May 2010 Archives

Two Peaks

By Susan on May 30, 2010 11:10 PM | Add a comment!

The two volcanic peaks of St. Lucia (the Pitons) each ask the same question: which is gonna blow first?  But in the meantime, they are a striking view, and local college students are employed at a volcanic park to take tourists around some of their small sulfurous vents.  The working-class town of Soufriere, seen below, is directly in the path of a pyroclastic flow should even a moderate eruption take place.

More from a drive around St. Kitts

By Susan on May 29, 2010 12:11 AM | Add a comment!

Continuing yesterday's post, more musings from a drive around the Caribbean island of St. Kitts this January.   Returning to the theme of houses, the photo below illustrates how neat and clean most neighborhoods here seem to be. Also notice the christmas lights hanging from the roof on this one. In the distance, the sign for a music and movie shop that is run out of one of the homes. The red signs are for the Labor nominee who would eventually be re-named Prime Minister in elections this year.

Further toward the north of the island the towns got smaller but some were nestled in hilly portions of the coast. The roads as you can see are very well maintained.Well, the road is very well maintained - there is only one that goes around the island.  The yellow sign below is for the hopeless losers of the recent battle, the party which has been out of power as long as anyone can remember. 

One recurring story of the Caribbean that I saw over and over again on island after island is the near-total destruction of the agricultural economy. St. Kitts was no exception, with abandoned sugar cane fields everywhere. The photo below is of an abandoned Coconut plantation. Sugar cane markets collapsed in large part due to the rise of corn syrup as a sweetener, its cheap cost heavily subsidized by the United States government.

Near this coconut plantation is an old colonial French Church. Though St. Kitts ended up in British hands (now independent, but part of the commonwealth) it, like many islands, changed hands many times. 

And finally a wide shot of the St. Kits northwestern coastline, empty of plantations and with only a few people, Dutch Saba in the distance.

Coming soon: photography from several other Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico.

Passing by on the truck in St. Kitts

By Susan on May 27, 2010 7:56 PM | Add a comment!

A few months ago I was in the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, and due to a raucous Nomination Day our guide took us on the reverse route around the island.  On the way we passed many of the ramshackle seaside dwellings typical of the Caribbean. Though these houses sometimes look like shacks, in reality they are carefully put together, and families live in them for generations, replacing parts over time. Others are solidly built from concrete but remain modest in size. So close to the sea - everyone on this island lives right on the edge of the ocean, as the middle of the island is an inaccessible volcano - I had to wonder what would happen in the case of a major hurricane. I can't imagine many here would fare well. But for now, it remains generally sunny on St. Kitts, and the houses are surrounded by flowers.

And as we rounded the north end of the island, the houses disappeared and the open stretches of the old sugar cane fields revealed a stunning view of the Dutch island of Saba. I swear, half the islands in the Caribbean look as if they are about to explode.

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Welcome to Northern Word, the online home of writer/photographer Susan McNerney. Here you'll find nature and travel photography, thoughts on writing, travelogues and other snippets. Susan is originally from California's Redwood Empire and now lives and writes in Minnesota.

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Don't miss Susan's travelogues - A Week in Rome and A Great Southwest Road Trip, both chock full of pics and travel details to Italy and the American Southwest.

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