A long, but fun tour..St Lucia 5/27/2017

Our visit to St Lucia began in Castries, the capital.  St. Lucia is part of the Lesser Antilles, located closest to Barbados and Martinique.  It is larger than St. Barts, covering 238 sq. miles with a population of 165,000 (2010).  Originally founded by the Spanish, It has been under both French and British rule seven times each.  Eventually it became a member of the Federation of the West Indies in 1958 and finally, in 1979 it became an independent state of the Commonwealth of Nations associated with the United Kingdom.

 

We found St. Lucia is markedly different when compared to St. Barts.  Where St Barts tended to more arid, St Lucia was covered in lush vegetation of all kinds; it gets 120 inches of rain annually.  It is green with great splashes of color – flowers everywhere!  We also found St Lucia to not be as upscale and expensive.

We took a very long tour (so long, we missed the all aboard curfew, causing the ship to be a few minutes behind schedule for our planned departure time!)  We toured a number of the small fishing villages; they have small downtown areas that border the ocean.  The buildings were very colorful as were many of the small boats found on the beaches; fishing is a common livelihood for many in St Lucia with bananas being their primary export.  Most of these go to the UK.

Like St Barts, tourism is very important to the local economy.   We visited Morne Coubaril Estate.  Originally a sugar cane plantation, they produce cocoa and educate tourists about the local culture and history.  We learned about cocoa production along with enjoying a local meal of stewed chicken, a rice dish and breadfruit.  The estate still has a functioning mill used in the processing of sugar cane that is run by Donkey Power.

The next stop our tour was the Botanical Gardens which were pretty awesome.  Laura, our guide, pointed out plants/trees of great variety all growing very closely together.  Located within the gardens were the sulfur spa and mud baths/spa.  The Diamond Falls River has a very unusual gray color due to its origin in an inactive volcano.  It contains many different minerals that sometimes change in concentration, causing the color of the river to change as well.

The last stop on the land portion of the tour was the town of Soufriere (meaning Sulfur in Air) to board our catamaran back to Castries.  The drive there provided a good opportunity to view the Twin Pitons.  Our catamaran was not like any catamaran we have been on before... it was more like a party boat!  After a stop for a quick swim, they began serving the rum punch, and the dancing began, continuing all the way back to the Navigator.

Link to St. Lucia photos
St Lucia photos (5/27/17