One of the things we always find interesting to do when visiting a new place is to take a tour to learn about the area.
On St. Lucia we took an island tour, which is a bit of misnomer as you actually only go halfway down the west coast of the Island to Souffrier.
St. Lucia, which became a country in 1979, was last owned by the British and has many British influences. However, during its history St. Lucia changed hands 7 times between the English and the French so there is also a large French influence as seen in many of the place names, the use of the Patois language and the largely Roman Catholic population.
The town of Souffrier is in the region of St. Lucia’s active volcano. It is also the location of the world famous Pitons (volcanic formations), St. Lucia’s botanical garden and Diamond waterfalls.
Souffriere Harbour
The road to Souffrier follows the Coast Line, it is a windy narrow road with lots of switch backs and ‘S’ curves which climb into the mountains before descending into the villages along the way. It reminds me of the old Fraser Canyon from Spences Bridge to Boston Bar (including the tunnels).
Our taxi driver George was a great guide.
We visited a working banana plantation (owned by the English grocery chain - Sainsbury’). Along with tourism exporting bananas and cocoa are St. Lucia’s major industries.
Ripening Bananas - Sainsbury's Banana Plantation
George explained how banana’s are grown. The purpose of the blue bags is protect the banana’s as they ripen - so they look perfect for today’s consumers.
Sometimes before the banana’s are harvested, their weight will topple the plant and the fruit falls to the ground - these banana’s are for the local’s to take for their use or to sell. I guess our equivalent to windfall apples…
We stopped at view points along the way generally just before we began our descent down into the lowlands.
We visited a roadside bakery that specializes in Casava bread. We watched the bread being made (all by hand) and treated ourselves to two loaves.
Cassava bread being baked in an open oven
And we drove through one island’s rainforests with its huge tropical tree ferns.
St. Lucia is experiencing it’s worst drought in recorded history and the effects can be seen everywhere, even in the rain forest.
As we got closer to Souffrier the world famous Pitons came into view and just before our descent into Souffrier George stopped so that we could enjoy their beauty. If you look closely you can see the city of Souffrier off to the right and the smoke in the foreground is actually steam from the volcano.
The Pitons
The Botanical gardens were busy the day we visited, so we weren’t able to use a guide which we have heard is well worth the money, but the gardens are well marked and we enjoyed our self guided tour which included a walk up to the Diamond Waterfalls and a dip in the mineral baths.
Diamond Waterfalls
We returned to Souffrier and took a walk around the waterfront.
Like every village and city in St. Lucia, Souffrer has a huge Roman Catholic church in the centre of town. In front of Souffrier’s church there is a town square/park which used to be the location of the town Guillotine.
Souffriere Town Square and Church
Souffrier, which means Sulphur is St. Lucia’s second largest city. The city is built in the crater of St. Lucia’s volcano that last erupted in the 1700’s. The crater measures 12kms across and the city today is only a few miles from the dome of the volcano.
After our visit to Souffrier we literally wound our way back to Castries and Rodney Bay, with a stop at George’s favourite bakery where he treated us to some St. Lucian bread and a final stop over looking the city of Castries and its busy harbour.
Overlooking Castries Harbour
It was an interesting day!
We look forward to exploring more of St. Lucia in our time here.
Bob and Donna
Enjoying the St. Lucian Sun ;O)
To say the atmosphere was electric was an understatement!
The Harbour is a small gated complex approximately 3 years old located at the end of Rodney Bay Harbour. There is no beach, but the complex has a boardwalk, moorings for boats and a large pool.
