The Scenic Railroad

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St. Kitts is a pretty island - quite green, nice scenery.  We spent a little time in the morning walking around Basseterre.  I felt like I was walking around a real town, unlike Philipsburg where we just saw the shopping area.  Because of it's "realness", there was less shopping, but we did find one awesome glass store right off the Circus (modeled after London's).  Independence Square was a nice green public space to visit, as well.  Otherwise, not too much to do there!

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Our main activity of the day was a ride on the St. Kitts Scenic Railway.  We set this tour up through our ship's shore excursions.  It was expensive, but worth it.  The Railway was originally built to transport sugar back in the 1920's, and now it takes tourists on an 18 mile trip along the coast.  First we had a 12 mile bus ride, also part of the tour, with running commentary on a nicely air-conditioned bus.  I always appreciate those.  Then we were brought to where we would wait for the train.  Amid squeaking breaks, the little thing pulled up.  It only has five cars!  And there were so few people on our tour, they only took 3 cars out on our trip.  It was a really cute train, and despite the squeaking breaks and wobbling it seemed well taken care of.

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This trip was really fun.  The train cars are two stories tall, meaning you could sit inside on the first level (hardly anyone did, but it is air-conditioned), or upstairs in the open-aired yet covered upper car (where almost everyone was, though it was quite windy).  We got unlimited free drinks - I had banana coladas, yum.  A 3-person acapella choir circulated from car to car to serenade us with local tunes, a fun touch.  There was also running commentary on the sites we were seeing from a tour guide hooked up with a mike.  Each car has a bathroom too so you don't have to worry about that, either.

Part of the fun was the large amount of wobbling our car did!  That made it interesting when you wanted to walk around.  I appreciated the views as we traveled the island in a clockwise direction - the ocean to the left, the central mountains the the right.  We went through sugar cane fields, over small steel bridges, and straight through little towns.  Another great thing about this trip was the children.  Anytime we would pass a school, little kids would come pouring out to wave at us.  Super cute.