Touristy Visits

With company around it was time to head to some of this island’s better known attractions. Some of the photos that follow will give you an idea of the places we visited but may not do true justice to the venues.

We started with a stop at the world’s only drive-in active volcano. We were greeted by the smell of sulphur in the air, the sight of steam escaping from many different spots, and the bubbling of mud and water in pools here and there. Our guide explained how 400,000 years ago, when this volcano had last erupted, the eruption had blown out one side of the mountain’s crater leaving the way for today’s road access.
The heat given off by the earth near this volcano has given rise to several different places where one can enjoy a hot and sometimes muddy bath. The bubbling mud finds its way into the mountain streams and many find that it is healthy to coat oneself with this mud. Others find a heated pool at the bottom of a local waterfall more soothing.

Touristy affairs are not only daytime activities. One of the nearby towns has a regular Friday evening “Jump-up”. The streets in the centre of town are closed off as many of the locals prepare food and drink to sell. The music blares and dancing goes on till well beyond my bedtime. Generally, I can be seen wandering away when many are still rolling in and others have yet to think of arriving.

We included of course a photo op with the “Pearl” or maybe it was the "Unicorn" :) . For the trivia buffs you should know that this ship, whatever its name, was see in the TV series Roots as well as more recently, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

And of course a “quick” (rather I should say short since the road is not long but it takes a long time to drive it) drive to the Atlantic coast situated not far from where we are located.

One of my loves, as many of you know, is gardening so I am happy to announce that the week was calm enough that I was able to plant my tomatoes and peppers. I will surely keep you informed as time goes on as to the progress on my Caribbean garden.

I mention gardening because we also managed to take in this week one of the island’s botanical gardens. I won’t attempt to name any of the flowers shown here. I will leave that as a challenge to the avid flower lovers. I will say that I have only chosen to show a small number of the ones we saw.

Finally, along with this botanical garden came more hot spring pools, including one in which Napolean’s Josephine is said to have bathed during a visit to her father’s plantation in St. Lucia. The pools are fed and heated by the water that comes down from the Diamond waterfalls that you see here.

It would be remiss of me to not update everyone on the internet situation I spoke of last time. After waiting all week for a technician to stop by he finally showed on Saturday afternoon. He left and we were no further ahead so I had the idea of changing the modem from one phone jack to another. Presto, there we were on-line and for hours we joyfully surfed. Today though, our glee came to an abrupt halt and we know not why. Alas, we may have to learn to live with intermittent internet and who knows when I will be able to post this entry :).

Let me leave you with one final photo for the week. See if you can spot the wildlife in this picture. Here’s a hint. It is poking its head just above the leaf and if you look closely at the leaf you can even see its toes. Have a good week one and all.