Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The road, the village, the volcano and some rum for good measure

Today was immersion into St Lucia. We experienced life in two fishing villages, visited the former capitol of Soufriere, walked into a volcano and smelled the H2S (Hydrogen sulfide) and saw the super heated steam, visited a botanical garden, and arrived back at our villa hot sweaty, and ready to fall into the pool for some refreshment.


Where to begin--ok the roads. The roads are dangerous and I am glad we hired a driver. the roads are narrow, pot-holed, mountainous, and washed out in some places by the hurricane last year. I'm not sure I could even have navigated using the maps.

This image is of the Pitons--the national landmark of St Lucia. We had lunch in a restaurant right between them and the volcano is just to the left.


The volcano was dormant but had hot spots which are national treasures. We could smell the gas coming from the earth. It gave new meaning to the phrase my Dad always uses about hell, fire, and brimstone.


I had thought we might be able to get closer to the hot spots, but they had us restrained a safe distance away. This photo actually is of the mud being thrown into the air by the super heated steam. Still, the power of what was below our feet was amazing.

From the volcano, we headed off to lunch at a location between the Pitons. It was fabulous. The raw beauty is hard to imagine without seeing them in person. They are rugged and sit right on the coast--right down to the coast. We are going to be anchored between them on our first night of the sailing half of the vacation. And I am looking forward to swimming in the bay between them--something right out of a movie.

From lunch--it was off to a botanical garden. We were confronted by so many beautiful flowers and at the mid point of our tour through a falls which is part of the mineral laden water flowing from the volcano.



Chris took a multitude of flower pictures and I tried to get the falls--unsuccessfully the way I wanted to remember them.




To end the day we happened upon a rum distillery. Since there are no wineries, we decided to do a rum tasting. Decide for yourself if we had fun on the road to Soufriere and back.




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