ST.LUCIA 2013

So after two glorious weeks in St.Lucia, as promised here is a blogpost about my holiday adventures. For those of you who are unfamiliar with St.Lucia, it is a small volcanic island in the Caribbean off the North coast of South America. 


I was lucky enough to travel there via Virgin Atlantic with my mother and sister. The journey was very long and very tiring. The day we left we had to get up at half past two in the morning and we were then collected by our taxi at four to take us to Gatwick Airport. Because our suitcases were so big we had a minivan to take us there! Living in southwest England, the car journey took four hours to the airport, then the flight took just over seven hours. I was extremely tired and even more so when we had an hour and a half taxi journey across the windy landscape of St.Lucia to our resort, East Winds Inn. St.Lucia was a very beautiful country to look at, but the way people lived really created a new perspective for me. There were many shacks where people lived, tethered goats and stray dogs at the sides of the roads, but  although I felt out of my comfort zone, I realised that the friendliness of the people, the mountainous landscape and luscious rainforest made it totally worthwhile. It was a whole new experience which I am still extremely grateful for. 




Our resort, East Winds Inn, was breathtaking. The tropical gardens were full of exotic plants, birds, geckos, land crabs and hummingbirds. We went during the low season therefore it wasn't very busy, which was good because after a night in our first house where we shared a room, we asked if we could be moved to another that wasn't so close to the Bamboo Lounge which was quite a noisy socialising area in the evening. Amazingly, they moved us to the deluxe cottage at the far end of the resort where we were given two rooms with balconies, walk in wardrobes, large double-sinks and sunken showers. We were very lucky and we couldn't thank them enough.




We dined in the resort's open air restaurant every day, and I miss the staff very much because they were not only our waiters and waitresses, but our friends. Every sunday lunch there was a steel band who played reggae (which was brilliant) and on Saturdays there were delicious barbecues. Every evening we had various different entertainment, from saxophone to piano which was lovely to listen to and soak up the atmosphere. 


It was very hot, almost twice the temperature here in England. But that created the perfect excuse to dip into the sea and swim amongst the fish, occasionally having a friendly chat with the locals. There was also the hotel's pool with a swim-up self-service bar.




We also did a fair amount of travelling across the country, visiting nearby towns, botanical gardens, sulphur springs and being carried across the rainforest canopy in a lift. It was a truly mesmerising experience which I shall never forget.