Island Tour
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Thu 30 Dec 2010 23:56
We left early this morning and headed south towards Castries, the only city on the island. We passed the catholic cathedral, and the main square where some of the annual jazz festival is held. The square is named after the second St Lucian to win the Nobel Prize for literature, Derek Walcott.
On leaving the city we started to wind our way up through the mountains, away from the coast and into the interior of the island. St Lucia is very fertile and they grow almost everything they need here. There are thousands of fruit trees, and the ones by the side of the road are public property and the fruit can be picked by anyone. Also a lot of homes have a small vegetable patch where they grow their own fruit and vegetables. At the moment there is only a limited variety of fruit and vegetables available as most come into season later in the year, about April-May. Then you would be able to pick mangoes, coconuts, lemons, limes and bananas almost anywhere. There are also lots of herb trees, including cinnamon, whose leaves the locals boil and use to make tea, as they do with lime leaves, and nutmeg. Nutmeg grows in a shell on a tree, which you remove when it goes soft and yellow. Around the nutmeg there is a reddish skin, another spice called mace, and under the mace another hard shell which houses the nutmeg itself. Our tour guide was able to recognise many of the plants and tress and pointed out the not yet ripe fruits on the trees. He also found a mandarin tree, with fruit on so we were able to have freshly picked mandarins.
On our tour we also had coconut. The coconut we are used to seeing in the UK is the dried out older fruit. Coconut is green when young and fresh and contains coconut water which is quite oily in texture and tastes less 'coconutty' than you might expect, also in the young coconut there is a jelly like substance which, although not unpleasant, has an acquired taste! Opening a coconut takes a bit of skill and a lot of force with a large machete! The older coconut, which is drier, has less water but the water is much sweeter. The flesh inside is harder and altogether more 'coconutty'.
The 'noomi' plant is the hero of the plant world, and is thought to have the power to cure nearly all known ills, even those as serious as cancer. Scientific trials have proven it to have medical properties but I am not sure how far that goes! It bears an ugly white, nobbly fruit which you boil in water and then eat, it tastes disgusting according to our guide, so there may be truth in it's medicinal properties after all!
The next place we saw was Anse la Raye, a small fishing village, where there were women doing their laundry on the river bank. There are a lot of fresh water rivers running through even the coastal villages, so the water is salt free. In Anse la Raye fishing is still done in the old fashioned boats which are hollowed out of trees as started by the Arawaks who were one of the first inhabitants of the island. Canaries is another small sleepy, fishing village where life seems to carry on much as it has done for years.
From here we followed the mountain roads until we got our first glimpse of the volcanic Piton mountains. There are 2 peaks, each over 2,000ft tall and, although they look to be close together from a distance, when you get closer they are actually about 3 miles apart. The site of the Pitons was recently made a world heritage site, and a plaque has been laid to commemorate this near the side of the road.
Soufriere is the main town in the south of the island. Previously, under French rule it was the capital. It is a small picturesque town full of examples of the 'gingerbread' style of building. The town is dominated by the twin peaks of the Pitons. Unfortunately, the south of the island including the town of Soufriere was the worst hit area in the recent hurricane. The devastation is still very clear to see. There are huge piles of tree trunks by the sides of roads and rivers and, as you drive along, there are many areas where there have been huge landslides. The roads, although open now have been badly damaged and the clear up operation is very much an on-going project. Some tourist sites such as the volcano have been affected and new routes have had to be found to allow visitors to see the island.
The volcano was visible from quite a long way off as there are sulphur springs sending clouds of steam into the atmosphere. The volcano has collapsed and therefore is known as a caldera. Geological studies have shown that the crater in which we stood was created in an eruption about 39,000 years ago. The last time the volcano erupted was in the early 1700s. This is still however an active volcano. The sulphur springs are created by a release of pressure from underneath the crater itself, this release essentially stops the volcano erupting for the time being. The soil is full of sulphur and iron meaning the air has a certain pungency about it - fortunately the wind was blowing the steam away from us! Geologists have stated that an large earthquake could cause an eruption so all seismic activity in the area is carefully monitored. The steam from the springs in some areas is superheated and reaches a temperature of around 171 degrees Centigrade - they do have mineral baths where you can get the benefit of the waters a little further away where the water is cooler. The water is black due to the iron and sulphur deposits and the mud is also said to be very good for the skin. The water is a mixture of sea and fresh water.
On the way we passed a large banana plantation, which although suffering some hurricane damage was still thriving. Coconut trees are planted around the edges of the plantation to protect the banana trees as they are quite delicate. The locals eat the bananas as fruit when they are ripe, but also as a vegetable while they are still green, they are simply boiled and then mashed or fried in a similar way to a potato.
Heading home we stopped off above both Marigot Bay and Rodney Bay for a great arial view of both bays.