Trip Report with pictures - 12/3 thru 12/10

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Trip Report with pictures - 12/3 thru 12/10 #5561 12/24/2006 01:24 PM
Joined: Mar 2006 Posts: 161 Atlanta, GA AZCowboy OP Traveler
OP AZCowboy Traveler Joined: Mar 2006 Posts: 161 Atlanta, GA	I apologize for the delay in getting this trip report posted, but we have been quite busy since our return. And this trip report took some time to prepare. Flights Flew Delta direct from Atlanta to SXM on Sunday 12/3, and the flight was uneventful, other than to say it was half empty, as apparently storms in other parts of the country prevented many with connecting flights to make our flight. Arrived at SXM to park on the tarmac and bus into the terminal. Immigration was backed up with only 3 stations open. It took nearly a half hour to clear immigration, and our bags were waiting for us, as was Unity for our rental car. The return flight was likewise uneventful, taking off on time and arriving a little early. This flight was almost full. Love the new airport. Everything besides immigration ran smoothly (I understand there were some purposeful "work slow-downs" going on with the immigration officers, but I don't have any facts). Sunday 12/3 After picking up our RAV4 from Unity, we headed to the Royal Palm to pick up a phone from Sharon. Then on to Food Express for bottled water, a case of Caribs, and a six pack of Stella Artois. Proceeded toward P'burg, thru Middle Region, Orleans, and on to Orient Bay. Stopped by the Cap Caraibes Real Estate office in the village, they were closed, but had left us a note to go to the hotel office. From there, we met Carol who took us to our villa - Villa Antilia. Here is a picture up the hill from Orient Village. As with all other pictures in this post, click on the picture for a larger image. Here is a close-up of Villa Antilia (does anyone know the names of the neighboring villas?) We booked the villa through Sandy Molloy. The villa is as advertised on the website, except that it didn't have a blender. When we asked Carol about it, she didn't seem to care. The one thing the website doesn't emphasize is how great a view the villa has - 180 degrees across all of Orient Bay. Just gorgeous. We only rented it as a one bedroom, and it appeared that the second bedroom was in the process of some minor water damage repair. The furniture from this bedroom was stacked up in the third bedroom. Here is a compilation of photos to create a panorama showing the view from Villa Antilia. It is kinda a reverse of Ed and Sandra's panorama, but not as high quality... Caution: the linked picture is just over 1 MB. After unpacking, we sat down on the patio with a beer. I booted up the laptop and was pleased to find an open wireless connection from our next door neighbors Green Cay. I was able to post a message on TTOL, then we were headed off to dinner. Through the rest of the week, I was never able to get a strong enough signal to connect again. As is our tradition, we went to Talk of the Town in Grand Case for our dinner the first night there. Wonderful, as always, ribs and shrimp with sides, and cold Caribs. After dinner, we walked down to Calmos Cafe to put our toes in the sand and few drinks. Then back to the villa to settle for the evening. Monday We started the day with our trek to Grand Marche for supplies. We purchased food for breakfast and lunch through the week, and dinner for two nights. After unloading the food at the villa, we headed down to Orient, parked at Bikini, and walked down to the Perch for Caribs. Bout the time we sat down, I noticed a storm approaching, and we decided the cover was better at Pedros than the Perch, so we headed back up the beach. Moments after reaching Pedros, the sideways rain started to come down. After the brief storm passed, we made our way back to the RAV4 decided to stop by the pub by Tap 5 for a Stella. Unfortunately, the ownership of the pub must have changed, and it is now kinda "girly", with pastel shades - and no more Stella. We settled for a few Carlsberg draughts, grabbed a baguette from the Tap 5 bakery, and a thin crust pizza from Tap 5 Pizza, and headed back to the villa for the evening. Tuesday We were slow getting moving, but eventually made our way down to the Club Orient beach and found some chairs. With the beach erosion, it really made the Club Orient beach packed. Also noticed that this time of year, the sun stays low and is quickly behind you, which made it difficult to optimize the view of the bay and good tanning angles. We brought our soft side cooler with Caribs and some snacks, and sat on the beach all day. After the beach, we stopped into La Chappelle, and found they have Stella on tap, so we stayed and had a few of those. After returning to the villa, we used the new grill there to grill smoked pork chops. The smoked pork chops were a mistake, as they were as salty tasting as ham. We had excellent pork chops in the past, so I think I just bought the wrong ones. Oh well. Wednesday This was supposed to be the peak cruise ship day, so we decided to get a little adventurous (for us), and trek over to Petite Cayes for some private beach time. We parked by the dump, and headed off down the coast to find the trail. Just past the dump, you do have to climb a moderate hill, but the trail isn't hard to find (you don't have many options). Here is a picture standing half-way up the hill with the path in front. Here is a shot looking back toward the dump from the same place. Once past the initial hill and over a small meadow, you find a shore covered with piles of small coral rocks, which made walking exceptionally difficult. There were a couple of surfers there, but they had arrived by boat. After a challenging half mile or so tough walking, we arrived at the pretty little beach of Petite Cayes. But it wasn't private, as there were two other groups there. We went to the far end and setup camp. Here was our view to the west (toward Anse Marcel). And here was our view to the east. We had carried a cooler full of beer, a beach bag, and an MP3 player with travel speakers. At least for us, that was too much for the challenge of the walk. We stayed the day, and eventually made the trek back to the car. After showering and cleaning up, we headed down to Baywatch for Ameless' TTOL party. Can you find Ameless in this picture? Here are Marilee and I enjoying ourselves at the bar. And the full moon was watching over us. Here was my poor attempt at an artsy shot. Can you find the moon in this lengthy exposure? And yes, Marilee is showing some leg... I had the chicken parmesan, and Marilee had the linguini. Both were excellent. We stayed until the lights flashed, and headed back to the villa. Thursday We had talked about going to Happy Bay this day, but we were still whooped from Petite Cayes the day before, and ended up spending the day around the pool at the villa. For dinner, we had made arrangements to meet some locals whom we had met on a previous trip for dinner at La Chappelle. I had the mahi mahi, and Marilee had a ribeye. Both of our meals were excellent, and even with a few Stellas, the total bill was under $50. We chatted with our friends through the evening. Here is a picture I took on Thursday showing Pinel at the end of the rainbow. [img]http://www.dalliesin.com/azcowboy/graphics/Rainbow%20to%20Pinel%20t.jpg[/img] Friday We decided we would like a private beach, but weren't into the trek to Petite Cayes or experimenting with Happy Bay, so we packed up some supplies and headed off to Grand Cayes (not to be confused with Grand Case). This is the beach just off the road to the dump. We took the first turn offroad past the horse pasture and made our way (very slowly) down to the easternmost point of this beach. The view outward here is gorgeous, but there is plenty of garbage on the crest of the shoreline. We didn't let that bother us, and had a very enjoyable afternoon without ever seeing anyone else on this beach. In the evening, we grilled ribeyes, and they were excellent! We enjoyed the evening at the villa. On Friday, I snapped this picture of St. Barths. [img]http://www.dalliesin.com/azcowboy/graphics/St%20Barths%20in%20the%20distance%20t.jpg[/img] Saturday As it was our last full day, we felt like we needed more beach time. We decided to rent chairs at Bikini, and ended up spending all day on the beach there (except for an hour or two to return to the villa for lunch). That evening, continuing with our tradition, we headed back to Talk of the Town for dinner. This time, we added the red snapper to our ribs, shrimp, sides and Caribs. Another excellent, cheap dinner. That evening, we stopped by Waikiki for the Heinekin party. Can't say I enjoyed myself much, and we left before it got too late. By then, we were barely able to drive back up the road down to CoCo as the entire lot had filled with cars, and someone had blocked the only way back out to road. There were lots of people still pulling in, but they weren't going to have a way to get back out (except against traffic coming in on the one lane open). Sunday We grabbed some more sun at the villa pool, packed, and started our return trek. Dropping off the keys to the villa, stopping by Grand Marche for smokes to take home, dropping off the phone with Sharon, checking our bags in, and dropping off the car with Unity, we were back at the terminal. We had lunch at Quiznos in the unsecured portion of the airport, and it took over a half hour to order and get our food. After security, we visited the Rhum Jumbie bar, stopped by the smoking lounge, and then caught our flight. I should mention that we met a nice couple in the smoking lounge who just happened to be the owners of zebrabot.com, as well as the new adult toy store. Fascinating people (though we didn't catch their names). Miscellaneous We were fortunate to have a full moon rising over Orient Bay every night we were there. Here is the view that greeted us on our first evening... [img]http://www.dalliesin.com/azcow...sing%20over%20Orient%20Bay%20t.jpg[/img] And here is another of the moon peeking from behind the clouds later in the week. [img]http://www.dalliesin.com/azcow...g%20through%20the%20clouds%20t.jpg[/img] After the moon was higher, it cast a wonderful moonlight on the bay. [img]http://www.dalliesin.com/azcowboy/graphics/Orient%20at%20night%20t.jpg[/img] Staying in and around Orient the whole time, we never experienced any problem with traffic or crime. We had a great time, and wonder how long it will be before we are beckoned back to SXM. The bane of my previous trips have been mosquitos. Villa Antilia helped significantly as the pool deck is above the tree tops of the villa below. While I got a few bites at the villa, it wasn't too bad. Despite Mosquito Milk, though, I still got eaten alive the few nights we got out and about. I still haven't mitigated this problem I have with SXM. Til we see you again, SXM! [img]http://www.dalliesin.com/azcowboy/graphics/SXM%20from%20the%20air%20t.jpg[/img] French side rules!