Lounging Lackadaisically in St. Lucia
Our agents travel to some pretty awesome destinations. When they return, our excitement to hear about their adventures is almost as great as their excitement is to share them. In ON LOCATION, they talk about the little nuances that make each place special. From Peru to South Africa, Switzerland, and Croatia, experience a fantastic second-hand journey and maybe take away some travel inspiration while you’re at it.
Today's main event: Meredith versus the volcano
I hear this vacation was a special one.
It was my honeymoon!
Congrats on the wedding! Why did you pick to spend your honeymoon at St. Lucia out of every other Caribbean island?
It was someplace that not everyone gets to go to. Untouched. Warm but not hot. But if you want to know the real reason, it was Oprah.
Oprah?
Ok, it wasn’t just Oprah, but St. Lucia is one of Oprah’s top five places. She even has a house that you could see from our resort. Oprah is a boss.
What do you and Oprah find so different about St. Lucia?
The people were wonderful. It wasn’t super touristy with people always trying to sell you things. Sometimes that can feel a little aggressive, but we didn’t get that. And while cruise ships do dock on the island, those ports were to the north while we stayed on the west side of the island. So maybe it was a little crazy up there, but we didn’t run into large tourist crowds. Another thing I really loved about it is that it wasn’t “American”, and what I mean by that is often on other Caribbean islands, the large majority of tourists are American. Here it was mostly people from Europe and Central / South America, so it helped with the escapism.
How long were you there for?
I was there for about a week.
St. Lucia isn’t very big, what did you end up doing?
Right, the island isn’t very large, and most of it is rainforest, but that is part of the appeal. It feels untouched.
Our hotel didn’t have a beach, which I know sounds like a terrible thing; however we were on this gorgeous marina where you could take a free ferry that brings you to a beach in like two seconds.
We also went to Soufriere further south where we did a snorkel sail, rode a catamaran, walked through the botanical gardens, did a waterfall walk, and volcanic mud bath.
I’ve heard of volcanic mud baths, but I don’t think I understand them. What do they do?
Well it ruined by swim suit. The mud washes off, but stays in the fabric, and my swim suit was white. But it was worth it, because it is so good for your skin. The mud isn’t super hot, kind of like a hot tub. You would rub the mud on yourself in one spot with darker mud, then another spot with white mud, then finally jump into a water pool and wash it off. It makes your skin feel great. It exfoliates it I guess. On the way up it was kind of stinky, a little sulfuric, but when you get there it wasn’t bad at all.
How was the snorkeling?
We booked it last minute, so they had us board a dive boat. My husband is a dive master, and I’m certified, but we were putting on floaties while everyone else was gearing up for scuba diving, it was kind of funny. The boat dropped us off then took off with the divers. We got to snorkel just the two of us.
We were thinking of hiking the Pitons, which are these two volcanic plugs the size of mountains that stick out of the sea. The hike would have taken us 8 to 10 hours though, so we opted to just enjoy it from a distance.
Do you like movie trivia?
I love movie trivia!
Where we stayed is where they filmed parts of Pirates of the Caribbean. You know the scene where Jack is arriving into port and he sees these three dead pirates hanging from a rock arch? In St. Lucia it’s called Lover’s Rock ironically.
Also, parts of the marina where we stayed are where they shot a lot of the original Doctor Doolittle.
From the 1960s?
Yeah the one with the big snail. It’s crazy; the whole area looks exactly as it did from the movie. There is just a lot of history here. I thought it was a fun Caribbean destination, but there is so much more to it.
You eat a lot of good food?
So St. Lucia is known for Salt Fish, but we didn’t get a chance to have any. They also enjoy eating green bananas. Instead we ate a lot of pizza. I know it’s weird when you have all this exotic food, but we were just feeling pizza.
My wife and I ate a ton of pizza on our honeymoon too. Maybe it’s just a honeymoon thing.
There was this bar not far from our resort called Chateau Mygo and they had a large brick oven and we just ordered simple pepperoni. It was nice and familiar. They make good pizza in the Caribbean, who knew.
We did have a lot of good drinks though. Their lager beer, called Piton, was good, but one of the best drinks was called a Coco Loco. They take a coconut, cut the top off and mix the water with rum and throw in a straw. So you are hydrating while you’re dehydrating. It evens itself out right? Thankfully we didn’t discover Coco Loco until our second to last day, or we would have given them all of our money.