Sadly, the third part of our Antiguan vacation began with a lot of goodbyes... Everyone who came to the wedding was leaving with the exception of Mark and I, and Jamie and Christina who were staying at the resort another week. We were en route to another area of the island... Nelson's Dockyard, where we would spend our last few nights in a hotel that is rich with history.
Before we said goodbye, however, we continued to explore the island and stopped at a quiet beach where I found what I had been craving the entire time... curried goat. If you ever get a chance, try it! I first tried it in Niagara Falls when we stumbled upon a Caribbean food truck and ordered curried goat roti... after that I was hooked.
Antigua, we discovered, is covered in mongoose, which were imported to the West Indies from India more than a hundred years ago to control an explosion of rats on the sugarcane plantations. They also eat snakes and have since wiped out the once thriving snake population.
After licking my plate clean and fending off the mongoose, we set off for the hotel but first made an impromptu stop at one of the many sugar mills on the island. Mark and I quickly poked our heads in to take a closer look.
(So, this is when we actually said goodbye and made our journey to Nelson's Dockyard, which was very, very pretty.)
We stayed at the Copper and Lumber hotel, one of the original buildings constructed by Lord Nelson. And, as the name suggests, it was used to store copper and lumber for ship building and maintenance.
We booked ourselves in here thinking this would be the romantic part of our vacation, but with me still being really sick and Mark starting to get sick too, it wasn't as enjoyable as we had hoped. We did what we could to practice mind over matter in an effort to make the best of our final few days in this beautiful, historic little town.
(Notice the outside wall?)
Thanks to the research my husband conducts when we go away on vacation, we knew there was a really nice beach nearby... and being sick will never stop us from finding the best beach. So, as awful as we felt (the heat didn't help), we set off on a mission to find it. It was a lengthy walk, but we made it and rewarded ourselves with strawberry daiquiri's to ease the sharp pain in our sore throats. It worked, albeit temporary it still worked, and the beach was indeed beautiful.
By the time we made our way back to the hotel, all we wanted to do was curl into bed, drink some tea and sleep, but because it was our last night and Nelson's Dockyard was home to some amazing restaurants, we mustered up the strength to enjoy one last meal... but no wine. And at the point at which we order tea with dinner in a place like this, you know we're sick.
- xomo