Crucianize

Tag: nature

  • How my first time camping went

    How my first time camping went

    Hey everyone,

    Welcome back to my blog, today I’m going to talk about my first real-time camping, I emphasize on real because back in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands where I’m from there’s a tradition where families camp out on the beaches for Easter Holiday. My family has never gone but my father has put up a tent either in our front yard which is directly outside the front porch, the dog area where all the dogs are, or the side yard which faces the cottage on our property.

    Yeah, I grew up in a big house with a huge yard but the majority of it was down the side of a hill so not very useful.

    Anyway, this was my only experience with camping and we didn’t even stay a day in the tent because it was way too hot. My father would bring in a fan but it’s Caribbean humid and the fan did nothing for the sweat that would run down our faces, so we followed our mother back inside and left our father to his tent.

    20 or so years later and I have finally camped out for real but it wasn’t on a beach.

    I went here:

    Capfun Camping Le Grand Lierne in Châteaudouble, France.

    I know what you’re thinking…

    This is camping?! I’ve never seen a campsite like this before!

    This was my exact reaction when I was told we’d be going there to camp out.

    This campsite offers so many options for your camping needs you can get cabins for 4 people or cabins that are like mini-homes for 10/12 people or you can get the camping pitch where you bring your own tent which is what we did.

    Besides the camping aspect Capfun includes:

    A Waterpark:

    • Heated pool
    • Heated covered pool
    • Heated paddling pool
    • The Space Bowl which is a sensational water slide, upon entering you’ll find yourself in a large funnel and the person with the most laps wins.
    • Racer slides with three lanes so you slide side by side.
    • There is also a paddling pool with a snake water slide, for children younger than 6 years. They can enjoy pool time without any worry.

    The Waterpark opens from 9.30h to 20h – Swimming shorts are prohibited (boxers or briefs allowed). Toddlers must wear diapers specially designed for swimming.

    One interesting thing about the park was that the swim trunks I’m used to seeing back home were not allowed. Men and boys had to wear those tight swim trunks that looked more like underwear. I’ll have to show you a picture so you can see what I’m falling to describe.

    You must wear the bracelet provided by the park to enter the Waterpark area.

    A Restaurant

    A Bar

    A Gift shop/ Minimarket

    Washing Machines costs 6€

    Tumble Dryers costs 3€

    A Game room

    Children’s playground

    You can find more information here.

    You now know exactly where I went now I’ll tell you how I felt about this experience, before we even started getting ready for this adventure I was filled with so much anxiety. Being in such close quarters with so many people and the knowledge that I’d have nowhere to go to be by myself and decompress had me dreading the weekend.

    The Thursday before we would leave I asked my husband what kind of clothes I should pack and his response was anything I want which is not helpful at all. Keep in mind that it is June summer weather and I’ve never been camping so I was going in blind. I tried searching for information and it wasn’t helpful. I packed short sleeves, a strapless dress, one pair of jeans, and my short pants. I also packed the sheets that we would need, I looked at our thicker sheets and thought it’s summer we won’t need it…

    I was wrong, so wrong, I got everything wrong, it was cold and my clothing was inadequate for the temperatures. Our sheets were not thick enough at all. It was my worst nightmare. I stressed and stressed and felt like a failure because everyone else had these thick comforters and sweaters and I was there unprepared.

    On the other hand, I fully enjoyed my time there, without the few anxious moments I had fun and was not as drained as I thought I would be. If I needed time alone I could escape into the little zipped-off room in the tent and just relax and read a bit.

    My most notable moment of distress was when it started to rain and of blow-up mattress got wet so I couldn’t escape into our tiny room anymore. The noise of all the talking and children screaming and laughing really frayed my nerves.

    Luckily for me everyone wanted to go on for a little adventure and visit an old tower they were nearby, in the end, it was too far and we ended up going to a garden. I really enjoyed the fact that I could walk around by myself and not have all the noise beating at my head.

    Water Lily in Montélier

    While walking around the garden I came across some really interesting murals. I looked at a few of them with my husband.

    When we were leaving the garden we encountered two women removing decorations from a fountain, the children wanted to know why they were doing it and apparently they change the colors of the decorations every week. They also told us about another garden nearby that we could visit and off we went.

    This other garden had much more flowers, there were a lot of roses and crocheted things like snakes and spiders, there were also crocheted flowers!

    I really enjoyed this garden a lot.

    While at Capfun I did something I never thought I’d do ever. If you go back up you’ll we the picture of the slides in the Waterpark. Do you see that twirling three-lane yellow slide? It’s the Racer slide and I went on it twice!

    I’m deeply terrified of heights and deep water so going up those three flights of stairs to reach the top was nerve-wracking. My legs were trembling and I couldn’t turn around even if I wanted to because there were so many people behind me wanting to go on the slide.

    When we finally reached the top I was trembling but it was now or never do I got into the middle lane and…

    Off I went!!

    I won the race against my husband and son, the best thing ever, I enjoyed it so much I went for a second time, this time while I was coming down some of the water went up my nose and I decided that was enough.

    We ate at the restaurant our last night at Capfun and there was a Just Dance show playing, my son ever the extrovert decided he was going to dance every dance. It was adorable and I’m happy he’s able to do the things he loves.

    Our time soon came to an end and with it came a storm, there was so much rain and thunder the children were scared. I won’t lie but some of those thunders made me jump and wish I was home in my bed.

    The drive back was pretty uneventful but the scenery was beautiful.

    This was really a great trip and I’m glad I took those little steps out of my comfort zone.

    There was talk of going again and if we do go I’ll be more prepared.

    And there you have it my first time camping at Capfun Camping in Châteaudouble.

  • Overcoming my anxiety one step at a time

    Good morning!

    This year in September will make four years since I moved to France and I still don’t have any friends, not really anyway. There’s nobody I feel relaxed enough to send a text message to or call and just sit around talk and laugh almost everyone I know over here is through my husband and your husband’s friends are not always your friends.

    There is one woman who I occasionally share a “Bonjour” with that has no ties to my husband but that’s basically the extent of my French in public, “Bonjour”… I managed a “ça va” today because she and her son were not at school since last week Thursday and I did miss them. I wish so much that I can articulate what I want to say but at that moment I don’t even know what to say. I am honestly content just to walk beside them on our way to school and from school because it’s the loneliest feeling walking your child to school knowing you have nobody.

    I’m trying to change that by taking one step at a time because a giant leap is likely to do some real damage to the progress I’ve made and let’s face it I’m a cautious person and I need to be comfortable talking to someone or it will never happen.

    Moving on to another subject, years back I had another blog that I only used once because I didn’t understand how to use it, I finally merged it to this one so you can see my old blog post here My Hiking Experience. I kind of wish that I had more hikes to post about but we rarely go anywhere anymore. I suppose I could go out to the park when it’s warmer and beg to visit the castle since we haven’t been there since last year. I swear I’m going to be a chatty Cathy until I go to the lake and other nature sites.

    If I do get my way and I probably will I’ll be sure to post pictures so you can enjoy the scenery with us.

    Until next time!

  • My Hiking Experience on St. Croix, US Virgin islands

    Hiking to the Tidal Pools

    All of these pictures have digital artifacts, my camera was pretty old at this time and it made me sad that I didn’t even know why my pictures had those weird squiggly lines in them.

    Yesterday, December 30, 2012, my family and I hiked to the Tidal Pools on the Island of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.

    Let me start off by saying I had never been to the Tidal pools, didn’t know about them until recently even though I was born here and lived here my whole life. That being said I had no idea what I was getting myself into by saying I want to go on this hike.

    First I got up around 8 am and started to get ready by having a quick shower, I knew I was going to sweat on the hike, without a doubt, only a mountain goat wouldn’t sweat after walking for 2 hours. Yes, this hike was 2 hours to get to the pools and 2 hours to walk back from the pools. So I showered and started filling my bottles of water, no cold water only room temperature, it wouldn’t do to shock my system by drinking ice cold water after walking in the hot hot sun for so long. Water-ready, I’m ready, got a call that said my cousin wasn’t going to be able to come even though he was the one who knew how to get there and was going to drive some of us down there so we didn’t have to hike.
    He’s not coming again, so my mother was like “Oh well, I guess we’ll do something else” naturally I was disappointed, I wanted to see these pools and it was a big letdown after waking up so early and filling up the bottles…I didn’t want to stay home or drive around, that’s boring.


    I guess my aunt was feeling the same and my brother and other cousin had been there before, they knew the way so we decided to hike it still.

    It was a long drive to the road where we would begin the hike, it was located near the Carambola Beach Resort and Spa which is on the West end of the Island and we live more towards the East End of the Island. Yes, the Island is small only 82.88 square miles but when you grow up here it seems very big.
    When we were close to the resort I started to take some pictures because the view is beautiful, I was happy taking pictures out the car window when I caught a man jogging in one of them, I have no idea who he is but he is now a centerpiece of one of my photos.


    We drove up to the road, and started getting out of the cars, there were four cars in total, one car held me, my sister, one niece, and two of my brothers, the other car held my oldest sister, my youngest brother, my mother and my two other nieces. The third car held my aunt, my two cousins, and her two kids, the fourth car held my uncle, my other aunt, and their two kids. There were 19 of us in total and we were ready to hike this thing!

    My brother and my cousin would lead the group since they’ve been there before, my sister had also been on the hike before but she stayed in the middle in case the group got separated for any reason. We began walking, and it seemed we had been walking forever, it was fine, I had my water, my bag holding my camera and sd card wasn’t heavy and I had a good pace….until it started going uphill. That was the worst part of the Hike for me, going uphill. I got winded so bad, I honestly believe my heart was going to give out on me right there on the trail, the others were still going and I could see them but I had to take a rest, I wasn’t alone, my cousin stopped beside me and then everyone else stopped ahead, the stragglers came up to us and stopped too. I had been on a hike before, was much earlier in the year but I had done worse, I didn’t pack any water that time so this time I was prepared. I took sips of water and calmed myself, drinking too much water would have made me sick and probably cause me numerous problems on the hike including having to drain fluid somewhere in the bushes…I wasn’t interested in doing that so skip it I did.

    Taking our break

    The break was over and it was time to move again, it’s been about an hour since we started to walk and some of the group was very tired, I wasn’t feeling too bad after sipping my water, my heart was even back to normal, I did feel a bit fatigued though, we continued walking but on even ground with a few dips here and there, we came upon a beehive of African Killer Bees, everyone had to be very quiet so we can walk past there without agitating the bees. It was very tense because of the little kids, just the slightest sound can bring a bee out of the hive. There we were trying to pass by the hive in single file quietly but rapidly so no one is stuck by there for a long time. We passed there successfully and continued on our journey.

    Next, we had to walk by some tall grasses, it was such a pretty view that I stopped to take pictures, I told them to wait for me but they didn’t stop, I was up in the front so I wasn’t too worried about being left behind.

    View from the tall grass

    I should not have stopped, on the ground were hundreds if not thousands of red ants, and when I stopped they crawled up my legs, I hadn’t noticed but my cousin’s daughter was quick to tell me “You have lots of ants on your legs”, let me tell you the feeling was not pleasant, I started stomping and shaking my legs, brushing them off in hopes of getting these ants off but everywhere we walked there seemed to be more ants, we walked through some very tall grass that reminded me of scenes from the first Jurassic park, it was kind of amusing, the Velociraptors would be the red ants and they were biting!

    On and on we walked with these ants just crawling all over the ground and onto our shoes even while walking rapidly, we finally reached a dirt road where there weren’t as many ants and I immediately started stomping my feet and brushing ants from my sneakers, one ant already bit me and I was not going to allow any of the others the chance to taste my flesh.
    We walked down the dirt road for a good while before coming up to a stony beach, finally, some of the younger kids thought, the beach! But this was not the end of our journey.

    Stony beach before the pools

    Nope, our journey was to take us over jagged rocks and brave rushing water with big waves, our destination was not this beach. I didn’t even know at the time that the pools were on the other side of the jagged rocks so I took some pictures of the view, and it was a spectacular view, the hills in the background, the water, and the rock outlines made for a beautiful display.

    Then is when I learned that the Tidal pools I had walked over such treacherous terrain to view were some ways over on the other side of those rocks that can cut flesh and the waves crashed onto. I was game, terrified of slipping and being taken away to sea but still game.
    I have never climbed so fast in my life before, I felt like a monkey climbing for its life, clinging onto the rocks and looking for hand and footholds so I don’t fall into the rushing sea. I was thinking to myself is it worth it? I hope it’s worth it or I’ll be so upset.


    When I finally reached the other side, the view answered my question.

    My brother standing on the jagged rocks

     It was worth it, I had never seen such a beautiful rock formation before in my life, the water was reflecting off of the rocks and forming a moving sparkling show for the eyes to behold, the water was clear and you could see fishes of blue and black swimming happily along the bottom of the Tidal pool…this…..this was totally worth, tripping over tree roots, nearly suffering heart failure and being bitten by red ants. I will never forget such natural beauty.

    My youngest brother and oldest sister enjoying the Tidal pools