st lucia...

Ok i wrote this yesterday but have just added pictures... i am heavily under the influence of rum punches, sunshine and caribbean beaches 🤣🤣🍸🍸

We berthed at Casteries, St Lucia. My day started quite suddenly... I was fast asleep when the phone rang! I wasnt quite quite sure where I was but I managed to pick up the phone and answered it ...And this woman shouted ' Don't kill me for waking you up but you want to come on a trip' I was I wee bit discombobulated and actually just said yes.. it took me a few seconds to realise it was my friend who is a guest on this cruise. Her husband and her were going on a trip that day but he was ill so he couldn't go... they couldn't get a refund - so she asked I would like to take his place. I had 20 minutes to get out get dressed and be in the meeting point And somehow I managed it without really thinking too much. 🤣🤣🤣.

It was a really good day out. We took a coach across the island. Visited a couple of waterfalls, a local souvenir market, lots of view points where we took panoramic vistas of the island and the surrounding countryside. We drove through banana plantations and then went to the volcano which is all sulfurus. It's full of mud pools going gloop gloop - its not actually considered active but regarded as dormant. We visited the Diamond Botanical Gardens which had been a sugar plantation and then had a typical caribbean lunch in a old sugar refinary -which was very nice I had a banana salad which is like potato salad. 

We had a very good guide and we learnt a lot about the islands economy, majorly tourism and agriculture. How useful tax free 'havens' are to other industries like oil... 

We sailed back up the coast on a catamaran... brilliant fun.

My friend went in the sea I hadn't been organised enough to bring something to swim in so I just took photographs. It was a great day out.

It certainly gave me a different view of the islands. It waa good to see inland apart from just visiting the port off a ship. Dr Fred went into the town and said It was an 'Environmental disaster' Which is hardly complimentary in any shape or form🤣🤣. 

Once you go out of the town and you were out in this beautiful lush tropical green landscape It shows how truly beautiful these islands are. I would really be interested in the whole socio economic stuff - It does seem that there is an awful lot of money on these islands- I guess it's because it's all about the tax-free status', But also when you're in the ports you are seeing a different side of life, and a different way of living not necessarily poor but i suspect a lot of borderline poverty and real under class poverty.

I'd be interested to know what the ratios were. The thing is you think of the Caribbean as being a bit like 'Death in Paradise' All swish bars and Pina colada and Rum Punches, but our experience so far has been that it's not like that. It's also immensely expensive compared to most places we've been in the world.... Still it's a great experience and privilege to actually be able to visit these places and make our own judgements..