Thursday, April 26, 2012

Our little Trip To Paradise - Exploring The Island

The girls have never rented a car on St. Maarten, but we did so on Saturday, and as the driver, I now know why they hadn’t.  If you’ve ever driven in Italy or Spain, they are super courteous, drive-by-the-rules folks compared to the drivers there.  As best I could determine, there are no rules for the narrow little roads that are all that exist and the right-away belongs to the most aggressive driver – motorcycles often ride down the middle of the road between the cars.

There is one main road around the island and our primary stop was the open air market in Marigot, the French side capital, which included fish and produce on Saturday.  Here are a few shots of the market following the Boubainvillea at the resort.

 
Lots of cars and bad drivers.

Bev bought a couple of wind chimes made with bamboo, coconut, and palm to use on our boat dock.

While the ladies shopped, I made my only purchase of six bottles of various flavors of scotch bonnet hot sauce and hung out at a little snack bar called the Fruits and Roots.  I drank a couple of Caribbean beers and sampled their bull’s foot soup, which was actually made from close-to-the-hoof beef shanks and included yams – not sweet potatoes which we often call yams, but the very different tuber that is actually a yam and is white and not as flavorful or sweet.  The soup was very good and here is a shot of the Jamaican born owner and her place.

My six bottles of hot sauce were mango, curry, balsamic, exotic, tamarind, plain.

We had lunch in Grand Case which is supposedly home to many good French restaurants, but you wouldn’t know from the looks of the main street.


We ended up eating at LoLo Bar & Restaurant and had meals of BBQ ribs (actually grilled), chicken, creole shrimp, and Bev had grilled eggplant stuffed with chicken breast and Vienna Sausage – yep, you read that right.

It doesn't take a fancy cooker to turn out good food.

It looked like they took babyback ribs and cut them in half lengthwise.

It just looks like I got blue box Kraft.

It was all good, but not great and I couldn’t taste the Vienna sausage in the eggplant – major disappointment, plus my shot of it was a bust.  It began sprinkling as we left Grand Case and we were only able to get pictures of the famous Orient Beach before the serious rain came in.  Note the cruiser moored on the leeward side of the rocks.

We finished the day at the resort restaurant where the girls ordered from the lunch menu and I had the Seafood Linguini which had several types of seafood in a garlic white wine cream sauce.  It’s not impressive looking but it was delicious and had the same sauce as the stuffed grouper I had the first time and also enjoyed.

All-in-all a nice day in paradise.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.



Larry

4/14/12  event date

14 comments:

  1. I've ridden in a taxi on that island and that was scary enough, I can't imagine attempting to drive!

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  2. So many beautiful sights to see! i hate driving in new places, but sometimes it's necessary.

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  3. I want to be there right now!! What great photos, Larry - of everything.. the scenery, the hot sauce, the food!!!!

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  4. Larry, You took some nice scenery photos...giving me a feel for what it's like on the island. That seafood linguini looks great! Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

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  5. I love these posts, it's like being on vacation with you all!! It looks like you know how to have a good time & find the fun, out of the way places. Everything looks delicious and sounds super fresh & exotic. Yeah. I need to go there!

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  6. Thanks for the tour! One of these days we will make it to the Caribbean.

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  7. Another fun day in paradise. The seafood linguine looks and sounds creamy and delicious.

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  8. Just when you thought people didn't eat Vienna sausage anymore, voila, it's there.

    The French European's drive crazy wild and from what you said, the ones there sound the same as in Europe. They had little motor cycles that were very annoying in the traffic there too.
    Sam

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  9. We took a bus tour of the island. It was fine, but we didn't get many great photos because the bus didn't stop as often as we would have liked.

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  10. I've watched driving in Italy and Spain on BBC's Top Gear, and it just plain looks scary. And I don't scare easily. I'm glad you chose to go along with the girls this year!

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  11. Please, someone beam me away to there. It looks beautiful there and the drivers sound like the drivers in Chicago, Paris and the worst---Las Vegas! Thanks for the great photos, Larry and your travelogue, the best!

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  12. Hi There, Love the bamboo windchimes... I ordered some bamboo ones --and they sound so nice from the front of our house... I love that sound...

    Sounds like we wouldn't want to drive on St. Maarten...

    That bougainvillea is gorgeous....

    Sounds like you all ate WELL on that trip.
    Betsy

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  13. looks like a great day in paradise. lucky you!!!

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  14. Funny about the drivers. And the Kraft mac and cheese, too hilarious.

    But you gotta love a grill operation like that.

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