Today we stopped on the island of St. Lucia, in the port town of Castries. We are doing a tour through an interdependent tour company called Cosol Tours. The tour is about 5-6 hours long and visits several of the sights around the island.
We needed to meet the tour at 8:20 AM, so we got up around 6:30 AM, showered, and went to eat breakfast in the buffet. We then headed back to the room to apply some sunscreen and to get all of our gear ready. Part of the tour is visiting a beach for snorkeling, so we packed all of our snorkel equipment up in our special mesh backpack, along with some of our other camera gear in Stephanie’s backpack.
We headed off of the ship and met the tour group in the terminal. We waited another 15 minutes before all of the persons on the tour arrived, and they split us into groups of 8-10. We met our driver, “Bumpy”, and headed over to his really nice van and boarded. Most of the locals have nicknames that they go by instead of the real first names, and “Bumpy” had been given his name based on how he walked as a child, so he said.
We headed out and Bumpy gave us a lot of information on the buildings and other city sights as we headed for our first stop at a banana plantation. We stopped along the road at a banana field and got some freshly picked bananas to try. They were so much better than the ones we get in the grocery at home.
Then Bumpy gave us a detailed explanation on all of the steps that are done to the banana plants as they grow and produce the crops. It is very structured, and there was much more manual work involved in growing the bananas that we had known. All of the bananas grown here are exported to the United Kingdom. They had some great locally made sauces, one was something they called banana ketchup, and the other was some hot sauce
The next stop was at a small shop that had great views of the coastline. They gave us some refreshments, beer, water and home made rum punches. Afterward, we headed to the next stop where they had prepared some of the local foods for our “breakfast”.
We got to sample many items that were familiar, such as fried plantains, but there were a lot of other local dishes that we had not heard of, including some of the local fruits, and fried fish dishes. It was all really good. Of course, more refreshments were distributed before we headed out for the next stop, a beach between the two famous mountains here called the Pitons.
The roads were really winding, with a lot of sharp turns as we headed through the mountainous countryside. We had read from other reviewers of this tour that there was the possibility of getting car sick. We had brought along some Bonine, but had not taken any before we left. We were doing fine but one man in our group was not. There was one seat in the front next to the driver, and he was able to move to that seat to try and relieve some of the motion sickness issues. Unfortunately, that did not help.
Our next stop was at a small dock where we boarded some boats for about a five minute ride over to a beach to snorkel. The ill passenger opted to wait in the van, with his wife to try and recover. We were heading to the beach for about an hour.
The beach was OK, it was a little rocky. We did do some snorkeling, but the visibility was just average. However, it did give us a chance to practice some, especially for Stephanie. We did see a lot of fish, and some coral.
When we finished, we re-boarded the boats for the short ride back to the area where the vans were parked. The next stop was at the “drive through” volcano and hot sulfur springs. Unfortunately, this drive was even more curvy than before, so it was not long before our one ill passenger’s motion sickness returned. This time, he had to get out of the van so we dropped him and his wife off a short distance from the volcano area, about two blocks form the parking lot.
There was an extremely hot “bath” of water from the hot springs coming out of the volcano, and there were persons there to apply a mud bath supposedly for helping your skin. The water was extremely hot, probably over 110 degrees, so we did not get in, or get the mud bath. Actually, no one in our group did, but some people in one of the other vans did, so we got to watch. We did feel the water, and it was really hot. Much, much hotter than a hot tub.
Next, we drove through the “volcano”, which was not really that great. All we did was ride on an open road past some steam vents, and that was the qualifier for “driving through”.
The next stop was at the Soufriere Falls, which was a small waterfall that was one of the recommended sights to see in St. Lucia. It was nice, the water was falling about 50 feet. Some people were swimming at the base of the falls, but once again, we opted out. The water was not that clean looking.
This was the last stop before we started heading back to the port city of Castries. We had to make several stops for our ill passenger, and it was hard to see him feel so bad, and realize that there was nothing that could be done. We had offered him some of our Bonine earlier, but it was not accepted, and probably would not have helped at this point. We did make a stop at a local bakery, and then another stop for some local cheese, and ate some hot bread and cheese sandwiches in the van.
We were not sure this was supposed to be a “to go” lunch, but I think either we were running late from all of the extra motion sickness stops, or the driver wanted to get the ill passenger back to the port as quickly as possible.
We had another hour of driving to get back, and once again, the roads were very curvy. We ran into some traffic as we neared the port, and this delayed our return. Overall, it was a fun tour, but it was definitely impacted by the ill passenger. I am sure he felt bad about it and felt bad from it.
We went up to the pool deck for some refreshments while we waited for the ship to depart at 6:00 PM. It was a nice sail away. We went back to the cabin to get cleaned up before going to dinner in the Dining Room.
At 9:30 PM, there was a deck party out by the pool and we met up with some of the people we have met at the Seaview Bar. At about 11:00 PM we called it a night and headed back to the room.
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