Caribbean

Yet another trip to Antigua – a favourite destination because of the warm weather, beautiful turquoise water, peace and quiet and the variety of land to tour! This time we stayed at the Hawksbill Resort, small quiet and beautiful. No TV, internet – just sun, sea and a great restful time.
The resort has four beaches – our “room” (duplex chalet) was just a few feet from the sand & water. The views throughout the resort were perfect! Great wildlife too – especially if you share your food with them 🙂

 

We rented a car for a day and toured the island, visiting our favourite places of English Harbour / Nelsons Dockyard, and Fig Tree Drive (which goes up through some rain forest “mountains”):

 

We also visited the capital of St Johns, cramped and full of cruise ships but fun to walk around (except it poured with rain!)

 

Our trip was somewhat spoiled by travel – more than two hours in immigration on the way out due to too many flights into Antigua, and on the way back we arrived in Philadelphia to find no flights to Boston, no hotel rooms, and no cars – except one we had to pay almost $700 for to get home yesterday (430 miles unexpected driving) … But our neighbors had dug out our cars when we finally did get home!

Previous trips to Antigua here in 1998 and here in 2004.

Last week, with Margarets USA passport finally arrived, we booked a last minute trip to Aruba to get some sun & warmth – although winter so far this year has been very easy (the fish pond is not frozen at all!)
We enjoyed a very lazy week on the beach and rarely left the hotel except to get food in an excellent nearby restaurant called Tango (they had fabulous steak and other meats, and a so-so live tango dance every hour; best of all was their “Tango crepe” dessert!).

Some pictures (though I didn’t take many on this trip):

 

We had a great time in Antigua … lots of sun and warmth (the locals said it was unusually hot and dry; good for us!). Definitely got brown while we were there!

 

Here’s photos from our trip …

We flew out to Antigua for a late summer vacation, which will include Margarets birthday (tomorrow). We had a very early flight out of Boston, and watched the sun rise in the airport; after landing and changing planes in San Juan, we flew on to Antigua; it was very interesting looking down on the various Caribbean islands – each one had an island shaped cloud floating over it …

 

 

We finally landed at VC Bird International Airport in Antigua and transferred to our hotel (St James Club); we had a great room and enjoyed a spectacular sunset right outside:

 

The hotel had a nice beach – till it got too hot; a pool too:

 

We rented a car and drove to Nelsons Dockyard; once a great English dockyard, now a museum with some relics; we next headed to Shirley Heights, which offered a view back towards our resort, and an overview of Nelsons Dockyard. We were going to a steel band which plays every Sunday night at Shirley Heights as the sun sets; loads of people attend but unfortunately a major downpour ended the day early – we were glad to have a car to get home and not have to wait for taxis!

 

Another day, we toured the island of Antigua; first we drove along Fig Tree Bay which takes you up through the rain forest part of Antigua – very green and quite desolate! We also found more beaches, and had dinner in the city of St Johns:

 

And there was another spectacular sunset!

 

We also took a “Seafari” ride right round Antigua, and to some off-shore islands, riding what is basically a motor-powered inflatable tube! The boat reaches speeds of 40mph+ and is quite exhilarating once you get comfortable with the fact that no matter how much it bumps & tilts, you won’t be thrown out. You get some great views of the island, but the trip is over too quickly: