The views we had of the lush green volcanic moutains of St. Lucia and the majestic world-famous Pitons as the cruise ship approached the island while we were enjoying a scrumptious breakfast, is one I will treasure for the rest of my life. To this day, that is one of the many reasons I give to non-cruisers on why a cruise in the Caribbean is something they must do.
We booked ourselves on an island tour with Cosol Tours – the best decision we could’ve made. We were driven up the nearby mountain en route towards the capital Castries and made a quick first stop for the panoramic views.
We soon made another stop for views of a famous cove.
And a third stop for pictures of a fishing village which is where the weekly Fish Fry (fish market where everyone flocks to for dinner) is held.
Next on the itinerary was to visit a banana plantation. We enjoyed the sweetest, freshest bananas I’ve had in a long time and sampled some banana ketchup amongst others.
We stopped for brunch where we had an array of fruits and local food before driving on to Castries which despite being the capital is really just a small seaside town. This isn’t surprising as St Lucia is an island nation with a population of just 171’000 inhabitants covering 238 square miles. On the way we had a closer up glance of the pitons from afar.
From Castries, we boarded a boat that would take us to the beach in between the Pitons. We stopped here for a good hour. The beach was covered white sand that was brought there to make it look appealing unlike the beaches around the rest of the island which are covered in black sand and rock as St Lucia (like Montserrat and St Vincent & the Grenadines) is a volcanic island unlike the previous islands (St Maarten, Antigua, St Kitts & Nevis).
We enjoyed a nice swim and were later whisked to our penultimate stop – Soufriere, the world’s only drive-thru volcano. The image I had was a lot different to what this was in reality. It was basically driving up another mountain but as this one was an active volcano, that was why it is “sold” that way.
It took me a while before I was brave enough to finally get my whole body into the pool at the mud baths as the water was truly boiling hot. The smell of sulphur stayed with us and we had to make sure we washed our bathing costumes properly when we got back onto the cruise ship.
Our final stop was to one of the many waterfalls. It reminded me of the many waterfalls in Malaysia. We had a quick swim and headed back to the cruise ship.
What an incredible day spent in St Lucia. As we were entering the dining room for dinner, I could see dolphins jumping by the side of the ship. The view of the island and the Pitons once again accompanied us during our entire last meal on the ship – lobster, grilled prawns, crab salad and ceviche.
Next stop, Barbados.
