Wednesday, February 17, 2023 Celebrity Apex Cruise

Today we visit Basseterre, St Kitts which is in the West Indies. When I tell you this is the place to come visit, believe it! This is my first time here and when I get the chance to return, I will do so. It was a wonderful experience for us. We first went on a quick shopping excursion as our train excursion was at 9:45am. We got in port at 7am and could get off the ship at 7:30am. The real name of St. Kitts is really St. Christopher named after Christopher Columbus. We had about a 30-40 minute drive to the train. Along the way we learned much history about the island. We saw white Egrets (birds) who nest in trees. They came up from South Africa ahead of the hurricanes. We learned that sugar used to be the main export from the island. Now they make their money from tourism. When sugar was the main product, there were over 200 sugar plantations on the island. Now the only remnant of the plantations are large smoke stacks. There are green velvet monkeys that live on the island where gas is $6 a gallon. We got on the train to see the island and were treated to an 18 mile trip. We waved at school children who looked excited to see us on the train. They are in school from 8:30am until 3:30pm and all children wear uniforms, both private schools and public schools. There was something they do that I find encouraging and genius. They have projects there which from what I could see are single family units. The only people they allow to stay there have the ability to pay a mortgage. Once they pay for 25 years, the home becomes theirs. How awesome is that. Think of how great it would be if that could be done in other places. The minimum wage there is $400 a week in their currency. In our currency, that equals about $150 a week. Their currency is 2.67 to one US dollar. So Government workers who make $3,000 a month, that would be about $1,100 in US currency. Although they are poor, they are friendly and I am sure they make the most out of what they have. I saw a lot of homes that we would call sub-standard my some terms. Our tour guide even told us about a place where the homes were over $100,000 to live there. Even in the small county town I live in here in North Carolina, the average home costs more than that. One other fun fact I learned is that they keep the cows chained up! If not, they would roam around and tear up the area. Bad cows! I also saw a pig, dogs and goats while touring. Next time I would like to visit Nevis, which is only 10 miles away. Tonight, dinner was at Cyprus. I had a Greek Mezze Board and the Cypriot Short Ribs. Hubby had Grilled Octopus and the Greek Style Slow Braised Lamb Shanks.