St Kitts.

So sorry it's been a while since I've posted...but let's keep going!

The next morning we arrived in St Kitts. This was the first stop where we had an "official" cruise excursion planned - a trip on the island's scenic narrow-gauge railway.

We soon learned that official excursions tend to start like this - a long line:




Everyone on our excursion was eventually herded into shuttle vans:





for the drive to the "station," a big grassy area, which is where we first saw the train:




It's a doubledecker train, with an open-air seating area up top:




And a glassed in, air-conditioned, seating area below:




We were in the end car, so we had a little portico thingy at the end of the car. (I think it probably has a name, but I have no idea what that might be):




Anyway, we boarded the train, they passed out drinks of our choice (fruit punch, rum punch, coca cola, etc) and we watched the island go by. There was a nice lady doing commentary along the way.












There were a lot of fields of sugar cane, which are completely unused because it is no longer an export. Something to do with the industry being stopped because it no longer was profitable for the island (I think subsidies were stopped, or something, so the island could no longer compete on the open market). Dad might be able to remember what the commentary-lady explained. But here is a photo of one of them:




We also saw the prime minister of the island, who we passed along the way. Unfortunately we didn't stop, otherwise we might have been able to get clarification on the sugar cane issue:




We also saw some scenic goats, which I think had the greatest impact on our group (even more than the Prime Minister, I'm afraid!), since both Dad and I took almost identical pictures of them! Here's Dad's photo:




And here's my version:


We passed another type of tour of the island. A lot of people will hire taxis to take them around, or there are more colorful ways of looking around, like the tour bus below. You can't really see it, but I'm pretty sure the guy in the back seat was waving a spliff around for us all to see:




But of course, the best bit was the instructional sign in the train's toilet, in case any one was hoping to fill their pockets before leaving the train:





Next stop: Grenada!