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Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia was the site of a long war between the British and the French, with the island changing hands fourteen times. The British ended up with the island, but it became independent in February 1979 and is part of the British commonwealth. So you will see both English and French names for towns.
We booked a tour in St. Lucia that took us from our dock in Castries to the Volcano and back. We stopped at a couple of overlooks on the way there, and then at a plantation that is now a tourist destination.
Our first stop was an overlook of Marigot Bay. This is a fancy resort area now.
Anse Le Raye is a small fishing village that we drove through.
Agricultural products are still big exports from Saint Lucia, bananas and cocoa are popular.
We drove through Soufrière, another small fishing village on the way to Sulpher Springs. It’s a bit bigger and starting to develop a tourist industry because of Sulpher Springs.
It rained hard for a few minutes after we got off the bus, but we were under a shelter and then we got a 25 minute tour of the volcanic site.
In the early 1900s there was an attempt to create a mineral springs spa. Here are the remains of that attempt.
Here is the area with boiling mud pots and some steam venting.
There is now a mud spa a little ways down the road.
We then stopped at Morne Coubaril Estate for a quick light lunch and a tour.
They showed the typical buildings the natives had constructed on the island.
Notice the large whitish seed pods on the mahogany tree.
Historically, the Estate has produced coconut and cocoa. Now it just does demonstrations for tourists.
The captain was able to route our departure course past the Pitons area, and it wasn’t clouded in, so we got to see them from the sea as well.
The sea was a bit rougher leaving St. Lucia towards Devil’s Island, and the dance show scheduled for tonight was postponed one day because it wasn’t safe for the dancers to perform. They made the decision right before showtime, but had the comedian on standby as the backup show.