Friday 1st February - Castries, St Lucia

Every morning, we wake up in a new town or city, with new things to see.  It all starts getting a bit of a blur, and I say to Peter, “Where we were yesterday?”  He can’t remember either.

But today we were in Castries. We’ve been here before too, but last time we went out on a tour, and didn’t have much time in the town, if I remember rightly, we took a short walk to the craft market and back. Well, today we had a lot more time, and Peter had the Pitons in his mind.

This notice in the Market Place made us laugh

As we left the terminal, we were inundated by taxi drivers.  There are two sets by the way, the ones inside the gate, who’ve been checked and cleared by the local authorities, wear a standard uniform and have set prices and systems.  As you leave the port gates, there are a whole host of “unauthorised” taxi drivers.  They will charge less than inside the gates, but then, there must be a reason why some drivers are authorised, and others aren’t.

We found out that a taxi to the pitons would cost anything between 100 and 160 dollars, more than we had on us, and not only that, we discovered as soon as we got off the ship, we wouldn’t have time.  It turned out that a couple of escorts where needed on the “Dolphin and Whale Safari”, and we just happened to walk past the excursions manager at the right time.  As I said yesterday, how lucky are we?

So once again, after a quick trawl of the craft market we were back to the ship for lunch and on the dock at 1.15pm to take the next tour. A “hydrophone equipped boat” took us along the west coast of St Lucia to the area of deep water where the dolphins and whales were known to play. Guess where we ended up? With a sea view of the Pitons. Our luck is well in.

Once again, the sky was blue, the sun hot, and the rum punch flowed freely.  (And it was really nice punch too), one or two of our passengers may have ended up just a little bit squiffy.  Sadly though, those amazing whales and dolphins played hide in our game of hide and seek, and we never got to see them.  (Awwwwwwwwww),  but we were taken to see the exclusive Marigot Bay, where people such as Oprah Winfrey have owned homes, and we did have an absolutely excellent time on the boat trip.  How can you not?  The scenery was awesome, the sky blue, and the passengers were really good company.

I have to admit, we were absolutely shattered by the end of the day, and fast asleep by 9.30.

Next we have our last day in the Caribbean, and it’s Barbados, and we have another treat planned. (I think I must have done something right in a previous life). Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

To read about our last visit to Castries in 2011, click here