The fourth day on the cruise was the port of St. Lucia. Since we explored St. Thomas and Barbados on our own, we decided to do an excursion through Carnival and let them show us around the island. After doing a lot of research, I found out that St. Lucia is known for it’s mud baths, therefore we chose a mud bath excursion. We met with our tour guide at 9:30 a.m and returned right at 4:30 p.m. Even though we were only on the island for seven hours, I felt like we seen and did so much. On this particular island, we enjoyed having a tour guide that could give us the history of the island and explain their culture as well. The tour was very informative with a lot of different experiences and beautiful views of the island.
Welcome to St. Lucia!St. Lucia is approximately 238 square miles and has a population of 174,000 people. St. Lucia is a sovereign island country and is part of the Lesser Antilles. The capital city is Castries and that is where the ship docked and where we began our excursion. We met our tour guide on ship in the main auditorium and walked out as a group to get on the tour bus. Here, the kids are taking in the scenery.Located right outside Castries in Morne Fortune is the “white house.” It is known as the Government house and has been the official residence of the Governor-General of St. Lucia since 1979 when the island became an independent state.This is the national tree of St. Lucia, known as the Calabash Tree. The tree grows to about 35 feet tall and produces the large, green, spherical fruits seen here. This fruit has a thin, hard shell with a soft poisonous pulp. The fruit’s shell is used to make bowls, cups, instruments, or ornaments.On our tour, we drove through one of the five college campuses in St. Lucia. They are very strict about education on the island, it is mandatory that the children attend school until the age of 18. If the child decides to drop-out of school or just stops attending, then the parents go to jail. School age children have a 5:00p.m curfew. After this time, they are to be home, not at the library, the mall, or outside in large groups. If there is a group gathered of 10 or more children, then the police stop and question what they are doing. These rules are all in place to help with crime rates.This is one of the dormitories located at the college. There are speed bumps located all over the campus and are called “sleeping policemen” by the locals on the island.This is one of the oldest buildings on the island and is located at Sir Arthur Community College. It was used to hold ammunition in the war between the French and the British. Ownership of St. Lucia changed hands several times throughout the 18th century and the British acquired St. Lucia permanently in 1814. However, the French previously owned St. Lucia for 150 years and that is why they have a strong french culture on the island and their main language is French Creole.This is the satellites that the island uses to receive American shows.On the way to the fishing village, we stopped at a banana field to learn how bananas are grown. There are about 1,200 banana farmers on the island and approximately 10,000 workers. It takes roughly one year for a banana tree to reach maturity. The bananas are removed from the tree while they are still green and sent to the boxing plant where the fruit is washed and boxed to be sent to port. When the bananas reach port, they are sorted by grade and put in a refrigerated compartment to be shipped.The banana bunches are covered with blue, polythene bags to prevent disease. While we were at the banana field, you could buy local banana chips or banana spread (it was like a jam).On our tour we stopped at a small fishing village called Anse La Raye. Seen here is the local Catholic church originated in 1765 and refurbished in 1907.On Thursdays, the villagers know that the ship is in port, so they set up a small market to sell local items. St. Lucia depends on the tourism of the ships for income. There is no medicare or food stamps provided on the island, however Universal healthcare is provided for children and to anyone over the age of 55. The United States, Canada, China, and Taiwan provide aid to the island because the unemployment rate is 40% and 60% of the people do not own a car.A beautiful view of the fishing boats in Anse La Raye. On friday nights, there is a fish fry where the local fisherman provide lobsters, fish, and conch. Lobster season is February through August, and the tourism peak is October through April.Anse La Raye translated in English is “Bay of Rays.” The name comes from the two rivers that flow into the bay which are Grande Rivière de l’Anse la Raye and the Petite Rivière de l’Anse la Raye.The town of Soufrière is located on the west coast of St. Lucia and was the original capital of the island. It has a population of about 8,000. Soufrière is located at the base of the famous Pitons.A view of one of the houses on the road to the mud baths. The road did not exist until 1984, before that there were only walking trails located in this area.A mural of art with conch shells on top. Tourist cannot bring queen conch back into the United States because it is listed on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.The famous Pitons of St. Lucia are two mountainous volcanic plugs and are actually three miles apart. One of the Pitons is named Gros Piton and is 2,530 feet tall, it is the easier one to climb and there is guided tours available for this mountain. The second Piton is named Petit Piton and is 2,438 feet tall, this mountain has no marked trails and no tours are offered for it. There is a resort located between the Pitons that before 2010 the rooms were $150 a night, but since then, The Bachelor, Sports illustrated, and The X-Factor have used that resort for filming and the rooms are up to $10,000 a night now.A view of one of the cemeteries right outside Soufrière.Sulphur Springs Park is where we had our wonderful mud bath. The sulphur springs came from a weak spot in the crust of a collapsed crater creating lava over 400,000 years ago. The water located in center of the springs boils to about 340 degrees Fahrenheit causing steam to rise. This particular mud bath is located a few hundred yards downstream, therefore the water has time to cool off to about 110 degrees Fahrenheit.Here we all are after being coated down with the mud. The mud is black because of the high content of sulphur, iron, copper, iron oxide, alkaline lead, calcium oxide, and carbon. The smell is very strong due to the water’s mineral content.First, you get into the hot bath water to wash off. Then, you go to this area upstream to get mud to spread over your body and let it dry. There are two types of mud, the white mud that washes off easily but is not as abrasive and the dark mud which has the higher mineral content but is very difficult to remove. After it dries, in about 10-15 minutes, you walk back downstream to the bath to wash it off.After you let the mud dry you enter the hot bath, this is where you rub the mud in to exfoliate your skin. As you can see, the water black because so many people have already washed off in it so it doesn’t really get the mud off. Normally there are showers that you can wash off in after the mud bath, however on this particular day there was no water available because St. Lucia was in a drought. The island normally gets 350 inches of rainfall a year, however, in late July they had only received 50 inches. To preserve water, each town is trucked in water every two days to use and we happened to be at the mud baths on the second day, therefore we all had to wear our mud for the remainder of the tour.The Soufrière Volcano is a dormant volcano located at the mud bath in Sulphur Springs Park. This does not mean it is active or inactive, it is merely asleep. It last erupted in the 1780’s and has been dormant ever since. It is also the only “drive in” volcano in the Caribbean. The road runs right through the crater of the volcano. If you look closely at the photo you can see the steam rising out of the volcano.In St. Lucia, these are known as PPP which stands for Pink Powder Puffs.After the mud bath we stopped at Morne Coubaril Estate in Soufrière. It is a cocoa bean plantation and a guided tour of the process of making cocoa. Pictured here is a group of cocoa beans. The tour guide cracked one open for all of us to try. You only suck on the bean, it tastes really bitter if you bite into it.This is known as the cocoa dance, it is where someone uses their feet to polish the dried cocoa beans.Here in the cocoa house, we were able to see the process of fermentation and bean drying. They also passed around different bottles of cocoa for the group to smell. This particular one was cocoa vinegar.After the cocoa bean process, we headed out back to learn about the fruits and vegetables grown on the island. Another well known food on the island is cassava which is when manioc roots are grated, squeezed, dried over fire and turned into tapioca pudding.This is one of the views from the coconut demonstration at Morne Coubaril Estate. The island of St. Lucia has 1,900 acres of rain forest and even with only 50 inches of rain for the year, everything looked so lush and green.At the coconut demonstration, we were shown the process of de-husking the coconut. The guide also passed around coconut pieces to try, as well as coconut milk and water. He also found a coconut with a heart in it and passed it around for the group to try. It was delicious, it tasted like sweet marshmallow cream.This is the mountain of coconut husks from many coconut demonstrations. The lady in red was our tour guide for the entire trip and the lady in white was our tour guide for the plantation, both are locals on the island.After the plantation tour, we headed back to the ship. The drive was a little over an hour. Here is one of the views on our way back.We had to drive back through the town of Soufrière and this is one of the houses that we drove by. Also, while shopping in St. Lucia keep in mind that they use the Eastern Caribbean Dollar. The exchange rate is about 1 US dollar to 2.5 Eastern Caribbean Dollars. For example if the price is $25 ECD, that means it is $10 in American currency. We would always ask when paying US or Caribbean Dollar. Everywhere that we went took American currency.One of the street signs in the town of Soufrière. If you look close, you will notice that the streets do not have any yellow or white lines. Also, they drive on the opposite side of the street than we do and the driver’s side is on the opposite side as well.St. Lucia is a beautiful country with so much to see and do. We really enjoyed the excursion and would recommend it to anyone. This was an amazing experience that we will never forget.
