxis—geesh! But in the end came across a guy who told us he was headed home and that was not far from Red Hook so he’d take us for $5 each. Maybe that was a total line, but in the end we spent a total of $28 for taxis for all of us both ways. Compared to the $60 we spent one way from the airport, we thought that was pretty good.
Amazingly, we showed up at Red Hook at about 6:03 and were doing some serious praying that the 6:00 wasn’t spot-on leaving. We were in luck. Running down the ramp, we hopped on that baby about 2 min before she took off. Whew!
Back on STJ, we headed to the Lime Inn for the all you can eat shrimp, where we positively hurt ourselves. Boy is it good and the owner there is the nicest, nicest guy. It is unquestionably our favorite place to eat on STJ.
Afterwards, we walked into the Pink Papaya gift shop that’s right there—voted best in Virgin Islands every year since 2004, this is a great little shop. Sample pic:
We sent the Hubs back to Joe’s Rum Hut for the mojitos they were craving but hadn’t found anywhere else we’d been today. We joined them there and hung out for about 45 minutes or so, just enjoying the water, the lights, the comings and goings, the mojitos and the general STJ atmosphere.
Back at Jungle Villa the guys hopped in the pool to rinse off the “stickiness” of a humid day and we again soaked up the lights of STT before turning in for the night.
Thank you very much for posting a real time trip report with pictures, but I am SOOOO jealous that I'm not there. Enjoy yourselves. You deserve it.
Oh gosh, I WISH we were still there. This isn't real time--our trip was last week. But I'd kept a journal while there so some of this might be written in the present tense, rather than past tense. My apologies if I don't correct that somewhere. I just thought I'd break the trip up into multiple posts so it wouldn't be horrendously long all in one. 🙂
That big bird is what we call a "trashy bird" aka a Pearly-Eyed Thrasher, a relative of the European thrush. They're very "pushy" to say the least and I can see why you'd find them rather disconcerting!
They have a very sweet singing voice which can change in a heartbeat to a raucous harsh screech when they either see danger or are protecting their territory. Much to the chagrin of people who try and grow tomatoes and suchlike here and who haven't covered their plants with bird-proof netting, they'll steal every darned one before you know it, They likewise dig into ripe mangoes, etc., on the tree. Leave that big mango up there for too long waiting for it to ripen naturally and you'll end up picking something that looks like a wedge of Swiss cheese!
And there endeth VI Ornithology 101! Enjoy the rest of your visit!
I have really enjoyed your reports (and pics!) of day 4 and 5, but somehow have overlooked days 1-3, so I gotta go back and look for those some more! Thanks for sharing!
I'm editing this to add that 2 years ago I bought a sony camcorder that records on the mini DVD's for about $700 at WalMart, so they are probably down to $500 or lower by now. I really like it, the pictures are good and the sound also. You can even take still pics with it, but they aren't so good. Its tiny, fits in a purse - great for ball games!
Thanks for the great reports. We are staying at Paloma Blanco in August. Any tips or tricks you can share would be appreciated.
Talk about great smiles! It's easy to see how much you all were enjoying your little time in paradise!
I'm so glad to hear it wasn't just me being a scaredy cat of that dang bird. They were absolutely very pushy. I was amazed at how close the one would get. Ran me--the bigger of us two--right off the deck and back inside. I would wonder: what am I thinking letting a BIRD run me off? LOL
jbaugh76--I sure wish I'd known someone who stayed at Paloma before we arrived so we could've gotten the scoop. I'm glad to answer any questions you might have. Some thoughts:
~ DEFINITELY rent a 4 wheel drive. You can see from the photo in my Day 1 report that the road to get to this baby is narrow and rough. The driveway is a challenge in and of itself. We would pull down the road just past the driveway (there's not much room), get turned around and then back down the driveaway, feeling it'd be easier to do that than back UP the driveway. We used 4 wheel drive each time we were on the driveway. And even then, once when the driveway was wet, we still felt ourselves sliding a smidge.
~ Make sure the safe in the master closet is opened for you. It was locked closed for us and we just didn't bother requesting someone come out and open it.
~ Bring pool floats from home--there are none. We bought two of the "cheapy" blow up kind while there (for $14 EACH!) and could've choked since we easily could've bought those at home for about $3 and brought with. Only, I was told there'd be floats already there. We did leave 4 noodles behind. Maybe they'll still be there.
~ There is already plenty of beach chairs, beach towels, laundry detergent and dish soap there for use. All things we lugged down but didn't end up needing.
~ Be sure to use the stand up fan (stored in the living room closet, I believe) in the living room/kitchen, which has no AC. We didn't find that baby until our last day there! It'll help keep the living room cooler, definitely.
~ The hot tub was tricky and we only got it to turn on once. Again, not something we were really using so we didn't bother pursuing if we were doing something wrong or it needed repair. But there were no instructions on what to do with it. We were just told that it "should be fine" whenever we were ready to hop in. But water was luke warm and we only got the jets to come on once...
Getting there--two ways to do so. We were taken there via 104 right from town originally (going to the right at the fork by the Texaco gas station). Going that way there are tons of swichbacks--steep ones. If you go left at the fork and take Centerline Rd, that is a far easier trip and you'll just go up until you hang a right onto 104 and get to the villa that way. Have the agency show you the way if this makes no sense. But we never once went the way we were originally shown b/c the other was so much easier.
I think that's about all I wish we'd known beforehand so could've prepared for or requested assistance on while the agency folks were there with us already. Oh--watch out for the birds! LOL
Thanks a bunch for the info. Couple more questions:
Does the villa have a cd or dvd player?
Did you rent thru Destination St. John?
Was there a welcome basket or anything when you arrived?
Thanks in advance!!
I do not recall seeing a CD or DVD player. I brought down a boom box that plays CDs or iPods (called iLive--very handy to have) and spent months prepping multiple playlists just for this trip. So we never even looked for anything that might already be at the place.
We did rent through Destination St John. Good folks.
There was a welcome basket when we arrived. It contained a block of cheese (that our host put in the frig as we walked in--uh, we skipped eating that, knowing it'd sat in the heat for who knew how long since the kitchen isn't AC'd), crackers, oranges, bananas, chips and salsa. We scarfed the chips and salsa the afternoon we arrived, as we settled in. It was great to have there already. 🙂
Love the pics! Great report..we are still trying to talk friends into sharing a villa.It is the only way to go.
Hi there,
Lori here - the other gal Megan keeps talking about. Anyhow, couple of other things about Paloma Blanco:
I do believe there is a DVD in the main room. I remember looking because I had brought a DVD that I never ended up watching, but was curious as to where I'd be able to watch it, should I want to.
Also, when you arrive - be sure to ask your gal/guy from Destination St. John about check out procedures. I know, you don't want to think about leaving on your first day there - but when it sadly came time for us to depart we had no idea what time to be out, what to do with keys, etc. The gal cleaning showed up around 9:00 a.m and our hubbies had already taken off on the first of two trips that had to be made down to the dock with our luggage. She was very nice and just went to work around us - but it would have been nice to have a heads up on that so we could have been a little better prepared.
If you are going to require more than one key for your visit, you may want to request that prior arriving. We only got one (we never seperated as a group, so only needed one key) but if we had decided to split at some point, that may have been an issue.
Enjoy your time in paradise -
Lori
