Day 3: A Day At The Mall
I couldn’t really get to sleep last night, it took me some time so I stayed up watching an episode of Death of the Pastor’s Wife on Netflix and then went to bed sometime after 2am. This morning I even heard the rooster Charlie outside the window around 5am but I was able to go back to sleep. Once we got up around 9am for breakfast we had, bacon eggs, a roll and some pears. With our full day tour being rescheduled to Saturday now, we had a free day today and began thinking, “What can we do?”

Always down to check out a mall when traveling, I offered up the idea and we chose to do that. Thankfully it wasn’t far just about a 20 minute drive away over to the Rodney Bay area. There were only really 3 malls to choose from so I selected Baywalk Mall not knowing that was the largest or right across the street from Rodney Bay Mall. It was a hot day out today but we headed there. With a bank being a part of it we went there first to the ATM to get some East Caribbean dollars. The goal is to try to save most of our cash for Castries market when we go on Saturday during our tour.

The first mall we checked out was Baywalk Mall which was 2 stories. There weren’t many stores but my mom got a magnet, some coconut oil and we went to their big grocery store to get a couple things. There (at the mall) we also got both Asian and Indian food. With a KFC also being across the street, I decided we needed to try the chicken here (it’s been said KFC chicken in the Caribbean is better than the U.S.). My mom argued the woman down with how small the wings were for the price (and though it tasted different I wouldn’t necessarily say it was better).

We put our stuff in the jeep and then checked out Rodney Bay Mall which had even less inside than Baywalk Mall. I found a skincare store with items made in St. Lucia and bought some face serum (because I’ve been needing some for about a month but have been too busy to go out and buy some). That was the only thing this mall had to offer so after looking around we headed back in. I’ll tell you what though, everyday driving here is an adventure (thank God we’re not doing ATV’s because driving is more than enough).

Once back at the Airbnb we rested for about 2 hours before having dinner. The food was good and filling and so were our drinks and dessert. We watched the rest of “Death of the Pastor’s Wife” and then called it a night. Tomorrow we have 2 activities planned and each route (going to each one) will take about an hour (so it’ll be an hour from the Airbnb to activity 1 Ziplining then an hour from Zipling to the Cacoa Workshop/Lunch then an hour from there back to the Airbnb). At least this will be the last long amount of driving we’ll do until we go back to the airport on Tuesday.

Day 4: Zipline/Cocoa Workshop:
Today was a very busy day and I think I had a bit of anxiety about it while trying to sleep last night because I didn’t sleep that great. I would be driving a lot and long distances and the streets here put me on edge (and I’ve been driving over 20 years). The first activity was ziplining through Travel Adventure Tours which was located about 55 minutes away from our Airbnb. Now usually, that timing would be accurate but I drive slower than the average person here because these streets and drivers are out of control so we set a time to leave at 8:30am for our 10am reservation.

Somehow the time on my watch and my mom’s phone was an hour behind but thank goodness my phone time was correct or we wouldn’t have made it on time. We scarfed down breakfast quickly and were out the house by 8:45am and arrived by 9:57am. Once there we wasted no time checking in and getting suited up for the adventure. We were fitted and joined another couple from the Netherlands. There were a total of 12 lines we’d be zipping on and we used the first one as a practice line (we’ve done ziplining before in other places so we’re used to the overall technique).

The guides helping us out were really nice. They kept us laughing and safe and were our photographers. By the third line as we were waiting there was a huge fury spider hiding under a mat on a tree. It peeked out a bit and we all shrieked (I’ve never been that close to a spider that big out in the wild). You better believe I kept my eye on that spider until I disembarked from that bridge. Line after line we zipped across doing different poses. We hiked up and across some bridges and enjoyed ourselves overall. The entire experience took about an hour.

We thanked them and disembarked to our next activity to Cacoa Sainte Lucie for our workshop and lunch. This would be an hour and 10 minute drive and even though it seemed as though we would arrive about an hour early we figured, “Let’s just get there.” We went through so many twists and turns, up and down hills on narrow roads I was thanking the Lord by the time I parked at Cacoa Sainte Lucie. We happened to arrive there at 1:05pm and had a reservation for 2pm. We looked around a little bit in their store and tried a few chocolate samples. The workshop instructor Haga ended up taking us early.

We gave them our lunch order and then proceeded in the workshop. We learned about cacoa and how chocolate is made (I’ve done quite a few of these and this is the 2nd time I would be making my own chocolate bar-the first time was in Guatemala). A few things that we learned was:
• May and October are the busy months for cacoa
• Based on the fruits that the different cacoa are planted around it will taste like that fruit
• If a bar is less than 20% chocolate it’s considered a candy bar not a chocolate bar
• Coco butter seperates itself during the process of chocolate making
• The fermentation process takes 7-10 days (the cacoa cannot get wet during this process)

She did some demonstrations and then had us do them. We tried cacoa beans, nibs, put on some coco butter, and had samples of dark chocolate at 60%, 70% and 88%. We also had some cacoa tea which was mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg (we weren’t much fans of the tea). Then we made our own chocolate bars and added pineapple, chili flakes and sea salt (and my mom added kiwi to hers). While our chocolate bars were being further prepared we went upstairs to the restaurant for lunch. The view up there was beautiful. I ended up ordering the fish with creole sauce and my mom got the barque chicken. Our meal came with salad, plantain and mac and cheese and for dessert we had chocolate cake. Everything was really good even the orange juice we were given which I had to find out what it was mixed with because it didn’t taste like regular orange juice it had a hint of cherry in it (she added a grenadine type of syrup).

When we were done we took a few pictures and then got some goodies from the store. My mom got the chocolate perfume (which smells amazing), the plantain chips with chocolate drizzle, chocolate banana bread and a big chocolate chip cookie. I got a mug and dark chocolate covered pineapples. We got our chocolate bars we made, thanked everyone there and I braced for the hour and 10 minute drive back to the Airbnb after feeling good and full. It seemed like a long ride home as we got rerouted a couple times but by the time I pulled in and parked I was thanking God that I won’t need to drive that far again until we turn the car in at the airport when we leave. My mom and I both agreed we had a fun filled day but that we were exhausted.

We came in and sat down and watched Youtube for about an hour before posting/writing about today’s events. We’re going to have our leftovers from yesterday’s dinner for dinner tonight. We’ll probably try to get to bed at a decent time tonight because we have our all day tour tomorrow that was rescheduled from Thursday and we need to meet them at 8am at a hotel that is about a 20 minute drive away from us. One thing’s for sure, we’re getting around town and people are quite impressed by it. And no we are not going to the Friday night party that everyone asks us about that is apparently a thing here in St. Lucia. We don’t feel comfortable driving at night here and apparently there would be a lot of people there. So many things you have to think about like driving, parking, driving (lol) and I can’t.