Video: Chilling in ARUBA

Here’s a video from our trip to ARUBA in November🌴
A bit longer video this time, I thought of making it into two, but eh, whatever:)
A very relaxed longer weekend with friends, beach time, snorkeling, frozen drinks and I did morning dances and yoga.

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Have an Awesome day!

we are back from Aruba

November 21, 2019

We came back last night. We’ve had such an amazing and relaxing trip, Aruba treated us well🌴
I tried to update the blog while we were there but the internet wasn’t great and I didn’t get it to work enough to post here and I didn’t bring my computer this time. I guess the island wanted us to stay off our phones:) More from our trip will come. 

Hiking Piton

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One day on our trip to St Lucia, we decided to book a taxi through the company, Real St Lucia Tours, that we booked to pick us up at the airport. A friendly guy came right on time and drove us down to the Piton mountains. It took about 1.5 hour from our hotel to drive to Soufriere. There we got introduced to our guide Stanley, a 53 year old Rastafarian, skinny man in very good shape who had climbed up and down the mountain for 14 years, sometimes twice a day. He was a fun dude. Most of the things he said was probably just random blabber and not true, but it was fun.

We started our Gros Piton hike with a lot of confidence. We were told that healthy people make it to the top and down in about 4 hours and that most people don’t actually make it to the top. Stanley told us about a heavy woman that wouldn’t give up and made it to the top in 8 hours! And then she had to go down too. When we had walked about a third of the hike we met a man who had given up before halfway. Stanley had a whole speech to this man about losing weight, hahaha. 

The mountain isn’t that tall. We have been up the Vesuvius mountain in Italy which is almost twice the height so we thought this would be easy. O.M.G! The hike requires actual climbing too. Large steps on rocks straight up. My hamstrings and knees were really tired and ached right before the top, but I had a lot of energy still. Jim was kinda dying:) But he also carried a backpack with 2 liter water, I only had my camera bag. 

We finally made it to the top. Beautiful view! Totally worth the hike up there. We took some photos, ate bananas and saw the rain coming toward us. I had energy left and didn’t want to sit down and get tired, so I told the other two to get moving. Oh man, the hike down was horrible. Going down is supposed to be the easy part of the hike and should take less time. But my short legs just couldn’t do it. The guys were way ahead of me. I had to lean on every single thing I found and sometimes slide down the rocks cause my knees couldn’t handle it. 

When we had about 5 more minutes to the end, it started to pour down on us. We then met another couple that was going up. I’m very curious if they made it up. Wet rocks can’t be easy. 

I’m very proud of my husband and myself. We made it to the top and back down in 3 hours and 15 minutes! And we thought we were slow. I think that’s pretty awesome! The next day, when we went on another adventure, our legs were very sore. And the day after that, I could not walk…at all, haha.

piton-mountains-thisisfanny2016-01The view from our drive to the mountainspiton-hike-stlucia-2016_03 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_04View from the first stop, about a third of the hike
(The top photo in this post is from halfway up)

piton-hike-stlucia-2016_06 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_07Near the top we met two dogs that was on their way down.
Apparently they go up and down all the time.
piton-hike-stlucia-2016_08Our clothes were soaked in sweat!
(and Stanley was dry, haha)
piton-hike-stlucia-2016_09 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_10piton-hike-stlucia-2016_02The rain is comingpiton-hike-stlucia-2016_13 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_05 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_11 piton-hike-stlucia-2016_12Finally back down, starring at the mountain we just climed

Two videos. Let them load fully before watching:

8 days on St Lucia

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Our trip to St Lucia was a last minute decision since my husband found out that he had an extra week off before starting his new job. So we thought we could make this a very relaxed vacation. But that’s never how it turns out to be, haha.

The flight was delayed and when we finally got to our hotel resort, St James’s Club Morgan Bay, it was almost dark. We got to eat, walk on the beach and then it was night. We decided to make Friday, our first full day there, a relaxed hotel day. The weather was hot, drinks where full of sugar and food was great. We spent most of our hotel time up on the hill by the grownup pool. Quieter, no kids allowed, barely anybody else and perfect view. In the evening we booked a table at the Bambou restaurant which had great food.

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On Saturday we started out trying the famous St Lucia Cocoa Tea in the hotel cafe. By lunchtime we decided to take a taxi to Rodney Bay, a community north of our hotel. They had shopping malls and a casino, that was basically it, so we went for a walk more north to a gorgeous beach with clear blue water. We didn’t stay there for long, cause we had a reservation to get back to, but it was very nice.

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Our hotel had one fancier restaurant, Le Jardin, that wasn’t included in the all-inclusive that we had heard had great food, so of course we made a reservation there for Saturday night. The food was indeed really good and I ate way too much, haha.

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We got up early on Sunday morning to have time to eat a little breakfast and pack our bags before our taxi that we booked via Real St Lucia Tours (same company that we booked to pick us up at the airport) came. It took us about 1.5 hour to drive down to the Piton mountains. There, we met Stanley, a Rastafarian skinny man, who was our guide for hiking/climbing Gros Piton. A separate blog post about this day: HERE.
Sunday was a holiday on the island. A Creole Festival to celebrate the history and their language. On our way to the mountain we drove by locals that sold food along the roads and we had decided to get some food after our hike. But in the end of the hike it started pouring down on us and our entire drive back to the hotel was a wet mess. Not a chance to sit outside to enjoy some creole food and most people had packed up their things. So we were hoping that the hotel would have some good creole food, but nope, it was French or Italian night or something. A little disappointing, but oh well.

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Monday started early as well. My husband and I, together with 6 other hotel guests jumped on a speedboat and went on a fun adventure. Beautiful view, bat cave, mud bath, waterfall, snorkeling and lunch at the guys house to mention some of it. Separate blog post about this will pop up soon too.

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After two very active days we decided to hang out by the pool and do nothing all of Tuesday. We borrowed a double kayak and went out for a little bit, but it was kinda wavy so we didn’t stay out for long. The Bambou restaurant was our only option for dinner that night. They had a new menu and the food was great just as the time before. All through dinner we watched the lightnings out on the ocean which was kinda cool. A light show that continued on til the next morning.

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It was raining on the first half of Wednesday which was kinda boring, but at least it was warm:) After breakfast, we ran over to the gym and stayed there for 1.5 hour. After that we just hung out in the pool, in the cafe or at the bar. So, we had another full day at our hotel. We wanted to go paddle board in the afternoon when the rain had stopped, but they only allowed us to go kayak. So we got a single kayak each and I noticed how much I liked it and how fun it is to paddle fast:)
On Wednesday nights they have a “beach party” where they serve the food on the beach and perform, which we had heard was fun. But since it rained earlier in the day they had to serve the food in the normal area and the performances where in the hotel theater. We stayed up quite late sitting at the theater bar.

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Thursday was disappointing. We booked an excursion through the hotel to go zip lining. Both me and my husband were excited since neither of us has done that before. 12 zip lines in the rain forest sounded awesome. It started to rain halfway there, but it didn’t bother us, because wet zip lines means that they go faster. They had told us it was a 15 minute drive, but it took over an hour. When we got there we saw that the road was about to get flooded. We could maybe get to the lines, but not be able to leave, so, we had to turn back. Another hour driving, 7 disappointed tourists and one extremely happy tourist who didn’t like rain (?!). We spent the rest of the day reading books, playing beer pong and eating food at the hotel. The rain stopped at night which was nice since we had a table at the Morgan’s Pier restaurant. The night ended sitting by the bar talking to people we had got to know. Not a bad day, but disappointing. 

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I got out of bed when the sun was up on Friday. I had already kinda packed the night before so I just put my bikini on and went to the pool up on the hill. Seemed silly to be by the pool so early, haha. Perfect sunny morning and I could enjoy getting a tan. I had been so careful all week covering myself up, so on my last day I just put sunscreen on and sat on the chair hoping to get some color in my face.

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The taxi picked us up at 10am, which turned out to be waaayyy too early. I asked J if we could sit outside at the airport for an hour or so to enjoy the view and the sun before we check ourselves in, but he insisted on that we could find an outdoor area once we checked in. Little does he know that those doesn’t exist (which I knew, but he doesn’t listen). Oh well. What would one more hour do really. 

This spontaneous vacation was awesome!!! I loved every second of it, even if it rained for two days and we didn’t get to zip line. A perfect getaway before Jim stared his new job. Now, we are done traveling for a while. Or, at least til Christmas when we most likely will fly to Chicago.
St Lucia is beautiful and I can really recommend it!

We’re on St Lucia island

We are having an awesome time here on St Lucia! It’s so beautiful! We are enjoying every second of this island and so far the food has been really good, people are nice and of course the views are outstanding! Right now we’re having Irish coffee in the hotel cafe reading books. Very relaxed which is perfect after our busy day with hiking:) Perfect vacation so far! 

Vi har en fantastisk tid har pa St Lucia! Det ar sa vackert! Vi njuter av varje sekund av den har on och an sa lange har maten varit riktigt god, manniskor ar trevliga och sjalvklart ar utsikerna helt otroliga! Just nu sitter vi med Irish coffee pa hotellets cafe och laser bok. Valdigt avslappnande vilket ar perfekt efter var dag med hiking:) Perfekt semester hittils!