World Cruise 2013: Day 112 - Castries, St. Lucia

World Cruise 2013

April 27, 2013

Today the ship arrived in Castries, St. Lucia. Lying between Martinque and St. Vincent, St. Lucia is another island peak in the Windward chain, with slopes that soar from the sea to a central mountain spine crested by Morne Gimie (3117 ft.) and fall away in green cloaked forest hills to verdant valley of banana and tropical undergrowth before ending at foam-frilled golden sand beaches. The population of 145,000 is of mostly African descent and more than a third live in the sprawling northwest coast capital of Castries.

I took a tour called “World Heritage Site Route”. The tour left from the shore so I went down early and looked around at the shop located next to the ship. We left Castries and drove up the winding roads towards Morne Fortune where we stopped for a photo of Castries. We stopped to take picture of the Governor’s House and we later stopped at a Banana Plantation where we ate a Banana, received a short talk on the growing of bananas and had an opportunity to buy some products made from bananas. Our next stop was at Anse-La-Raye village, a small fishing village where we could view the beach and shop if we liked. Our next stop was to take a picture of the most famous site in St. Lucia. This site is the Pitons, which is a pair of high and sharp pointed mountains on the west coast of St. Lucia. Our next stop was the famous Sulphur Springs, often referred to as the world’s only drive-in volcano. This historic site is the result of volcanic eruptions 300,000 years ago. Here we saw mud pools bubbling and boiling on the earth’s surface. Next we stopped at the Morne Coubaril Estate where we walked among the tropical plants and learned the many different products that are derived from the fruit. We saw the traditional way of drying cocoa beans and a old sugar mill. We had a snack here with rum punch and fruit juice.

Below are some pictures taken from the ship and from my tour.