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Part III: Donkeys at Cinnamon, you say?
Part III: Donkeys at Cinnamon, you say?
Part III: Donkeys at Cinnamon, you say?
A Forward regarding the Donkeys
This donkey thing is really getting absurd. I think it's time for me to back up and attempt to explain why I'm so obsessed with finding the donkeys, lest you all think I'm completely off my rocker (I probably am, but that's a different story for an entirely different sort of day).
See, it's not that I think the donkey, per se, is so great. Rather, it's the ability of these wild jackasses to roam freely, without impunity, from place to place on St. John.
According to rumor and supposedly authentic photographic evidence, they are on beaches, on trails, in the middle of the road, and at Caneel Bay, the swankiest resort on St. John. And they are welcomed in these places! These donkeys aren't owned by the man. No sir, they get to live on St. John, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and do whatever their little wild ass hearts please each and every day.
Last time I checked, these donkeys have it better than I do.
Compound my philosophical thoughts about the wild donkey with the fact that they were so elusive, and you have a recipe for obsession and compulsion, my friends. We all know we want most what we can't have... and I couldn't seem to find a donkey for the life of me.
It was made all the worse because we started mentioning our donkey-free status to folks around day five. People visiting for just one day from St. Thomas would casually say, "Oh, we saw those donkeys at Cinnamon," or "Donkeys were on the Leinster Bay Trail this morning."
Locals tried to make me feel better, saying "Well, they did ship some of the donkeys to St. Croix and Dominica, so they're not as easy to find as they used to be." Some told me to go to the East End, but everyone assured me they DO hang around the North Shore beaches. "Maybe check in the morning," they would say.
Thanks for the advice, but we were routinely the first to arrive at our selected beach each morning. I don't think punctuality was our problem.
Our donkey search became quite comical because we began to wonder if it was all a big joke, sort of like a snipe hunt. Maybe the local St. John residents and repeat visitors like to play dangerous games with people's minds, telling them to look for the donkeys when in fact there are no donkeys to be found. Crazy indeed.
It didn't help matters when, everywhere I turned, I saw a donkey on a postcard, on a calendar, in local watercolor art. I mean, come on! I saw donkey poo and donkey footprints in the sand everywhere, but couldn't seem to locate an actual, in the flesh St. John donkey.
The donkeys, oh how they mock me.
Day Five: Tuesday, July 10th:
We woke up on Tuesday with the sad realization that we were at the halfway point in our trip. We'd planned to do the Ram's Head hike coupled with Salt Pond, but we'd slept until 9:00 and they heat of the day was already upon us. We were exhausted from the boat trip the day before and the night spent at Woody's, so we decided to go back to the North Shore beaches and find something that tickled our fancy.
We drove to Hawksnest and got out to survey the scene. Hawksnest was beautiful, but already crowded by 10:30 am. I looked out a surveyed the coastline and spotted a beach just on the other side of a rock outcropping, I asked a resident (visible by the tai chi ad on the side of her car) what beach that happened to be. "Why, that's Gibney," she says. "Is it nice?" I ask, in retrospect an insane question as all St. John beaches are nice, and she says "Oh, yes, it's a lovely place, but parking is kind of difficult, so it's not very busy." It sounded like my kind of place.
After putting our jeep in a ditch along the side of the road and walking through the white gate, we arrived at a lovely, crescent shaped piece of white sand with ample shade. We chose our tree and set up camp for the day. Once there, we didn't want to leave. We had lunch with us (pesto smoked turkey from Baked in the Sun) and stayed all day. The snorkeling was not very good at Gibney, but the views were beautiful:
And the trees were sturdy:
While at Gibney, we made a few friends of the crustacean sort:
Crustaceans: check. Donkeys: None.
Gibney was a wonderful day, and I recommend this beach for anyone searching for a little solitude.
Dinner tonight was at Zozo's. This was our first reservation of the week, and I was looking forward to a delicious meal. Zozo's did not disappoint. I had the halibut special. The fish was encased in a pine nut crust and served over polenta with sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts. It was scrumptious. My husband had some sort of charred cow. I don't eat beef, so I generally don't pay attention to his entrees. He said it was good.
We hit The Beach Bar on our way home and met up with some folks from the New Horizons trip. We stayed for a beer and called it a night. We were back to the hotel by 9:30. Do we know how to party or what?
Day Six: Wednesday, July 11th:
Today was Trunk Bay day. I'd ordered my husband up and at 'em by 7:30 AM so we could get to Trunk before the two cruise ships in port at St. Thomas had time to disgorge their passengers and invade the loveliness that is Trunk Bay.
We arrived around 8:30 AM to a mostly empty Trunk Bay. We promptly jumped in the water with our snorkel gear and took advantage of the crowd-free snorkeling. I've never snorkeled at Trunk Bay before and was surprised at how good it was. I'd expected the corals to be a mess from all of the fin-kicking going on, but it was actually quite beautiful and healthy under there. Shortly after getting the water, we spotted this guy:
He came up to say hi and we stared eye-to-eye for a few moments:
Once eleven o'clock rolled by, we were starving (no breakfast because of our early beach call) and Trunk Bay was packed with cruise shippers. Why do people visiting for the day feel the need to scream from the beach to the water? I'm not indicting cruise shippers unanimously (I've been one of them before, but never again), but they appear to be the screamers. Wives yelling nagging comments to their husbands, children yelling to their parents, children yelling to other children. QUIT YELLING! End of that rant.
We ate lunch at Deli Grotto and decided to hit Caneel Bay. Our goal was to find Saloman and Honeymoon Beaches - we never did. I still don't know where they are, but I have the feeling we went the wrong way. Anyway, Caneel is a beautiful resort. At first, we didn't see the "registered guests only" signs that appeared behind every beach on the hotel grounds, but we realized after about thirty minutes of walking that we were probably not welcome on hotel grounds.
At that point, we were at what I believe to be Scott Beach, and it was a little late. Unless we swam back, we were going to have to walk on the hotel grounds. It appeared all beaches were public (by the signs that stated all chairs were for hotel guests only - they clearly contemplated that non-guests would visit the beaches). We ended up on what I believe to be Turtle Bay Beach, but maybe one of you could tell me for sure:
The snorkeling out there was very good, and we noticed some strange prints in the sand - not donkeys, but definitely a hoofed animal. It didn't take long for us to realize that two large bucks had been on the beach. The bucks were on the hillside behind Turtle, munching away on some grass.
Bucks: check. Donkeys: none.
We heard the donkeys might hang out at Caneel, particularly by the tennis courts. I don't know about that, but I can report they weren't hanging out there the afternoon of Wednesday, July 11th.
After a couple of hours hanging around Caneel, we went back to the Westin and chilled. We had a drink around sunset and took some nice photos:
Dinner that night was casual - feet in the sand at The Beach Bar. We were offered weed for the first time this trip. It wouldn't be a trip to the Caribbean unless we were offered weed! See, we get offered weed everywhere we go. I don't know if we look shady or what, but dealers in the Bahamas, St. Martin, Aruba, and now St. John truly believe we like to toke. We don't, and even if we did I wouldn't buy any in a Caribbean country, but apparently we look like stoners.
Day Seven: Thursday, July 12th:
We awoke on our last full day, sad but glad we had at least one more day. The weather on Wednesday and Thursday was strange. It never really rained, it was a bit overcast, but the sun was still casting shadows. We didn't have the brilliantly blue skies that we found earlier in our week, but relief from the sun was welcome.
Before heading out to our chosen beach, I asked my husband to swing by Cinnamon. We wanted to check it out, but we also wanted to look for donkeys. We walked all around in the campgrounds early in the morning, but not a donkey to be seen. I told you, they mock me. Either that, or they really don't exist.
We decided on Francis today. This beach was nice, but wasn't one of our favorites. There wasn't much shade, there were red bugs (connected at the behind in what appeared to be a mating ritual) everywhere, and sea conditions made for extremely murky snorkeling. I enjoyed my time on Francis, but I won't be in a hurry to return.
Not wanting to end our trip with a beach we didn't love, we went back to Maho, which was really our favorite beach. We sat under a large tree near the mysterious teal house:
We snorkeled the left side of Maho and saw some very cool marine life. This side appeared to be a fish nursery of sorts, as we saw lots of baby fish. We got to see a group of squid, which were very cool. We sadly ended our last snorkel and headed back for our sunset dinner at Asolare.
Before dinner, we went to Mongoose Junction to buy t-shirts and have a drink at the Gecko Gazebo. We headed to Asolare for our last supper and were ushered to our table around 6:45 (not rail side - that's what we get for calling too late).
In a word, dinner was... delectable. I can't think of a word strong enough to describe the food at Asolare. I loved it. We started with the appetizer special, panko-crusted prawns over Josephine's Greens. We stopped short of licking the plate. For dinner, I had a Mahi special, served with scallops, grilled asparagus and wasabi mashed potatoes. I thoroughly stuffed myself. I have no idea what my husband had. In fact, I'm not sure I ever looked at him once the food arrived. That meal was good enough to keep me company all by itself.
We topped off dinner with spiced bread pudding and coffee. Afterwards, we headed straight back to the Westin to relax and get ready for our early morning wake-up call.
Tomorrow would be a bad day - the day we would return to reality. This sad fact was only slightly mitigated by the fact that we were returning on a Friday and thus had a whole weekend before we had to resume the grind of work. But still, our house, while nice, isn't on St. John.
Before bed, I looked at my husband and asked "What time should I request the wake-up call?" I reminded him that it was not THAT long of a drive to the East End, and we could get it done before eight if we got up at six. Maybe we could find some donkeys?
He said, "...
You folks are just going to have to wait. My hands hurt from all of this typing.
Try to have a good day, but I know you'll be wondering: Did I ever see the donkeys? Would I be denied donkeyness? Did the asses make an ass out of me?
Stay tuned. Signing off with a gorgeous picture of Trunk Bay:
A Forward regarding the Donkeys
This donkey thing is really getting absurd. I think it's time for me to back up and attempt to explain why I'm so obsessed with finding the donkeys, lest you all think I'm completely off my rocker (I probably am, but that's a different story for an entirely different sort of day).
See, it's not that I think the donkey, per se, is so great. Rather, it's the ability of these wild jackasses to roam freely, without impunity, from place to place on St. John.
According to rumor and supposedly authentic photographic evidence, they are on beaches, on trails, in the middle of the road, and at Caneel Bay, the swankiest resort on St. John. And they are welcomed in these places! These donkeys aren't owned by the man. No sir, they get to live on St. John, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and do whatever their little wild ass hearts please each and every day.
Last time I checked, these donkeys have it better than I do.
Compound my philosophical thoughts about the wild donkey with the fact that they were so elusive, and you have a recipe for obsession and compulsion, my friends. We all know we want most what we can't have... and I couldn't seem to find a donkey for the life of me.
It was made all the worse because we started mentioning our donkey-free status to folks around day five. People visiting for just one day from St. Thomas would casually say, "Oh, we saw those donkeys at Cinnamon," or "Donkeys were on the Leinster Bay Trail this morning."
Locals tried to make me feel better, saying "Well, they did ship some of the donkeys to St. Croix and Dominica, so they're not as easy to find as they used to be." Some told me to go to the East End, but everyone assured me they DO hang around the North Shore beaches. "Maybe check in the morning," they would say.
Thanks for the advice, but we were routinely the first to arrive at our selected beach each morning. I don't think punctuality was our problem.
Our donkey search became quite comical because we began to wonder if it was all a big joke, sort of like a snipe hunt. Maybe the local St. John residents and repeat visitors like to play dangerous games with people's minds, telling them to look for the donkeys when in fact there are no donkeys to be found. Crazy indeed.
It didn't help matters when, everywhere I turned, I saw a donkey on a postcard, on a calendar, in local watercolor art. I mean, come on! I saw donkey poo and donkey footprints in the sand everywhere, but couldn't seem to locate an actual, in the flesh St. John donkey.
The donkeys, oh how they mock me.
Day Five: Tuesday, July 10th:
We woke up on Tuesday with the sad realization that we were at the halfway point in our trip. We'd planned to do the Ram's Head hike coupled with Salt Pond, but we'd slept until 9:00 and they heat of the day was already upon us. We were exhausted from the boat trip the day before and the night spent at Woody's, so we decided to go back to the North Shore beaches and find something that tickled our fancy.
We drove to Hawksnest and got out to survey the scene. Hawksnest was beautiful, but already crowded by 10:30 am. I looked out a surveyed the coastline and spotted a beach just on the other side of a rock outcropping, I asked a resident (visible by the tai chi ad on the side of her car) what beach that happened to be. "Why, that's Gibney," she says. "Is it nice?" I ask, in retrospect an insane question as all St. John beaches are nice, and she says "Oh, yes, it's a lovely place, but parking is kind of difficult, so it's not very busy." It sounded like my kind of place.
After putting our jeep in a ditch along the side of the road and walking through the white gate, we arrived at a lovely, crescent shaped piece of white sand with ample shade. We chose our tree and set up camp for the day. Once there, we didn't want to leave. We had lunch with us (pesto smoked turkey from Baked in the Sun) and stayed all day. The snorkeling was not very good at Gibney, but the views were beautiful:
And the trees were sturdy:
While at Gibney, we made a few friends of the crustacean sort:
Crustaceans: check. Donkeys: None.
Gibney was a wonderful day, and I recommend this beach for anyone searching for a little solitude.
Dinner tonight was at Zozo's. This was our first reservation of the week, and I was looking forward to a delicious meal. Zozo's did not disappoint. I had the halibut special. The fish was encased in a pine nut crust and served over polenta with sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts. It was scrumptious. My husband had some sort of charred cow. I don't eat beef, so I generally don't pay attention to his entrees. He said it was good.
We hit The Beach Bar on our way home and met up with some folks from the New Horizons trip. We stayed for a beer and called it a night. We were back to the hotel by 9:30. Do we know how to party or what?
Day Six: Wednesday, July 11th:
Today was Trunk Bay day. I'd ordered my husband up and at 'em by 7:30 AM so we could get to Trunk before the two cruise ships in port at St. Thomas had time to disgorge their passengers and invade the loveliness that is Trunk Bay.
We arrived around 8:30 AM to a mostly empty Trunk Bay. We promptly jumped in the water with our snorkel gear and took advantage of the crowd-free snorkeling. I've never snorkeled at Trunk Bay before and was surprised at how good it was. I'd expected the corals to be a mess from all of the fin-kicking going on, but it was actually quite beautiful and healthy under there. Shortly after getting the water, we spotted this guy:
He came up to say hi and we stared eye-to-eye for a few moments:
Once eleven o'clock rolled by, we were starving (no breakfast because of our early beach call) and Trunk Bay was packed with cruise shippers. Why do people visiting for the day feel the need to scream from the beach to the water? I'm not indicting cruise shippers unanimously (I've been one of them before, but never again), but they appear to be the screamers. Wives yelling nagging comments to their husbands, children yelling to their parents, children yelling to other children. QUIT YELLING! End of that rant.
We ate lunch at Deli Grotto and decided to hit Caneel Bay. Our goal was to find Saloman and Honeymoon Beaches - we never did. I still don't know where they are, but I have the feeling we went the wrong way. Anyway, Caneel is a beautiful resort. At first, we didn't see the "registered guests only" signs that appeared behind every beach on the hotel grounds, but we realized after about thirty minutes of walking that we were probably not welcome on hotel grounds.
At that point, we were at what I believe to be Scott Beach, and it was a little late. Unless we swam back, we were going to have to walk on the hotel grounds. It appeared all beaches were public (by the signs that stated all chairs were for hotel guests only - they clearly contemplated that non-guests would visit the beaches). We ended up on what I believe to be Turtle Bay Beach, but maybe one of you could tell me for sure:
The snorkeling out there was very good, and we noticed some strange prints in the sand - not donkeys, but definitely a hoofed animal. It didn't take long for us to realize that two large bucks had been on the beach. The bucks were on the hillside behind Turtle, munching away on some grass.
Bucks: check. Donkeys: none.
We heard the donkeys might hang out at Caneel, particularly by the tennis courts. I don't know about that, but I can report they weren't hanging out there the afternoon of Wednesday, July 11th.
After a couple of hours hanging around Caneel, we went back to the Westin and chilled. We had a drink around sunset and took some nice photos:
Dinner that night was casual - feet in the sand at The Beach Bar. We were offered weed for the first time this trip. It wouldn't be a trip to the Caribbean unless we were offered weed! See, we get offered weed everywhere we go. I don't know if we look shady or what, but dealers in the Bahamas, St. Martin, Aruba, and now St. John truly believe we like to toke. We don't, and even if we did I wouldn't buy any in a Caribbean country, but apparently we look like stoners.
Day Seven: Thursday, July 12th:
We awoke on our last full day, sad but glad we had at least one more day. The weather on Wednesday and Thursday was strange. It never really rained, it was a bit overcast, but the sun was still casting shadows. We didn't have the brilliantly blue skies that we found earlier in our week, but relief from the sun was welcome.
Before heading out to our chosen beach, I asked my husband to swing by Cinnamon. We wanted to check it out, but we also wanted to look for donkeys. We walked all around in the campgrounds early in the morning, but not a donkey to be seen. I told you, they mock me. Either that, or they really don't exist.
We decided on Francis today. This beach was nice, but wasn't one of our favorites. There wasn't much shade, there were red bugs (connected at the behind in what appeared to be a mating ritual) everywhere, and sea conditions made for extremely murky snorkeling. I enjoyed my time on Francis, but I won't be in a hurry to return.
Not wanting to end our trip with a beach we didn't love, we went back to Maho, which was really our favorite beach. We sat under a large tree near the mysterious teal house:
We snorkeled the left side of Maho and saw some very cool marine life. This side appeared to be a fish nursery of sorts, as we saw lots of baby fish. We got to see a group of squid, which were very cool. We sadly ended our last snorkel and headed back for our sunset dinner at Asolare.
Before dinner, we went to Mongoose Junction to buy t-shirts and have a drink at the Gecko Gazebo. We headed to Asolare for our last supper and were ushered to our table around 6:45 (not rail side - that's what we get for calling too late).
In a word, dinner was... delectable. I can't think of a word strong enough to describe the food at Asolare. I loved it. We started with the appetizer special, panko-crusted prawns over Josephine's Greens. We stopped short of licking the plate. For dinner, I had a Mahi special, served with scallops, grilled asparagus and wasabi mashed potatoes. I thoroughly stuffed myself. I have no idea what my husband had. In fact, I'm not sure I ever looked at him once the food arrived. That meal was good enough to keep me company all by itself.
We topped off dinner with spiced bread pudding and coffee. Afterwards, we headed straight back to the Westin to relax and get ready for our early morning wake-up call.
Tomorrow would be a bad day - the day we would return to reality. This sad fact was only slightly mitigated by the fact that we were returning on a Friday and thus had a whole weekend before we had to resume the grind of work. But still, our house, while nice, isn't on St. John.
Before bed, I looked at my husband and asked "What time should I request the wake-up call?" I reminded him that it was not THAT long of a drive to the East End, and we could get it done before eight if we got up at six. Maybe we could find some donkeys?
He said, "...
You folks are just going to have to wait. My hands hurt from all of this typing.
Try to have a good day, but I know you'll be wondering: Did I ever see the donkeys? Would I be denied donkeyness? Did the asses make an ass out of me?
Stay tuned. Signing off with a gorgeous picture of Trunk Bay:
Perhaps if you would have taken the weed you would have "seen" those jackasses - hehehehehehe.
Seriously, I love your writing syle. You make me feel like I was there with you. Which, I know I was not because:
#1 - I see jackasses everywhere I go
and
#2 - I would have been on that little broken down dingy next to the Beach Bar toking away-hahaha (I hope SOTB isn't reading this)
XOXO
Bug
Seriously, I love your writing syle. You make me feel like I was there with you. Which, I know I was not because:
#1 - I see jackasses everywhere I go
and
#2 - I would have been on that little broken down dingy next to the Beach Bar toking away-hahaha (I hope SOTB isn't reading this)
XOXO
Bug
Last November when we were there, there were more then a couple of male donkeys with yellow belts around their necks. I asked what the deal was and was told: "Don't ask, you don't wanna know." Then somebody told me. When reading your report I was thinking the Dominica/ St. Croix thing was maybe a children's fairy tale as to where they could be.
When you find yourself in a hole.... quit digging.
JT - Gasp! Well, I'm not terribly surprised. Humans always think it's their job to "control" animal populations. Not going to get into my feelings on such matters, as they are extreme and somewhat unpopular. No wonder the donkeys were elusive... they were sent to "live on a farm" like my childhood dog.
I love your report! You are so funny.
Yes, that was Turtle Bay beach you ended up on. next time, if you want Salomon and Honeymoon, stay to the left--you must have gone to the right. There is a trail out to the beaches that you can access from the left side of the main beach (Caneel).
My prediction...you extend your vacation though the weekend! I hope so, so that the report does not end.
Yes, that was Turtle Bay beach you ended up on. next time, if you want Salomon and Honeymoon, stay to the left--you must have gone to the right. There is a trail out to the beaches that you can access from the left side of the main beach (Caneel).
My prediction...you extend your vacation though the weekend! I hope so, so that the report does not end.
It's like looking in your soup and finding a whole different alphabet.
Boy, I hope you got to see at least one donkey...believe me, the 2-legged variety are alive and well in the business world!! (and Bug...I'm a SOTB member and AM READING this!!) 
