The Vikings’ Caribbean conquest
Are you ready for 50 shades of green?, asked Chriselda, our ‘Nature Interpreter’, as we took our places in the aerial tram. Soon we were soaring silently through the rainforest. The only sounds were the calls of birds and the river dashing through the ravine as we sailed by to a lofty peak with views to the sea.
Chriselda pointed out striking and strange plants, from massive buttress roots to the giant ferns, strangler figs choking their host trees and hanks of hanging vines.
We passed hummingbirds, hovering inches from our cameras.
This was Castries Waterworks Reserve, St Lucia’s gift to their head of state, the queen.
However, for over a decade, from the mid-1970s, the natural forest reserve established to protect the capital’s water supplies had an anti-establishment reputation as the home of a community of Rastafarians.
They renamed it Zimbabwe, built villages, kept goats, grew vegetables and tended their cannabis plantations.
My cruise aboard Viking Sea had started in Puerto Rico and would hop through the Lesser Antilles islands to Barbados.
After two flights to get to the ship, and an overnight stay on board in San Juan, the capital, there was a day for us to acclimatise and take a walking tour of the Old Town.
I discovered that the streets, lined with colourful houses, were cobbled with dark blue bricks, shipped over from Liverpool in the 19th Century.
We stood outside Barrachina restaurant, where, it is claimed, the Pina Colada cocktail was invented in 1963.
The next day we sailed into church-filled Frederiksted on St Croix in the US Virgin Islands.
St Croix has had a chequered history under the rule of Spain, France, Britain, the Knights of Malta and Denmark until it was sold to the US in 1916 made my head spin.
To cool off after climbing to the ramparts of the faded red fort, I went for a swim in the Caribbean from the town beach, a few minutes from our docking place.
Returning from a hot and sunny excursion, it was a delight to step back on board and into The Living Room, our Norwegian familyowned ship’s cool, two-deck-high atrium.
Similar to the lobby of a Scandinavian boutique hotel, it has wool throws over the backs of modern furniture and interesting artefacts on shelves. Its quiet corners for reading by day, and musical performances in the cocktail hour, made it one of my favourite spots on the ship.
Wandering around the vessel on the first afternoon I found no casino as you’d expect on a cruise ship, but a museum on the legacy of the Vikings. I was fascinated to discover that the logo for Bluetooth wireless technology is a bind rune – an amalgamation of the two initials in the Old Norse alphabet of the 10th Century Danish king Harald Bluetooth.
In addition to a big choice of excursions that can be booked for an extra charge, there is always at least one included in the fare at every port. Wine and beer is complimentary with lunch and dinner.
On St Kitts I took a train ride in an open-sided carriage around the coast, past abandoned sugar mills fields and through villages while a trio sang spirituals.
Back on board it was time for lunch, and rather than going for the international buffet in the World Café, I went to Mamsen’s for smorrebrod, open sandwiches piled with shrimps, egg mayonnaise or cold meats followed by apple cake or a waffle, all popular Norwegian dishes.
The contrast between life on board cool, calm Viking Sea and the colours, sounds and sun on the islands we visited is a winning holiday combination.