A panorama of the Pitons on the southern end of St. Lucia. The town of Soufriere appears in the bottom right.


Martha, Joe, Sarah, and I with the Pitons in the background. The closer one is Petit Piton and the farther one is Gros Piton. They are quite a bit farther apart than they appear here.


The Joseph Family, me, Joe, and friends at the Sulphur Springs near Soufriere, St. Lucia.


The fishing town of Soufriere. My assignment will likely be in a small town like this.

"A Tour of St. Lucia" 8/11/2002 Today, I got to see quite a bit of the island of St. Lucia. Martha, who is staying with the Joseph family invited me along for a trip to the Sulphur Springs on the southern end of the island. Even though our destination was only 20 miles away, it took about 2 hours to get there. The roads are so steep and curvy, you can't get anywhere too fast. Joe even got carsick enough to have to talk to the dinosaurs (barf) on the side of the road. Note: That is how they spell "Sulphur" here. Along with "tyre" and "programme". The Sulphur Springs are quite a bargain at only $3EC. There are several streams and pools of water running from some volcanic vents. The water ranges in temperatures from instant death down to really really really hot. The main attraction though, are the mud pits. You go and cover yourself up entirely with this black mud, and it will heal whatever ails you. The trouble is getting all the mud off. After two showers I am still having patches of mud crop up here and there. After the Sulphur Springs we were going to go to the Botanical Gardens, but they were having a slow day and closed early. We drove to Vieux Fort instead. This is a small city on the southernmost end of the island. We could clearly see St. Vincent off to the south. There is a stadium in Vieux Fort, and a Football (soccer) game was going on between St. Lucia and Jamaica. The place looked packed. We continued on to Castries via the western side of the island. The two main highways on St. Lucia make a big loop around the island south of Castries, and I got to see both sides today. To end the day we spent some time on a beach near the town of Gros Islet which is close to the northern most point of the island. I was very impressed with all of the different geography on the island. South of Castries, the population really thins out, and there is mostly just forest and bananas. There are some flat plains on the southern end of the island that are quite different from the terrain elsewhere. There is even room enough for an airport that can handle the Concorde. It was so nice to see different areas of the island after being in Babonneau for two weeks.