4/23/25

 Today we had our super fun boat tour. Because the sun rises and sets about every 12 hours, we are finding that we are waking up fairly early.

We made it to the place we were supposed to meet our tourguide. We were a little late due to not being able to find parking. We drove all around looking for a place to park as the instructions were not overly clear.

I did have to hop out at one point and ask the locals for help. They were kind and pointed us in the right direction.

We got on the boat and sat next to a family originally from Hungary, but lived in Boston. We also had a couple from Denver and a family from North Carolina.

We traveled along the west coast of St. Lucia to see large mountains on the coastline with smaller towns nestled in the bay areas. 

We traveled to Soufriere to see the Toraille waterfall. This was a land and sea tour. We met up with our driver, Alex.

As we loaded into the van he had, Heather grabbed the seat up front because she gets car sick. As she went to get in, she put her hand on the dashboard. The entire dashboard came off. It just fell off. In a panic she was trying to put it back like a puzzle before Alex noticed. Opps. She was successful in placing it back together. We were all laughing that she broke the van.

Alex started driving and he told us all about himself, where he lives in the island, and about his family. He gave us little tid bits of information and shared some history and culture with us.

We arrived at the waterfall. There was a pool area beneath the water fall so you could stand in it. The water was “refreshing” which means pretty chilly.

We all got in and stood near or under the waterfall. It was cool!

We then headed to the sulfur mud baths. This is where we all had a bucket and we had to put a “primer” on. It was light colored clay. The clay had little stones in it to exfoliate your skin. Then you put the dark mud over the light mud. Someone drew something inappropriate on Paul’s back.

After we were covered in the mud, we went in the mineral baths that were 105 degrees. They were really warm. We rinsed the mud off in the baths and then there were showers to get the rest of it off with.

Then we were off to the drive through volcano. It was a bit of a letdown, as it didn’t match up with what’s I expected in my brain. It basically was a road we drove on. You could see the caldera and the steam rising from the earth’s guts.

We stopped for lunch at “mama’s house. This was Alex’s sister prepared authentic Carribean food. We had potato pie, rice, chicken, squash casserole, plantains and more. We basically were eating at her house.

Her skirt matched the tablecloth. Everything was authentic and delicious.

We then headed to Sugar Beach. This beach has a coral reef off to the side for snorkling! We saw many types of fish. They were so colorful.  The coral reef had so many textures and things growing. Some were spiked, some looked like brains. One fish I followed for a bit. He kept looking backwards as if saying “are you still there?” He looked like a dumber kind of fish.

We loaded the boat and headed back to our launch point. We took in the view of the west side of the island. At one point, we started heading straight into the ocean. The driver found a huge pod of dolphins. They were swarming the fish and eating. There had to be at least 50 jumping out of the water.

We headed back and had a leisurely evening in the pool. Everyone was in charge of making sure their shoes were picked up because the wild dogs have been stealing them. We are down 2 water shoes so far.