Castries, St Lucia

The flight from St Vincent to St Lucia is barely 25 minutes. It was a beautiful afternoon and Seb and I sat on the left hand side of the plane to get the best views of St Vincent as we left the airport in the south and flew north up the eastern coastline past the large volcano, La Soufriere, in the north. No sooner had we passed St Vincent when out of the right side of the plane were the huge pitons of southern St Lucia. One of the highlights of this leg of the trip is to try to climb to the top of the large piton (called Gros Piton) but I wasn't too sure how Seb would handle it.

George FL Charles airport is very small and nestled beside the perfect Vigie Beach. The guy from Hertz was waiting for us after we collected our stamps and bags and within 30 minutes we has our Suzuki Swift rental car and were at the Bay Gardens in Rodney Bay in the far north western corner of the island.

Rodney Bay Marina

It took a lot longer than expected to drive around Grenada so I was a bit hesitant to take on the St Lucian roads but to my surprise most of the road circling the island is in decent shape. For something different we headed across to the eastern coast to explore the towns of Dennery and Micoud and take pictures of the rocky coastline.

Seb overlooking Dennery

We made a quick stop at the La Tille waterfall before lunch in Vieux Fort next to the International Airport. It doesn't sound like a nice location but the view of the Maria Islands Nature Reserve were spectacular and the lunch at Reef Beach Resort was excellent - free wifi too. It's a relatively quick journey down the eastern  and southern coasts but as the pitons come into view the roads start to snake around and the potholes get a little larger. It was overcast and too late to consider climbing Gros Piton on this day so we pulled into a resort called Ladera for afternoon tea and stunning views of the pitons. It's difficult to put into words but there were very few tourists, a lovely warm breeze and a view that I could never tire of.  We drove back up the Western coast through Soufriere, Canaries and Anse La Raye - all quaint little towns - before getting back in time for a late afternoon swim at the hotel.

The Pitons & the town of Soufriere

The next morning we drove straight to Soufriere for breakfast at the Hummingbird Beach Resort overlooking the pitons, then we climbed the big one. It was a much tougher hike than I thought and Seb had to stay with the guide at the half way mark because it was getting too difficult for him, and too dangerous to carry him. It took us just over an hour to get to the Petit Piton viewing area and that's where Seb stayed and played Plants v Zombies for a little bit.

Seb & I at the Petit Piton viewing area - halfway up Gros Piton

The view from the summit of Gros Piton

The rest of the hike was straight up for about 50 minutes but the view from the top was definitely worth the effort. You cannot do this hike without a guide so there were a number of groups, maybe 10 that I saw, making the ascent. It costs US$30 for adults and half that for children, presumably because they only get halfway up. The trip back to Seb at the halfway mark only took about 30 minutes and we took a leisurely pace to the bottom before giving our guide a ride back to her village. Climbing Gros Piton was a great achievement and our next destination, Guadeloupe, would offer the chance of scaling another volcano - La Soufriere, close to our guesthouse in Trois Rivieres. La Soufriere, meaning Sulphur, is a popular name in these parts - volcanoes in Guadeloupe and St Vincent, a town in St Lucia and I'm sure lots of other places too.

ST LUCIA QUICK GUIDE
Capital: Castries
Currency: East Caribbean Dollar (US$1:EC$2.6)
Language: British English
Drive on the Left
Beer of choice: Piton