January 6, 2006 – ST. LUCIA (Day 9)

It's our last day and I was very excited to get off the ship. My plans were to visit the Grand Market in Castries, take a bus over to Soufriere and hire a taxi to take us to the "drive-through" volcano and Diamond Falls reserve for the sulfur spring bath. Walking up and around Castries we were constantly harassed by taxi drivers. We found some refuge in a small duty free mall where we eyed some Cuban cigars and alcohol. We ran into Sam and Sean there who told us they had rented cars the past two days and it was awesome. The rental car costed less than hiring a taxi for a couple hours plus you had it for the whole day. We said we were down to split the cost if they wanted to do it again. I wanted to check out the local market first and they were coming along and then we bumped into Brian and Heather. Total coincidence! We chatted for a bit and thought, hey why not try renting a car again. We went back into the mall and the receptionists said the cars were sold out. Samantha tried to call and find other hostesses but no luck. Then we were offered a taxi for $20 US each for the whole day. Samantha made sure that he would take us to all the sights we wanted to see; she even asked if he’d be our driver up to 11pm and he said sure whatever you wish (liar!). We thought it was a great deal and said we'd start the tour after we stopped by the market first. The market turned out to be pretty touristy (mostly stuff made in China that they also sell in the Bahamas and Hawaii) and the fruit selection sucked. We saw one guy buy a coconut and after drinking it said the juice tasted weird...probably not ripe yet. I passed by the food stalls and saw a local sucking a chicken bone dry..his whole plate was polished off! So I went to the stall and pointed to him and said "I'll have what he's having." It was stewed chicken over rice...yummy! I added some hot sauce and savored it in once we were back to the minivan taxi. Apparently our taxi driver had recruited two more passengers who were on another cruise. They had to be back by 5pm but that was their problem. Our first stop was a lookout point over Castries; there were a bunch of aggressive vendors. The taxi drivers probably got kickbacks for taking us to these spots. Along the way “Yellowman” pointed out a field of banana trees; they cover the bananas with blue bags to protect the fruit from damage. Bananas are St. Lucia’s second most valuable industry next to tourism. We saw many banana plantations, passed by an old sugar refinery, drove by a few picturesque fishing towns, and finally reached Soufriere. One of the people in the van had to stop at a bank and Yellowman disappeared for about 40 minutes leaving the rest of us in the car to fend for ourselves against begging children and a crackhead. There was a lot of hustle and bustle in Soufriere. Street vendors selling cartloads of fresh fish.