St.Lucia, day 4 – South & East Coasts road trip

Thursday 29 March: Today we will drive south. Our 7:30 alarm didn’t realy work, but we roll out of bed (literally) due to swell around us. The swell seems to get around the leeward side of these islands when there is no wind.
Glen has a bad back all of a sudden and we cannot work out what has caused it other than the rough long car ride yesterday. 3 ibuprofen later we are in the car, driving south this time. The road meanders up through lush jungle as it passed the Pitons, then comes out on the south coast plain.
Our first village is Choiseau, where we find original quaint houses, a large Catholic church and a fish market. Several men are expertly cutting up tuna and kingfish. It’s interesting that they also pullout all the organs for eating too. One funny guys shows us the heart of a tuna and tells us “it’s great for down ‘ere man” as he grabs his crotch to show us what he means! Then he pops the raw heart in his mouth, and eats it! There are 2 old ladies next to us who are also amused. Oana asks them if it’s true. They both give a cheeky giggle and declare that yes, it’s true.
The next village is Laborie where we briefly anchored a few days ago. Again, very local, zero tourists here too. We wander along the long beach under the shady coconut trees and along the backs of the fisherman’s houses …. or more descriptively: huts. This village is famous for making fish traps the traditional way and we see serveral of the structures being made from strips of bamboo by the local men. They are all very friendly. In the village itself we find a coulourfully painted square and we notice 2 ladies eating what looks like a delicious plate of local creole food. It’s only midday but we can’t resist ordering our own.
Further on down the road we pass the international airport and drive on through Vieux Port where we had anchored our first night. Then we come to the east coast, the Atlantic side of the island. Glen spots Reef Kitesurfing school, so we have to stop and investigate! It’s on a long beach in Anse des Sables (Sandy Besch), protected by an offshore reef. It’s clearly a happening place, with several local bars and restaurants under the shady trees. Locals tell us there will be a big party here over this Easter weekend. We talk to the kiteboarding instructor, a Dutch guy with long braided hair …. a classic surfing dude! Apparently he runs this school in winter and another one in Netherlands in summer. Nice life.
From this SE tip of St.Lucia, the road runs north along the coast on flat ground. We visit a few fishing villages on the way, but they are nothing special. We note they are not as authentic, or as tidy, as the villages on the south coast. So we try an off road track between villages and get a very good view of the coast: headlands, reefs, bays with mangroves. A nice scene but nothing compared to windward coasts we have seen on previous islands.
As we are not very taken with the coastline, we strike inland, in search of small roads up the slopes of the interior mountains. And we find just that. We are meandering, totally by ourselves, along single track roads through beautiful jungle-like scenery. Intermixed with the jungle are small plantations of fruit trees: banana, plantain, papaya and even pineapple. Occasionally we pass a small shack that the farmers must take shelter in. Other than that and the occasional pickup, we see no signs of people.
Finally we reach the top and the end of the road, which by now is just a track. Here is where a hiking trail starts through the upper rain forest. It’s a 2 hour hike but we walk it for just 30 mins. It really is a thick humid rain forest, full of sounds. Among the vegetation are huge mahogany trees and other hard wood species. Interesting that it has a different feel to it that the forest we hiked in St.Vincent, on our way up the volcano. We take a different track to go back down, but it is soon terminated where the road has collapsed over a river. So it’s a u-turn and back down the same way as we come up.
After another long winding journey, we are finally back at CB just as the sun sets. For the evening we venture back out into Soufrierre village. Although it’s the evening before Good Friday, things seem relatively quiet. But then we settle for a rum punch at the same bar/shack next to the dinghy dock, where we find again the GM and his wife from the Sugar Beach Resort and lots of locals.
So goes the evening with a bit of dancing and merriment with the locals and the occasional white people. One Canadian couple there are from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Glen surprised them that he has taken the ferry from there to Newfoundland several times. They are here with an animal rescue center – mostly dogs. They certainly have their work cut out. Glen would advise kindness would be to put an end to all these skinny stray dogs, not rescue them. So ends another interesting day.