St Lucia, Windward Islands, Caribbean

Photo’s are here or you can just click on the photograph above.

St Lucia is an unusually popular island. It is massively successful at self-marketing – especially to Brits (who fly half way around the world to soak up the sun and escape the chilly British winters). Cruise shippers and honeymooners also flock there. It certainly has some unique qualities, but also one or two downsides. Not that I wish to be so churlish as to knock a week in the Caribbean but, for anyone who hasn’t been to any (or many) of the other far more spectacular islands, it doesn’t really deserve the top spot!

It is easy to reach the island from Miami and car rental with Islander Cars at Hewanorra Airport in Vieux Fort was a breeze – even the 4 wheel drive wasn’t the typical battered junker (which was a relief since our yankee best friends, Don and Sue, would be sitting in the back of it for the next 8 days).

A couple of weeks before leaving on vacation Geoff was thinking ahead to sourcing SIM cards for our cellphones. He called Digicel and Flow in various towns across the island only to discover that there were no SIM cards for sale whatsoever on St Lucia and there hadn’t been any on the island for over a month. Not to be deterred, on the off chance that we might find a store with a couple of old dusty SIM’s in the storeroom we stopped at a Flow store in Vieux Fort shortly after leaving the airport. Miraculously they located a couple of SIM cards so we wouldn’t be dead in the water after all! Second stop – food supplies for the villa. Caribbean supermarkets are often an experience well worth missing (memories of rotting fruit and veg in Anguilla’s supermarkets and slabs of unidentifiable goat parts and frozen pig ears still haunt us to this day 😉). Not wishing to be caught out again I planned ahead and discovered a French delicatessen opposite the airport exit called Faye’s Gastronomie. We stopped in for some basic supplies: fruit, salad, cheese, snacks, preserves, wine etc etc to tide us over for breakfast, a lunch or two and maybe enough for one dinner … $400. Little did we know that this would set the tone for the exorbitant price of food on the island … and the irony was that the larger of the Massy Stores supermarkets turned out to be just fine at a fraction of the price of Faye’s 🙃

We had rented a villa (Saba Villa by Janus) with a particularly impressive view overlooking the Pitons, the rooftops of the historic town of Soufriere (founded in 1745 and the birthplace of Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte), and the glittering Caribbean Sea. It was a world-class million dollar view. Once I’d worked out our bearings I realized you could also see the top of the collapsed volcano from the terrace. The view was mesmerizing. The rest of the villa needed a few tweaks!

The temperature in the villa was running roughly at 95°F when we arrived (I exaggerate only slightly). Air conditioning is somewhat of a luxury in St Lucia which is understandable on some levels but confusing on others given that some of the luxury hotels on the island are amongst the most expensive in the Caribbean and they don’t have AC either. To put it into overall context, St Lucia is hot and humid pretty much year long. March is considered a slightly less oppressive month and indeed the weather was picture perfect most of the time. But in a villa with very little natural breeze (even with all of the windows and sliders open) it did get rather toasty. Thankfully there was AC in the bedrooms (although ours struggled somewhat to keep up with the outdoor temperatures) but the moment you opened the bedroom door to the bathrooms, stepped out into the vestibule, or into the kitchen or living room you were effectively stepping into a sauna. As hardy Floridians we coped to an extent, but the Ohioans were positively melting.

Outside on the patio, in the pool, at the beach or out boating it was rather nice if there was a breeze blowing … but you could have fried eggs on our bathroom floor back at the villa even at 3am 🙃

Anyway, on to the positives! The Pitons. Two of the world’s largest volcanic plugs, worthy of their UNESCO World Heritage status, they are breathtaking from any angle.

I dragged everyone out of bed bright and early on the first morning after a sleepless night sweltering in beds which seemed to absorb and radiate heat like a cast iron frying pan. We soon discovered that earplugs would also be a must since we were treated to a 24 hour chorus of roosters, dogs and goats in the immediate environs around the villa.

Anyway, once everyone was up and about (but not particularly well-rested) I informed them we were going hiking on the Tet Paul Nature Trail to the Pitons overlook. We each paid our $10 entry fee and set off on the short 30-40 minute walk along a rocky path through tropical rain forest and up the “Stairway to Heaven” to the viewpoint. Before you reach the summit there are 2 observation points (one pavilion on the right at the start of the trail and a platform on the left of the trail halfway up). We saw pineapples and beautiful, brightly-colored flowers growing wild and the 360 degree views were fabulous. The view from the summit over Petit Piton and world-famous Sugar Beach was stunning. Conveniently, there is a strategically located rustic blue-painted bar at the summit where Geoff stopped for an early morning beer and we all lingered for a while taking in the views and catching our breath. Back at the car and suitably hot and sweaty by 11am, I had plans for us to get even hotter and sweatier!

One of the most hyped attractions in St Lucia is its volcano (La Soufriere) at Sulphur Springs – in fact – it’s the world’s only drive-in volcano. For those of us who have seen a few volcanos in our time (or even perhaps hiked one or two) the reality of the much lauded St Lucian volcano was somewhat of an anti-climax. As official tour guide I tried to drum up some enthusiasm for it but my audience were a very tough crowd. Of course the whole area by that time of day was swarming with tour buses ferrying people from the cruise ships on a whistle-stop tour of the volcanic highlights of the island which didn’t exactly add to the ambiance. And then on to the equally hyped mud baths (a snip at $15 per person). I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to talk everyone into stripping off into their swimsuits and caking each other in buckets of warm mud pulled from the river of grey mud flowing from the volcano mere feet away. We stood for a few minutes in the hot sun for the mud to dry and then wallowed a while in pools of water of various temperatures to wash it all off again. As promised by the advertising we all emerged 20 years younger and considerably softer. It was a lot of fun and, along with the Tet Paul Nature Trail, was one of the highlights of the island.

When in the Caribbean and in need of hydration, what better than to find a half-stoned local with dreadlocks and a large machete to hack the top off a freshly harvested coconut for you? We found just such a man lurking under a blue and yellow striped umbrella opposite the mud baths. It didn’t take long to discover that he was also selling other freshly harvested herbal products of a more potent and odiferous nature which obviously the boys felt compelled to invest in … when in Rome etc etc … 😊

We had a reservation for dinner at Mango Tree, Stonefield Villa Resort that evening which I was looking forward to since their sunset views over Petit Piton are wonderful. What the lady at the resort had failed to mention to me when I made the booking was that Thursday night was Caribbean buffet night. No good at all for non-meat eaters unless we wanted to pay $70 per person for some rice and beans. This left us somewhat high and dry for dinner in an area of St Lucia where almost every restaurant is either open only for lunch, or connected to a posh resort hotel where reservations have to be made weeks ahead of time. Ultimately, the choice was either oatmeal or cheese and crackers back at the steamy villa or the Seashell Beach Restaurant at the north end of Hummingbird beach in Soufriere. I was hoping to avoid this place because the reviews were all over the place and service was allegedly pretty patchy but needs must … the location is great, the sunset view over the Pitons is beautiful and the service was exactly as feared. It took at least 90 minutes for our dinners to arrive – some were edible – others not so … not a great culinary start to the vacation. Funnily enough we returned for dinner one day (also out of desperation) and it was considerably better – both the food and the service – so it wasn’t a total disaster of a place after all!

Friday – the beginning of my birthday weekend! To avoid the crowds we got up early again and drove a few miles to Diamond Falls at the Botanical Garden (most of the major attractions are very close to Soufriere which made it a convenient place to stay on the island). We paid our fee for the waterfall and the mineral baths and wandered off through the attractive gardens towards the sound of running water. The waterfall itself is a kaleidoscope of colors – part rainwater and part volcanic mineral-laced run-off fed by the Sulphur Springs – the stripes of colors at the falls are derived from sulphur, copper sulphate, magnesium, iron, manganese and calcium. I talked the gang into another therapeutic dip in the mineral hot spring baths where we luxuriated for 20 minutes or so during which time we shed another 10 years of age (but unfortunately not 10 pounds of weight). Luckily this early morning excursion was far better received than the drive-in volcano had been on the previous day. Lunch afterwards at a locally owned restaurant, Fedo’s in New Development, Soufriere was very good.

Late Friday afternoon we headed down to the offices of Mystic Man Tours at the Soufriere jetty to join the sunset cruise on board “Cool Runnings”, one of their catamarans. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky, the rum cocktails were flowing, canapés were served and Caribbean music drifted in the breeze as we sailed out of the deep harbor. Cruising past the Pitons, Sugar Beach and the spectacular St Lucian coastline turned out to be the absolute highlight of our week. If nothing else, you have to do this on St Lucia.

Birthday girl chose to head to the beach on Saturday morning where, after 2 very alcoholic piña coladas, she managed to convince herself that she couldn’t possibly be 58 years old after all. Our local beach was Anse Chastanet (of Jade Mountain and Anse Chastenet Resort fame). We strolled the coastal path at the end of Anse Chastenet beach to Anse Mamin where the bartender at Jungle Beach Bar and Grill was distinctly more generous than the bar tender back at the main beach bar by the resort. We swam and drank cocktails and ate grilled mahi sandwiches and all was good in the birthday girl’s world! 😊

Birthday dinner was booked at Treetop Restaurant and Bar in Crystals Villa Hotel which is one of the top rated restaurants on the island. It is accessed via a steep, dirt track (having said that absolutely everywhere is accessed via a steep, winding dirt track – hence the critical necessity of a 4WD car rental on the island). The ambience at Treetop is certainly unique – it’s quite literally a treehouse. The cuisine is Indian with a Caribbean twist and the views over the mountains, rainforest and the tops of the Pitons, was quite special. We were guided to a wooden trestle table decorated with colorful Indian fabrics and were seated at substantial dark wood “thrones” worthy of medieval royalty. They were so heavy, in fact, that it took 2 people to move each chair. The meals are set menus – chosen between meat eaters and non-meat eaters. The food was very good but the live music was so loud we could barely communicate. The female singer screeched at full volume through several renditions of well-known songs until we could take it no longer and asked our server to turn down the amp before we lost our hearing entirely. Thankfully she obliged and only later when the owner’s mother staggered towards our table clutching a large glass of red wine did we discover that the singer was the sister of the owner which kinda explained a lot 😉

The extended birthday weekend continued with a 4 hour snorkeling trip on Sunday morning – a private tour for the 4 of us with Sugar Boat Charters. We bounced past Petit Piton with Bob Marley and his gang wailing over the stereo system as we headed towards Sugar Beach and moored up at Anse des Pitons Marine Reserve. The water was clear, warm and the fish were abundant. On balance, I will concede that snorkeling in St Lucia is better than in many islands. The corals are in various states of living and battered but there are certainly plenty of colorful fish. Next stop – the reef fringing the beach between Anse Chastenet and Anse Mamin where the coral was in really good shape. There are also sea grasses where you might spot turtles grazing, if you’re lucky. We continued crashing across the waves to the sounds of Bob heading north until we reached Marigot Bay. The beach in Marigot Bay is very small and very crowded so we chose not to stop there but turned south again for a final snorkel stop at Anse Cochon. A fabulous day bobbing about in a boat in the Caribbean! Great music, excellent company and good snorkeling 😊

St Lucia is only 27 miles from north to south but the terrain gives new meaning to steep, winding and crater-pocked. Even Jamaica has better roads (which is something I thought I would never say) 😉 Still, there were places I wanted to visit along the west coast so we decided to tackle them all in one long day trip. Driving in St Lucia is not for the faint-hearted. Not only do the locals drive dangerously fast given the conditions, they rarely slow down just because there is oncoming traffic in their path and, to add an extra frisson of excitement, at either side of all roadways on the island there are deep storm drains. If you planted a wheel down one of them you’d need a crane to lift you out.

So the journey up north was an adventure – fraught with challenging driving conditions but enhanced with beautiful views. En route we stopped at 2 attractive fishing villages. Canaries is a small, authentic fishing village which was particularly pristine, colorful and charming. Uphill from the village we stopped for fresh smoothies at Adeline’s Art Cafe before continuing on to Anse la Raye (famous for its Friday night Fish Fry party). Anse la Raye is clearly a cruise ship tour destination given all of the stalls along the boardwalk selling t-shirts, bracelets and banana chutney. The colorful wooden fishing boats and the fishermen’s cottages at the north end of the beach were worth the stop alone. Onwards to Vigie Beach – the plan was to check it out in case we wanted to swim there on the way home after lunch. It was the first yellow sand beach we saw on the island. The majority are dark sand (often described as black) but not at all as spectacular as the black sand beaches of St Vincent which literally glitter in the sunshine. Most beaches around Soufriere are dark brown rather than pure black and the only “white” sand beach on the island (which isn’t really white either) is Sugar Beach (owned by the Viceroy Resort) and it is entirely manmade. Personally, I don’t rate St Lucia for its beaches at all. A quick stop for coffee at Cafe Ole in Rodney Bay Marina and then the final stretch up to the very northern point of the island for lunch at the excellent beachfront Naked Fisherman restaurant at Smugglers Cove in Cap Estate. The food was the highest quality we ate on the island and the small yellow sand rocky cove was certainly the prettiest beach we saw on the island. We swam there to cool off and didn’t bother returning to Vigie Beach. It was well worth the trip!

One more excursion – a few minutes down the road from Soufriere – to Toraille Waterfall. There are several waterfalls in the Soufriere area and some have better reviews than others. This is one you need to visit when it opens. You might think it were a bargain at $3 per person to enter but it was a 20 second stroll to the edge of the pool and the waterfall followed by 3 minutes in the water. It might not escape your notice that I’m the only one in the water 😉! It was very refreshing and worth my $3 investment but perhaps not so much for the others who refused to get their toes wet at all. Toraille waterfall is also on the cruise ship tour bus schedule and rumor has it that once the buses arrive you can expect to wait up to 45 minutes in line for 60 seconds in the water for a quick photo shoot before you’re turfed out and the next person swims into shot. That would, most definitely, not be a good investment of time!

Our final couple of days were frittered down at the beach – swimming and sipping cocktails at the beach shack bar at Anse Chastenet … not an awful way to chill out in the sunshine. We also ate lunch at Trou au Diable, the beachfront restaurant at Anse Chastenet Resort one day. The ambiance is very good, as is the view and the cocktails. The food was good (not spectacular) but the bill came to $440. We’re not strangers to expensive restaurants but that is quite pricey for a quick lunch.Our final dinner was one of the more memorable meals – at Apsara in Anse Chastenet Resort – a spectacular sunset was followed by a half decent curry!

We had a fab holiday with our friends and we’re grateful that we’ve finally seen the world-famous Pitons but if you were traveling half way around the world for a Caribbean holiday you might like to put Anguilla, or St Vincent and the Grenadines, or the British and US Virgin Islands, or Antigua ahead of St Lucia on your bucket list 😊