A rainforest walk / Day in Soufrière

I have so many photos on my hard-drive(s) which I haven't had the time to show you as yet. You remember when we made a one night stop in Soufriere, St Lucia? St Lucia has its more touristy/yacht areas like Rodney Bay, Castries (the capital) and Marigot bay.. this little town is more authentic I would say. More dirty and rugged, more real in a way. I know that many excludes this town from their itinerary by but we did enjoy it a lot. We might not be walking around these streets on dark nights, but we loved the city despite its cosmetic flaws and we truthfully enjoyed seeing a different side of the island.

Soufrière has a population of around 8.000 compared to the total of the country/island of 174.000. The famous Piton mountains/volcanic plugs as well as the hot springs and water falls are located just South of town. Both of which were on our agenda for the day.

The streets are colorful and rustic although much is still destroyed from numerous hurricanes this city have had to deal with.

A typical Caribbean coffee shop.


And a very typical street of Soufrière as well as of any other Caribbean city or town.

Caribbean houses. Most of them are very colorful around here.

The view when we've walked up on the hill above the city.

A goat by the road, usually they're not leashed and they're running around like they want to.

Alex always make friend with animals.. he can even get wild birds eating from his hand and tropical lizards to cuddle up with him. I swear. Will show you pics of that one day.

Misty day but nonetheless a beautiful view.

Caos anchored down there. Beautiful yacht isn't it? Buy it here.

The view of Soufrière from above one hill, view to North East.

Taken at the same spot, looking out on the sea to the North West.

Fantastic view when we came over one hill and walked down South on another.

A bull hiding in the bushes..

Up one hill, down another..

Green rainforest all around.

Lots of villas beautifully nestled inside of the lush nature.

Swing on a liana anyone?

Almost there...

Finally found some natural springs and rainfalls to enjoy after a long, sweaty walk.

The water comes out straight from the volcano and is very hot.. we loved it.

After the walk we met a man who sold fresh fruit, this is a cocoa fruit, did you know that all your favorite chocolate comes from this? The white cocoa beans are wonderful to eat/suck on just like this, tastes very sweet. When the fruits are fermented and dried, they become brown and dark and only then is when they get the characteristic cocoa flavor and can be used to make cocoa mass (after they're cleaned and roasted of course).

More fruits..

Great day spent in St Lucia. We've done many of these promenades around on different islands and I will try to post more pics from some of them in the nearest future.. the nature of the Caribbean islands are breathtaking and if you are in the right mood, you will feel very energized and refreshed after a day soaking in all this spectacular natural beauty and the tranquility of it all.

Here's another favorite town/village of St Lucia that we visited in the beginning of last year.

A walk in the mountains

We were in the petite town of St Pierre, Martinique, the other day. That's the city which had a volcano eruption for a hundred years ago or so where all population of 30.000 except two people died from the dangerous ashes, within minutes of the eruption. This Mount Pelée volcano is still active, though it is not considered to be a big threat at the moment. Anyway, this town has a great anchorage for us sailors just next to the center of the village and we always make a stop here before heading North up towards Dominica, Les Saintes or Guadeloupe, it makes the passage shorter and it is always a nice place to stretch your sea legs for a day or two. Usually we hang around in town, checking out the offerings at the market, walking by the beach or visiting the artisans on the small streets of the village. This time we decided to get out hiking in one of the high volcanic mountains surrounding town. A trek that we knew would take around 3-4 hours.

Finally half way up.. luckily we brought enough of water. It is deadly hot to walk like this on steep hills in the middle of the day in 35°C/95°F.

Beautiful views over the town and the famous Mount Pelée in the background. Our boat is just under the leaves in the left of the picture.

We continued to walk our way up the hills. Pretty soon up at the top. Unfortunately we hadn't thought of how hungry one could get while walking like this. Hadn't brought any food. Maybe a bit of chili peppers straight from the bushes, anyone?

We thought it could be a good thing to walk through a grassy field. That's until we realized that the field belonged to someone... This guy didn't look too friendly and he studied us with this particular face all the way until we had left his ground.

Another one. Thought I'd shit my pants when I heard noises in the grass and saw this huge head popping up like one meter away from where we were walking. 

We continued our walk and now I was dying for food. We found this dude laying on one road like a watchdog. "Why don't we have some goat for lunch?", I suggested. Alex didn't quite agree. "I didn't bring my rifle baby, besides he got a yellow necklace, it seems to me like he belongs to someone". Alright then, we continued our walk. God, was I hungry.. and so disgustingly sweaty..

We walked and we walked and finally we saw something, was that only an imagination or was that really a broken hose laying on the ground, spraying out fresh cold water? Yes it was. We refreshed ourselves for a while. So incredibly good and energizing in the oppressive heat. All refreshed and happy we continued our hike up the hill. When we finally found .....

A banana tree!!! Oh my god. The joy! Finally food! We jumped up and down like children (ok, I did) and life couldn't felt better in this particular moment.

Alex got up quickly and pull down a good cluster of fruit.... only to find out they were rock hard and completely non-edible at this time. I cried for a while and then we decided to call it a day and walk back home to eat. The camera battery died in the minute of picking down the bananas so I can't show my tears, sorry. Luckily we got a hitch back home and what had taken us about three hours to walk up took around 9 minutes to get down. 

Just a regular day and walk of our lives..

Beautiful Saintes

We are back in the peaceful Saintes again. We've been around here now quite some times, so much that people have started to remember us in the bars and on the streets and it feels kind of homey to get back here once more. This main island of Les Saintes, Terre de Haut, is a lovely little fishing port where time moves slowly and people from an interesting melange of backgrounds seem to be living in a comfortable pace. Les Saintes is unique in the way that it is one of very few islands in the Lesser Antilles with a majority white population, the reason being that not much slaves were brought to or used here during the colonial times. Most of the early settlers were from Breton and Norman in France and apparently there is a strong Breton cultural influence on the island. Nevertheless they all seem to have mixed up well with the black/Caribbean people, and they have developed their own Saintois look which is quite interesting and equally beautiful.