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St. Lucia, Day 4

Day 4

This morning, after our improvised in-room breakfast, we were picked up by the shuttle to the Rain Forest Sky Ride. There are a few ways to experience St. Lucia’s National Rain Forest, which covers 19,000 acres of mountains and valleys. You can hike it… which would be the most immersive experience but we knew right off the bat that it was a bit more effort than we wanted to dole out while on vacation. You can fly above and through it on a zipline, which Kathie the skydiver would have loved, but which I, with my fear of heights, would probably not have enjoyed. Or, you can do what we did – the Sky Ride, which was an hour-long gondola ride through and above the rain forest canopy. We saw lots of interesting trees, plants, and birds, and our tour guide was very knowledgeable. After the ride was over, we finished with a 30 minute guided walk along a marked trail to experience the rain forest up close… which unfortunately included its mosquitoes. The forest was amazingly quiet, very pretty and offered some amazing views of the island from the top of the mountains. We did expect the rainforest to have more noise with birds and animals but it was almost completely silent. There were a lot of hummingbirds in the forest but since they zip around so quickly we had difficulty getting any good pictures.

Near the forest, we passed large groups of banana trees. Apparently banana trees only grow for 9 mos, can be harvested once and then die; however the banana tree will propagate a small sapling right next to the main trunk. After the original tree has been harvested, it is cut down to make room for the sapling and the cycle continues. To prevent insects from eating the fruit, blue bags are wrapped around the banana bunch while still on the tree. Bananas are the primary agricultural crop of St. Lucia.

Along the drive back we passed the local “car wash”, which was a shallow area in the river coming down the mountain, where someone had driven his car into the river and was washing it down with buckets of water. We also passed a tiny shack right alongside the road that was a road-side barber shop, and lots of local homes, which often were tiny and looked like they would fall down in a light breeze. We also passed quite a few random animals – goats, pigs, dogs, cows, chickens, horses, etc., either in people’s lawns, tied to trees, or wandering freely.

After our drop-off at the hotel, we grabbed a taxi up to Pigeon Island. This island just off the northwest coast of St Lucia was connected to the mainland recently by a causeway created by using the earth dredged during the construction of the Rodney Bay Marina. Pigeon Island was used by the British in the late 1700s to monitor the French fleet’s activities on Martinique just to the north, and to launch the British fleet in one of the most decisive sea battles in European history. St. Lucia changed hands from the British to the French and back 14 times before finally stabilizing as a British colony before becoming independent. The St. Lucians therefore almost all speak English as well as a unique creole derivative of French. On the island we had some simple but tasty sandwiches at a tiny restaurant on the beach, before hiking up the shorter of the island’s two peaks to explore the ruins of the British forts. The view was exceptional and we could see Martinique to the north, and the beautiful water of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. After exploring, we took the taxi back to the hotel to relax for the evening.

Something that’s a little hard to get used to here is the fact that Christmas is coming. Walking around the beach in 85 degree weather hearing Christmas music playing from restaurants and seeing inflatable Santas and Grinches seems very incongruous. I guess it’s no different than some southern parts of the U.S., but it’s definitely not what we’re used to — it somehow doesn’t seem like it’s really Christmas season unless it’s cold and the leaves have fallen!