Our World Cruise Finale - Castries, St. Lucia

UNESCO World Heritage Site - Gros & Petit Pitons

On January 5 when we boarded the ms Amsterdam, our final port of this world cruise seemed so far in the future that we hardly gave it a thought.  We have not been Caribbean travelers except for Dominica and Barbados on last year’s world cruise and now St. Lucia. I had heard more than one person comment that St. Lucia was their favorite Caribbean island and our sail in seemed to confirm the beauty here.  As we rounded the southwest corner of St. Lucia, the two dramatic peaks of Gros Piton and Petit Piton were clearly identifiable.  Hard to believe as it was, we were approaching our very last port!

A few quick comments about St. Lucia, but in not as much detail as usual for two reasons.  One reason is that as I begin this, we have three full days left to get everything packed up to go from our home for the last four months to our real homes!  Suitcases are all in the room and “stuff” is all over the place, some in packing cubes, others hidden temporarily in suitcases to get them out of the way, and still more not having been removed from shelves or drawers yet.  Needless to say, the next few days won’t be our favorite part of the cruise.  That needs to take priority, but I want to get the St. Lucia blog posted as quickly as possible.

Many of our friends have more expertise on the Caribbean islands than we do, but I will make a superficial attempt to comment on this beautiful island.  It’s located in the Southern Caribbean, about 1,335 miles from Ft. Lauderdale and is between Martinique and St. Vincent in the Windward chain.  It’s about 27 miles north to south and 14 miles east to west with a population of approximately 160,000 inhabitants most of whom are Roman Catholic.  The vast majority are of African descent.  It’s a mountainous island as we learned firsthand and still has an active volcano called La Soufrière.  Although there is a constant release of sulfur gas, there hasn’t been an actual eruption since the 18^th century. 

The mountains are heavily forested with trees, many of which are palms and bamboo.  The economy is heavily agricultural and bananas thrive in this tropical climate.  Our guide showed us some of the large banana plantations with blue bags over the large bunches of the fruit.  The actual banana flower is purple and it takes 7-9 months to have the bananas ready to harvest. At that point, the process begins again.  In addition to bananas, mango, papaya, breadfruit and many more tropical fruit are found in abundance.

The island was settled by the Arawak Indians from South America in about 300 AD and then by the Carib Indians (note Caribbean Sea) between 800 and 1000 AD.  Over the years, St. Lucia has gone back and forth between Britain and France a total of 14 times. In fact we saw some old barracks, now part of a community college, that were used by both Britain and France depending upon who was controlling St. Lucia at the time.  By 1967, St. Lucia became an associated state of the UK and in the late 1970s, St. Lucia achieved independence.  While some Creole is spoken, English is the official language.  Our tour guide did tell us, interestingly, that there is no unemployment insurance in this country with a high unemployment rate, so people are on their own if they don’t hold a job.

Our arrival in St. Lucia was on schedule despite the three hours plus delay in leaving Devil’s Island because the tender door to the ship wouldn’t close on Thursday.  We were safely docked by 10 AM and had a chance to watch the scenic sail in from our verandah as well as from the LaFontaine Dining Room during breakfast.  At one point, Barb looked out and shouted, “Dolphins!”  Everyone including the dining stewards rushed to the window to see maybe 20 dolphins jumping and playing near the ship.  We commented that we had never seen dolphins jump so high out of the water as these energetic guys!  Some seemed literally to jump straight out of the water rather than skimming in horizontal positions!  It was a wonderful sight and our best view of dolphins of the entire cruise.  And it took 112 days to see it!

As soon as the ship cleared, Barb and I went out to the shops just below the ship because we knew we needed to get back to be ready for our 10:30 shore excursion compliments of AAA.  Our tour, Volcanic Island and Plantation Tour promised to be a good, full tour of this beautiful mountainous island.  Normally AAA arranges for two large buses with plenty of room for everyone.  This time, however there were three buses which might have been a clue that things would be different this time.  For shore excursions, we tend to be early so as to get a good seat on the tour bus so Barb can extend her leg and foot for more comfort.  We were assigned a bus and were among the first on the small bus.  We found a double seat but this was a bus with single seats along one side.  Then we made our first huge mistake that proved to be the undoing of this day for Barb.  Before many got on, we decided to move to two single seats, one in front of the other.  Barb decided to take the seat directly behind the door that would allow her leg room so she could extend her foot into the opening by the door.  A few more got on but we still thought nothing of it.  A final couple boarded and had to take some rather undesirable seats way up front, one of which was intended for the guide.  They had to take a big step up to the front and sit with knees nearly on their chins ­– not too comfortable for older people.  A wheelchair for one of the people was outside the door and I anticipated that it would be put under the bus.  Wrong!  The guide put the wheelchair on the bus itself and placed it in the doorway of the bus, directly in front of Barb.  Then the guide pulled down a folding seat right next to Barb and the people across the aisle that would allow four people to sit directly across.  Now Barb could neither extend her foot ahead because the wheelchair blocked it and couldn’t stick her foot into the aisle because the tour guide was sitting directly next to her.  The guide was unable to sit farther back as her mike cord wouldn’t go any farther back than where Barb was sitting.  I agreed to change places with her at our first stop, a scenic overlook of the city of Castries and the beautiful tropical harbor.

We told our AAA rep, Gloria that the seating was most uncomfortable and very tight and that Barb had no legroom.  I wasn’t happy with riding for an extended period without any legroom either. To make matters worse, there was no place to put the few things we had brought on board and no holder for the bottled water we each received.  This was the smallest, most uncomfortable bus either of us had ever had to sit in for a tour!  Gloria offered to take the place with no legroom and despite my protests that I could handle it, she insisted on sitting there in that very cramped position.  I went to the back of the bus, past the unfortunate individuals who had their feet over the wheel wells, and sat in the middle of the back of the bus.  They only thing I could say was that I had legroom but no view out of the bus at all. When I asked Barb if she wanted the legroom or the view, she opted for legroom, so we traded.  The second big mistake of the day!

Our next stop was a combination potty break and scenic photo overlook.  We were to have 10 minutes there, but we were the third of the three buses to arrive at the location.  There was one bathroom each with over 60 people on three buses to be accommodated – in 10 minutes!  I chose to take the photos first and get in the line after the pictures.  Barb got in line near the back immediately and spent virtually her whole time in line.  By now she does not seem to be a very happy camper. (How could one blame her?)

Back on the bus, we continued south toward the Petit and Gros Pitons, through small villages with small colorful home fronts in Anse la Raye and Canaries.  Houses were practically at the street and lots of people were out along the street.  We drove through the winding mountainous roads around hairpin roads.  Scenery was wonderful but we were moving so fast and foliage was so thick it was difficult to view the beauty.  We had driven through the village of Soufrière named for the town’s sulfur springs from the inactive nearby volcano, La Soufrière which belches the sulfur which was visible from the road below.  We made a couple of short stops to view the spectacular Petit and Gros Pitons, the trademark legendary mountains that identify this island. 

When we arrived at the Morne Coubaril estate for our St. Lucia buffet lunch, we were serenaded by a typical Caribbean steel pan orchestra while we ate.  The estate was originally a part of an estate commissioned by King Louis XVI and cultivated from the 18^th century into the early 20^th century.  We watched a skillful man shimmying up a coconut tree to shake the coconuts down to the ground.  Another man used a machete to cut into the coconut and offered those who wished a beverage of coconut milk.  We have tried it in other places and don’t find it especially refreshing, but I guess it’s a personal taste.  We moved on to taste a ripe cocoa bean before entering the building where a demonstration was conducted of the fermentation of the bean. A young man stepped into the huge vat and stomped on them much like the old process of grape stomping.  Outside, a mule-driven sugar cane mill was demonstrated.  Then we were shown the wide variety of tropical fruits grown in St. Lucia,

I asked Barb if she wanted to trade seats but she stayed in the middle of the back seat, not knowing that the worst was yet to come.  We were ready for our 1½-hour non-stop ride over the same route back to Castries.  The bus driver must have wanted to get done quickly or he wanted to set a speed record for driving the route.  He whipped around the curves at breakneck speed with that unsecured wheelchair in the doorwell.  We did the 1½ hour tour as identified in the description in just one hour!  We weren’t behind schedule as we got back a half hour earlier than the description indicated.  What I did not know until the end was that one of our friends, Carol, got sick on the bus and ruined a travel bag in the process.  Another lady was on the verge of being sick and Barb was in tears when I got back to the ship.  I had stopped to browse the shops at the pier while she had said she just had to get back on board.  It was then that she told me about the ladies who got motion sick and that Barb was being whiplashed from one side to the other as the bus moved along the winding roads.  Not only that, but those in the back could feel the rear fender hitting the pavement as the bus raced down the road.

I spoke to the AAA reps, Jack and Gloria, who had accompanied us and told them of what had transpired at the back of our bus.  Needless to say they were unhappy with what had happened too and then told me that when they were assigned three buses of that type for over 60 people, that five people had signed up for the tour and didn’t come.  Those five would also have been added to the three buses and five more people would have been crammed on the fold down seats too!  Four, instead of three, buses and a bus driver that drove more safely could have handled those issues.  We were fortunate that there wasn’t a quick stop that could have sent the unsecured wheelchair flying because we typically see those in compartments below the bus!

All in all, what would have been a beautiful drive under other circumstances was turned into a virtual nightmare for some tour members.  I experienced no problems other than being jammed into a small seat with no room to put the few belonging I had brought, but others had a much more difficult and less enjoyable time. St.  Lucia is a gorgeous island and the weather was perfect.  We need to come back someday and truly appreciate what it has to offer.

And now it is a straight sail back to Ft. Lauderdale and disembarkation on Wednesday morning and hopefully a smooth flight, not encumbered by furloughed air traffic controllers!  We will try to post one more blog after we return home to culminate what has truly be a second “trip of a lifetime” filled with good memories that should make the few unfortunate events fade in our thoughts.

It is truly a beautiful world with so much to see, so many friendly people, so many interesting cultures, different animals to appreciate …and so much more to learn and to see.

CT