Surprise FC St. Lucia Tour Pt. 2
So day 2 began with the team recovering from a day and night of drinking and partying like we were Pirates of the Caribbean. At this point I need to introduce some of the cast of characters on this trip.
We went to the tournament with 19 people, 14 players and 5 supporters. The supporters crew included a thick reds we'll call "T" who took on the role of manager/cook/money collector/person to cuss out the other team.
We also had 4 older gentlemen in the supporters crew who came along to lime and drink. This seniors crew would get up at the crack of dawn and go for their daily walk which would invariably see them return hours later, talking hard with beers in their hands.
We had a man who was a romancer of the elderly. He spent the entire trip securing his permanent residency from a German tourist. Like he wuk too had because he buss he groin muscle in the final game. "Get them Reggie!! Show dem how we does do!"
Among the other players we had about 4 rasta, and men who was “bunning it” like rasta, yuh swear is Morgan Heritage or Steel Pulse football side. The goalkeeper had a well manicured, pretty scalp, “too-too” plait ras that had me calling him a TCB rasta. He ras look like it was clipped-on like a tie I used to wear to church as a child. We had another Guyanese rasta, creatively called GT. GT moving like Capleton whole trip bunning fire on everything. The man eyebrows always angry even when he smiling.
When we got to the grounds the tournament was in full swing. We were one of three Trini teams in the tournament and the organizers put us in a group with two St Lucian teams and one of the other Trini teams. I might be biased but we played the better football in all the games but alas we fell to our old enemies, rum, ourselves and wasteful finishing.
I swear our team is like the dude who spend all night buying a gyal drinks, dancing with her, rinsing out she ears and then watching a next man carrying she home in the TT Rideshare. We lost the first two games and won the third....losing quite a few men to injury, including a man we call "Pull" who came on to replace a man who pulled-up and then Pull pulled a muscle on his second touch. Classic.
After the sourness of the tournament we decided to focus on enjoying St Lucia. We were fortunate that a St Lucian rasta hustler (we'll call "Richie") staying in the hotel found us and offered to act as a "tour guide". Unfortunate for him was that he was dealing with Trinis and we does out hustle hustlers. He took the whole team to Castries and ain't even get a Diana power mint, but here’s why.
Imagine this man invited he hard pan hustle brethren to come lime with us at a private birthday party at one of our teammates Airbnb. This man eat out half we pizza and drink out we Guinness while everyone asking “who bring this man?”. Richie that's who!
Hear nah, we moved as a clip and filled out every bar, the beach, the Massy Stores, souvenir shops, Karaoke...nobody girl chirren was safe from random Trinis chatting them up. It's probably a blessing we didn't go to the tournament boat ride on the last day which was scheduled to go from 10am to 7pm. That is not a boat ride, that woulda be a full work day of alcohol induced debauchery.
The last adventure was on the drive back to the airport. Our driver decided to take the back roads to avoid the stink traffic on the main road. This route took us up into the mountains which was terrifying given that Lucians drive like they're on a Formula 1 track. About 30 mins into the 15 min drive to the airport the driver pointed out Castries far below in the distance. Which would be great except the airport we were going to is before Castries.
St Lucia has two airports, a small airport in the North which was our destination and a larger international airport about 2 hours away in the South, which is where this clown was carrying us. Once we finished telling him about how his mammy make him, he turned the bus around and sped off in the right direction. It was here the madness unfolded.
We were approaching a gas station at a good speed when we saw this other maxi waiting to come out. Just as we were about to pass him this cacahole pulls out into the middle of the road about to hit our right side, possibly killing the player in the passenger seat with the most back hair I've seen in a long time.
Good thing our driver wasn't completely useless. The driver swerved into the on coming traffic lane to avoid the collision and swerved back to avoid a head on collision and going off the cliff. One touch of the brakes and we most certainly would have flipped and I wouldn't be here writing this.
Eventually we got to the airport. People had their liquids confiscated like normal and we journeyed home safely. All in all the trip was a success even if the tournament wasn't. Next year for sure.
TANA