Saint Lucia

Visited: November 2017

Duration of visit: 3 days

Capital city: Castries

Population: 182.000 (2017)

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

• Soufriere and Gran Piton area with hot springs.
• Airport location – next to beautiful sandy beach and cemetery.
• Renting a car and exploring the island.

Saint Lucia was part of my Caribbean Islands Trip in 2017.

The ferry from Dominica landed in the late evening. I previously booked accommodation through Airbnb, so I new exactly where I was going. For the first time in the Caribbean, it was really hard to negotiate a decent fare for a taxi ride. It was not that far, but impossible to walk from the port, especially at that time of the day.

Sabrina expected me with her husband, Ndeye, in front of their house. An interesting young couple of French – Senegalese origin. We had a long, pleasant conversation that night. It’s so easy to find common topics with someone who has been travelling, is knowledgeable about different cultures and willing to find out about other’s travelling experience.

Living on an island like St. Lucia is pretty simple and straightforward. There is not much to do and if you don’t have previous arrangement for a job, you won’t find work easily.

Sabrina has a well-paid job and has found some friends, on the other side Ndeye, being a foreigner without working visa, has practically no chances to work and, therefore, also more difficulties to involve in local life.

In general, it was very easy to communicate with local people and they were all extremely friendly. English is the official language of Saint Lucia, although 95% of the population speak Saint Lucian French or Patois. According to the official numbers, roughly 20% of the population doesn’t speak English at all.

I wanted to see more of this island, so I decided to rent a car. I walked to the main airport, which is located just next to a beautiful sandy beach, while the runaway is along the central cemetery of Castries. There was no car available for that day at any agency. Bad luck for me.

A lady at the entrance noticed my disappointment and pointed toward a guy who was just about to leave. He was an owner of another car rental agency that has its office on the northern part of the island. He drove me to his office, where I was offered the last available car. An old, run down Nissan Sentra would never be a safe choice in other circumstances, but since my options were so limited, I decided to take a risk and give it a go.

My main destination was the Pitons – two mountainous volcanic plugs – the main landmark of Saint Lucia, located in the southwestern side of the island Soufrière.

Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, the Gros and Petit Pitons are two volcanic spires that rise from the sea to create a natural secluded bay by the shore.

The Gros Piton is just below 800 meters high and also possible to climb. Mountaineering was not on my agenda in Saint Lucia. I rather decided for a swim and admiration of the peaks from warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.

My next stop was The Sulphur Springs, which is supplied with water from the “world’s only drive-in volcano“. The Soufrier Volcano erupted last time in the 18^th century! The Sulphur Springs emerged from a weak spot in the crust of the enormous collapsed volcano crater creating an upheaval of lava approximately 300,000 years ago.

A couple of hundred meters downstream from the springs, the water temperature is still hot (around 45°C), but cool enough to enter and give myself a mud bath. It is rather small, but comfortable enough to host a dozen of visitors, mostly locals.

It was fun and invigorating to cover myself with mud, leave it to dry on my body and later wash it out before soaking in a pool.

These mud baths are believed by some to have medicinal properties. Apparently, the treatment detoxifies the body and helps heal sun burns, eczema, arthritis and sore joints.

I drove back to the beach where some restaurants are located. I finished my day with delicious fresh fish, perfectly cooked rice and cold lemonade, while watching the sea and listening to soft waves.

What else could I ask for?

The mix of French and British colonialism in the past gave Saint Lucia a special form. There are two very important facts that all locals are very proud of:

• It is the only country on earth that is named after a woman. It is really interesting that among almost 200 countries in the World, there is only one named after a woman.
• Sir William Arthur Lewis won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1979; and Sir Derek Walcott won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992. They were both citizens of St. Lucia.

I didn’t find public beaches in St. Lucia as spectacular as in some other Caribbean Islands, mostly due to the fact, that the best areas were reserved for private resorts. Maybe the most peculiar beach is the one next to George F. L. Charles Airport in Castries, called Vigie Beach.

Is there any better location to wait for your flight than a perfect sandy beach, located a few steps from the airstrip?