Caribbean Dreams 2001
St. Lucia
BWI was a little airline, focused on jumper flights between the Caribbean islands, sadly it shut down in 2006, we quite liked it. So we go to the little airport, get on our little plane, and take our little flight to the beautiful island of St. Lucia, 45 minutes later we are catching a taxi to our hotel. The taxi ride takes longer than the flight did, as we wind our way through little towns, farmlands and tropical jungles. We come to the end of a road, the driver piles our luggage on a small pier, and tells us the water Taxi should be there soon, and drives away. We are just a little nervous as we stand on this pier by ourselves, in the middle of nowhere, in the dark. Across the bay we can see there is lights and some buildings, but we don't see any ferries or water taxis... finally after an extremely long 20 minutes later standing alone on a rickety dock with our bags (it felt like hours), a little floating cube pulls up, and takes us across the bay.
As we float up to the Marigot Beach Club & Resort, we start to realize just how special a place we have found. A remote little resort with a quaint little bayside restaurant, a pool, and palm trees all around. This was the location where the original Dr. Dolittle movie was filmed back in 1967. The restaurant and bar is called Dolittle's, the name also suits the attitude of the resort, relax, enjoy, and do little. We get checked in, and take our luggage up to a sparkling clean and beautiful room. It's open air style balcony and living room, with a back bedroom complete with A.C.... perfect.
We wouldn't realize just how perfect this place was until the next morning. We walk out onto our balcony and look down on an amazingly blue Marigot Bay, sailboats are bobbing, across the bay is beautiful homes on a lush green hill. One of these homes is rumoured to belong to Oprah. A fresh salty breeze is blowing through the balcony, making the 25-30 degree temperatures just right, little birds are flying in and sitting on our chairs hoping we will spare them a crumb or two from the bag of cookies we have. Breakfast is included, so we head down to Dolittle's before having a swim.
One unique sight at the resort is the colourful gazebo at the end of a dock... it's straw roof and ideal setting make a perfect location for a Wedding. Later that week, one of the few other guests in our resort, a young couple from Boston, would get married there. Today we used it as a diving board. Floating around in the bathwater warm blue blue waters, colorful fish swimming around us, this perfect place becomes more perfect, and I take a few snapshots with my cheapie water cam.
After a lovely dinner at Dolittles and some quality time at the bar with the few guests staying here, we got to know the owner of the resort quite well. David is from the UK, and came here on vacation, once that happened he couldn't leave. He has made quite the great resort here, and spends the evening drinking, pouring drinks and sharing his stories of the island. As we all get to know each other a little better, he pulls out a huge glass jar from behind the bar, it's David's magic rum drink, he had a name for it, but I forgot it after one shot of his concoction. It's a dark red colour with all kinds of berries and roots floating in the bottom, he goes on to tell us that it ferments for months, maybe even years, and spouts on about it's health benefits, it's hallucinogenic qualities, how it will help us sleep, and how it's an aphrodisiac... or something like that, because after a few shots and a drink or two, I don't remember much of that night.
The next morning we took the water taxi across the bay and rented a car for a day. Much like Barbados the signs aren't that great, but we were fine with that. We meandered through quaint little towns, getting a real feel for St. Lucia, not just the resort part of the island.
At one point we thought we saw the turnoff to where we wanted to go, but went straight instead. One of the locals steps out into the road in front of us, and politely told us we were going the wrong way, directing us back to the main road and where we were going. Looking at the lusciousness of the island, we were left to wonder what we would have found on that road. Was he just being a good citizen to a tourist, or did he stop us from getting too close to the plantation?
Our first stop of the day was the Pitons, Petit Piton and Gros Piton, they are the symbolic images of St Lucia. A pair of peaks over 2000 feet tall, strangely Petit Piton is taller than Gros Piton. We had an amazing lunch in the upscale Ladera resort's restaurant. We felt just a little under-dressed, but the views of the Pitons were unbelievable. St. Lucia's Piton beer is quite good too.
Just up the hill from the Pitons was two very unique destinations; the first one being Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens. Diamond Falls is this incredible weird but amazing waterfall, so full of minerals that the waters appear coloured. The surrounding rocks and flow of the waterfall is a mixture of cream, gold and brown... the pool below is a refreshing break from the heat and was used as a spa and mineral bath back in the 1700's. Apparently there was flowers here too.
The second destination was completely opposite to the falls, La Soufriére Drive-In Volcano. Well you can't really drive in, but you can drive pretty close, and then walk around the "dormant" volcano with a guide. Bubbling pools of burning hot magma, and steam vents are everywhere. We are shown the different areas of the Volcano, including the hole where a tourist fell through the crust into lava, he survived but was very badly burned. After wandering around the inside of a volcano, it probably would have made more sense to go the waterfalls after the volcano, duh.
After cooling down and heating up in the wrong order, we made our way to the southernmost point of the island, Vieux Fort. This refreshingly windy park like area had the remains of an old fort, and spectacular views out into the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Oceans. Just off the shore the Maria Islands are teeming with sea birds, and sailboats glide by under the line of sight of cannons.
As we make our way back to our resort, we are constantly gawking at the amazing blue waters of this area, every rocky shore, every little bay... we will have to come back to St. Lucia.
Another great meal at Dolittle's restaurant, and we hang around chatting with David, and the Boston newlyweds. Their original honeymoon plans had to be changed when one of the 9-11 hijacked planes left from their airport the same day as their flight. David decides he's going to take us all into the town of Anse Le Raye for 'jump up'. Jump up is a street party that occurs every Friday night. Everyone rolls their BBQ's into the street, stereos are set up, and they party till the wee hours. Eight of us pile into a van and head into Anse Le Raye.
It's very intimidating as we wander into the town, aside from one of our group, we were the only white faces in the crowded streets. Within minutes we discover that David knows everyone, and as we are grabbing some great food (BBQ, Seafood, Creole, etc...), and a couple cold drinks from someone's cooler, we are confronted... "You're from Canada!!! My son is going to school in Winnipeg, come on sit down!!" Instantly we were part of the town. We ate, we drank, we even danced... not quite the same as the gyrating locals grinding into each other, but we had fun trying.
We explored some of the town and went into a tiny smoky bar, and watched a group of maybe the worlds oldest men play the most animated game of dominos I have ever seen. They slam each domino down to emphasize how great that play was, hilarious!
It looked like we might have some trouble with some local youths when we walked into their massive sound system blasting. One of them confronts us with a 30 second dance intimidation. We stand there gape-mouthed until one of the guys from our group steps up and does a 1 minute dance-off like I have never seen before, and I will probably never see again. The locals start laughing, cheering him on and applauding, who knew dancing could come in so handy.
The evening would have been completely amazing except for one of our group disappearing. After about an hour of searching and several "We don't leave anyone behind" battle cries, he is discovered by a couple locals passed out on the beach behind someone's house... what a night!
Our last sight before leaving St. Lucia for a quick overnight in Barbados (before taking the jumper flight to St. Vincent) was the colourful skies over Marigot bay. It will be hard to forget this place.
