December 28 – Castries, St Lucia

Weather – 28º, partly cloudy, with a couple of very tiny sprinkles, the clouds looked like we’d be able to watch a storm from our balcony…nope, I guess I don’t know much about St Lucia weather systems

Steps – 6,714

ready to zip

Floors climbed – 32, need to add this stat for today, the zip lining required some climbing

Humidity – 72%

St Lucia (pop 184,000) is our country #105! Once we got away from the port, like Grenada yesterday,

ship in the harbour

this reminds us a lot of our visit to Africa - small roads, run down buildings, random cars seemingly abandoned, goats wandering the streets. St Lucia seems poorish, but according to the interwebs, it is a developing nation, ranking in a middle to lower middle income bracket. Our guide, Carl, told us dead cars are left because inevitably someone will need a part from one – interesting approach.

St Lucia is lush and mountainous, with fruit trees everywhere. The fruit trees

so lush

aren’t all in organized plantations, many are just

random street

growing. We learn that bananas used to be a lucrative crop, but now cannabis has overtaken and farmers are abandoning bananas for weed.

The first inhabitants of St Lucia were the Arawak indigenous group – we’ve heard a lot about the Arawaks this trip, but little on previous trips. St Lucia was colonized by the French and then the British took over; this went back and forth at least 14 times – the local language is a French Creole; I couldn’t understand a bit of it.

another street

Today’s tour was ZIP LINING!!!!! Despite zip line tours being offered in plenty of places we’ve visited, we tend to do the cultural/food/drink tours. Today was the day for adventure!

Getting to the zip line park was an adventure in itself – about an hour there and back on windy narrow roads. The van was basic, but comfortable with good AC, a working mic to hear Carl, and room to spread out – this is all I need! This van was very similar to the African ones where the doors would randomly fly open…this van was much more advanced because not once did the doors open unannounced.

more street scenes

This tour was great! I’m not sure I’d be ready for one again tomorrow – I’d rather see what makes a specific place special, but this was fun. Zip lining in St. Lucia is supposed to be one of the top things to do here…good for us!

Once we got harnessed and helmeted, we zoomed through 12 zip lines and climbed a handful of suspension bridges. We don’t have any photos of us actually zipping, because we left our phones in a locker. As it turned out, we probably could have brought our phones, but the last thing we need is a lost phone.

Other than the hiking up to each platform, zip lining is pretty easy – physically speaking. You get your harness hooked to the cable, put your hands as directed

winding and lush

and go, maybe having to slow yourself down at the end to pull yourself in. I had to pull myself in at one point…I guess I need to eat more!

We zipped through the dense St. Lucia rain forest with a few small waterfalls here and there. The zipping took about 90 minutes. At the end of the 12 tracks, we were back on the van and an hour later we were back onboard.

The weather at the zip lining spot was lovely – warm (but not hot), shady because of the super tall trees and mountains. We saw no animals except for some tiny birds and a couple of lizards.

St Lucia is pretty dead on a Sunday. We found a brew pub online, but weren’t convinced it would be open, so we stayed onboard for the rest of the day. This is no Curaçao where they opened things for the tourists on Christmas.

nearer to the port

It is so dead, that no one was monitoring us randomly wandering the port. Normally, passengers are restricted to where we can

interresting

go…not here, seemed like we could walk where ever we’d like. Not that we’d ever care to go to far into the labyrinth of containers, but no one stopped us. The closest we came to a local beer was a massive Heineken container.

We were lucky that our balcony was in shade for the entire rest of the day. We enjoyed room service lunch with our second and last bottle of Veuve champagne – it was actually a little less than a bottle as my tush knocked the first glass over…maybe I don’t have to eat more.

wandering the port

Our afternoon entertainment was tourist boats going back and forth and the occasional plane on the runway…the airport is super close.

Tonight’s show was a guest performer – Jassen Allen. We’ve seen him before and were looking forward to the show. From what I remember, he does more contemporary material like the Commodores and Lionel Richie. Music from the 60s is what Regent calls contemporary! I’m definitely not complaining…I really like the Commodores and really LOVE Lionel!

tonight's show

The show was good. He is a Vegas show act, so has good stage presence and tons of energy. I’m looking forward to his New Year’s Eve Lionel Richie show!

Did you know… in the Caribbean there are 13 independent countries - the region includes about 30-33 total political entities? I need to do a list of those that we’ve been to.