CASTRIES, St. Lucia (13 Apr 2009) — My request for another frosty beer is magically fulfilled. Well, not so magically because my husband was going to get one for himself anyway. But that's infinitely easier than me climbing out of the pool, dripping up six steps, crossing the cool Mediterranean tile of the dining room and into the vast kitchen of our rented villa. When you've got a stunning view of green hills and blue water laid out before you, you don't want to leave it, even for a second. Over the week, it was hard for our family of six to climb into our rental Jeeps and tour the Caribbean island of St. Lucia when we had a pool, gardens filled with tropical fruit and flowers, a cook and a groundskeeper to satisfy our every need. And all for less than a hotel would have cost. After experiencing villa life, we'll never return to four walls, two beds and a mini-bar. The stunning home set in the hills of Cap Estate, which overlooks the nearby island of Martinique, recently sold after being listed for $1.7 million. But it only cost us $1,700 US to live like millionaires for five days. Most of the villas for rent on St. Lucia are owned by absentee American and Europeans. They are rented for a week at a time, for anywhere from$200 to $800 a night for two to 10 people. Most have their own pool and many have staff included in the price. That can be handy when you're making your first foray to the grocery store. Doreen, our housekeeper-cook, gladly introduced us to the island's fruits and vegetables, such as breadfruit and Christophene, a Caribbean squash. After discerning our tastes (which lean toward lots of garlic and spice), she picked out fish filets and prawns for one night and chicken for another. And she delivered. The fish and prawns were pan-fried in loads of garlic and Caribbean seasoning while the delectable, fried chicken and curried rice tasted unlike any we've ever had. Our best meals on the island were at home, but there are some terrific restaurants. Just avoid the hotel beachfront buffets which can be expensive and only mediocre. Some of the best bets include Ku De Ta and The Great House Restaurant in Rodney Bay in the north and the Hummingbird and Dasheene near Soufriere in the south. Two places to try for the atmosphere are Spinnakers at the Rodney Bay marina, where all the yachters hang out, and The Lime, a restaurant-bar that's become an institution in the area. If you're lucky enough to be in St. Lucia on a Friday, don't miss the Friday Night Fish Fry at Anse La Raye or Gros Islet. The Anse La Raye has a more low-key, family affair while Gros Islet puts on a full party with the roads closed, music blaring from loudspeakers and grills set up in the street. You'll want to take a taxi or even catch a bus rather than trying to drive there and back in the dark, especially if you're a recent arrival on the island. That sage advice goes for getting to your hotel from the airport, as well. One main road runs up the east side of the island and another down the west. The airport lies at the southern end and any traffic heading to the halfway point or north takes the eastern highway. For good reason. The drive up the east coast brings you into proximity of towns and villages high on the hills and low on the cliffs. Homes and businesses, people and animals coexist along the windy, two-lane road. You pray you don't hit anyone or anything as you try to master the art of driving on the right side of the car, on the left side of the road. But that's still easier than the hair-raising experience on the west coast. The 43-kilometre drive from Cap Estate to Vieux Fort can take four hours, during which you contend with several hundred hairpin turns, sheer drop-offs, and oncoming drivers who like to pass on blind corners. Short day trips are the way to go in St. Lucia and there are numerous options, if you don't want to rent a car. Many companies offer van tours to all the best sights, you can hire a car and driver or you can climb aboard one of the many yachts, catamarans or sailboats which head south to the volcano and nearby botanical gardens for the day. A wonderful option for families is to join the crew of the Brig Unicorn, the 43.5-metre-tall ship featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean films. But that's as touristy as it gets. The delightful thing about St. Lucia is how it's managed to maintain its natural beauty and simple charm despite planeloads of visitors arriving each week. It's home to a World Heritage Site, the Pitons, twin coastal peaks which rise 610 metres from the sea. A canopy of green covers much of this little island--only 43 kilometres long by 22.5 kilometres wide--so towns exist mostly in low-lying bays or on hillsides, where industrious people manage to tame the vegetation. The first settlers were Arawak and Carib Indians who fished, farmed and hunted. Much of their way of life was decimated by the arrival of Europeans, but some of their early foods, such as cassava and yams, are still part of the St. Lucian diet. The English and French fought over the island for years and St. Lucia today, an independent country within the British Commonwealth, reflects both cultures. The British contributed language, education, legal and political systems. The French influenced the music and the food. Adding to this cultural mosaic, the descendants of African slaves and East Indian indentured servants who were brought to the island now form the majority of the population. | | Free scuba diving anyone? One of the best things about a holiday in St. Lucia is that if you stay at one of three beautiful Sandals resorts, you don't have to pay to go scuba diving off the best dive boats in St. Lucia. Many of the educated people head north to work in the capital, Castries, or the tourist hub that is Rodney Bay. Fishing villages dot the coast while other hardy folk eke out a living on terraced land in the southern rainforest. One such village clings somewhat precariously to the side of one of St. Lucia's landmarks. A rotten egg odour that assaults your nostrils as you crest the hill from Soufriere alerts you to its presence long before you seen the hand-painted sign: the World's Only Drive-In Volcano. It's a bit of a misnomer as the volcano on the south end of the island doesn't much resemble a cone, nor even a mountain. Covered in rainforest, one side of the crater is missing due to a rupture long ago. That missing section is what allows tourists by the hundreds to visit every day. A dirt road creeps up and into what is deemed the centre of the cone. The last minor eruption was over 200 years ago, but the volcano still shows signs of life. Below the main observation platform, boiling cauldrons of thick mud bubble and spurt skyward constantly. Fissures in the hard, baked ground allow steam and the rather unpleasant sulphur smell to escape. Amazingly, at one time, visitors were able to walk around the mud pits. Officials put a stop to that after a guide fell in and suffered second-degree burns. Now, wooden staircases snake around the edge of the pits, over a steaming stream and up to another viewing area. As the stream flows down the mountain, it cools off and mixes with the boiling mud. Locals bathe in it, believing the mixture has therapeutic qualities. Many of the island's top spas use the mud in their treatments, along with extracts from St. Lucia's abundant fruit and flowers. The volcanic soil is rich in nutrients and the benefits can be seen at an organic plantation a short hike from the volcano. Fond Doux is a 250-year-old working cocoa farm with seven suites and cottages that garnered a visit from Prince Charles and Camilla last year. A 10-minute walk around the grounds reveals its remarkable riches: bananas, coconuts, mangos, apples, oranges, grapefruits, pineapple, papaya, passion fruit, avocados. The trees hang heavily with their fruit and the ground is littered with what they can no longer bear. Wafting through the trees are the bright colours and heady scents of bougainvillea, birds of paradise, wax roses, wild orchids and monkey tails. While much of the plantation's produce is sold locally, its main income comes from the massive cocoa pods drooping from the trees.
When the pods are cracked open, a white slime that has a citrus taste envelops the hard seeds, which are used to make chocolate. They ferment in bins before being spread over drying trays. Then they are polished by a worker "dancing" on hundreds of beans in a large metal pot. They are then roasted, cleaned, ground, and pounded into a paste before being rolled into tubes, which are shipped around the world for cooking. Many island restaurants use the cocoa, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon from the plantation in their cuisine, as Doreen did at our villa. Such is the spice of life in St. Lucia. Travel promotion by Michele Jarvie |
