When you sail in on a cruise ship or transfer from the airport to your all inclusive resort, you may miss out on some of the best parts of learning about an island nation such as St. Lucia. What kind of money should you bring? Do they take credit cards? When is the best time to eat? Do they speak English? What other languages do they speak? What are their holidays? What is it like to drive there? Is it safe? What are the best places to see? What should you wear? What souvenirs are truly St. Lucian? What is the local cuisine? What do they do for entertainment? If you drive, where to get gas? If you stay in a non all inclusive hotel, where do you get groceries? There's a lot to learn about anywhere, so the idea that you may not have cell service in St. Lucia if coming from the states. How do you Google to find out the rest?
There's a lot to learn.
I think the first thing I want to cover is driving. We picked up our car at the airport and were staying halfway across the island, so it was our first lesson. You drive on the left. The roads are narrow, windy and steep. The traffic is pretty steady and can be stand still at times. When rounding hairpin corners, you may want to honk the horn to let oncoming drivers know you're there. Make sure you hit the turn signals. The worst adjustment we had to make was turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signals. Strangely, staying on the left side of the road isn't hard to remember.
There are other things to be aware of when driving in St. Lucia. People walk in St. Lucia a lot. They walk along the roads at all hours of the day and night. Look out for pedestrians. The potholes and deteriorating edges of the roads are legendary in St. Lucia so expect a lot of both. There are few road signs to tell you where you're going.
If you use Google, most roads will be titled "Unknown." Will Google get you where you want to go? Yes. I was unsure the first time I tried it and also brought a road map with me for the trip. I soon learned that even though all the roads are unknown, and the intersections seem wrong; Google knows where you're going and how to get there.
In cities and towns, beware of the ditches. Along a lot of very narrow streets in towns and cities there are cement troughs or ditches. They are there for drainage, but you have to be careful. If you drive into one of them, you could seriously damage the car.
As far as rental cars go, we loved ours. It drove great. It was in good shape. It had all the modern conveniences. Just make sure when you rent a car that it's an automatic transmission. They offer manual transmission, but the terrain just makes shifting gears all but impossible. You also may want to rent an SUV or comparable. Don't underestimate the difficulty driving a lot of the roads. Don't get manual transmission rental cars.
You may just find a lot of things in St. Lucia that seem alien to you. Embrace it. Would you like to go to the beach? Great! Beaches in St. Lucia are public. You don't have to search for a beach that isn't exclusive. They're all public. You can hang out on any of them.
Eating is something that you can do just about anywhere in the country, just make sure you know when to go. There are stands all along the roads in the tour bus parts of the island. All along the main road on the west coast are food stands with all kinds of local food. We were fortunate enough to be right in the middle of that in Marigot Bay and had an apartment with a refrigerator. The stands close early because the tourists go back to the boat, so we got our food in the morning and put it in the fridge and reheated it later for dinner. Other than that, you'll want to find a restaurant and most of them are at resorts and don't serve truly local food.
How do you know your food is local? Good question. There's a list of local staples that represent St. Lucia and their cuisine. Barbecue in the form of Jerk is one. Saltfish is another. Saltfish and Fig is famous. Saltfish salad is a side. Carib flavors are abundant. Seafood in general is plentiful. Chicken is a local favorite. You can get conch in several places. Banana ketchup is probably the most popular condiment. Roasted veggies are abundant. Stop at a stand and give it a try. You won't regret it. However, do chew fish carefully. They aren't as thorough at deboning the fish as some places.
If you go to a fancy resort, you can get all the famous cocktails that you hear and read about. Pina Coladas and all sorts of Rum drinks abound in St. Lucia. They have rum distilleries right on the island and produce all kinds of Rums. Marigot Bay Rums and Bounty Rums are the locals. If you aren't into the hard liquors, Piton and Carib beers are the local. Piton is brewed right on the island and named after the famous mountains in Soufriere.
Now, what about fruit? St. Lucia is famous for fruit. Be aware, it has to be in season. Fortunately, Bananas are pretty much always in season. Breadfruit, the famous staple introduced to the island by Captain Bligh for slaves has a season. Most fruits do have a season. Pineapple, mango, limes, lemons, papaya and so on. You will find that the bananas are smaller and sweeter than the horrible things we buy at the grocery store. You'll also find that the lemons and limes are larger and sweeter than the ones we're used to in the states. Cassava, being a root, is plentiful most of the time and a local delicacy used in snack breads and other things. Coconuts are of course all over the place. I learned while I was there from my landlord that when they are almost ripe is when the liquid inside is the tastiest. The ones he grows in his yard were great.
One of the big questions we found while we were visiting was where do you buy groceries? We like to make some breakfast and have some drinks and snacks and so on. Especially when we have a kitchen to use.
Once again, when I saw a KFC, I asked my landlord about it. I don't eat at American chain restaurants when I'm out. I always go local, but when I saw the only US fast food chain that apparently was there, I was curious. My landlord said that the chicken is seasoned to the local taste and not the original recipe. Upon doing some research, KFC says that it's exactly the same. Is it? I don't know. I ate local.
If you want to see what being a local is like food wise, go to a CPJ, Massey Grocery Store or local establishment and see. I talked to a lot of people at the grocery store. Malt beverages are popular. Wasn't for me, but I gave it a try. Most people we found were at the store later in the evening. St. Lucian folks work long hours and grab a lot of heat and eat from Massey on the way home at night. I know how that goes. Almost made me feel at home. What won't you find? A lot of beef. A lot of bottled water. A lot of sweets. It's all there, just not in the quantities and variety that we see here.
Another thing to learn at the grocery store. How to pay? Well, every grocery is different. Most take Mastercard and Visa. Some take Discover or Amex. Grocery stores take ECD (Eastern Caribbean Dollars). Grocery stores are some of the few places that don't take US Dollars. Most places do. I heard a myth when I left that we'd get change in EC, but most of the time we got change in US. Just one of those things.
Ah, shopping. Castries, the capital, has a huge market for shoppers of all kinds. You can eat, shop, and listen to all kinds of stories. What is really a local souvenir in St. Lucia?
Most of the things you find that the vendors tell you they made themselves, they didn't. Sarongs, bags, dresses, skirts, blouses, hats, necklaces, and so much else is made in China or somewhere in Asia. It's just like a lot of places here. The island is known for wood crafts, but you have to be careful about that too. The carving that I bought wasn't made by the vendor, but she stains them. That was as close as I got to an authentic St. Lucian wood carving. The most authentic souvenir I found was the banana ketchup and the rum. Truly local and delicious. I did buy some things, but I was well aware that no one in Castries made them.
Then there's Castries. I was told we had to go there. When I arrived, we found out that the parking was interesting to say the least. We had to ask several people where to park. we finally found a place. The restaurants closed early, because Castries is the port and is full of cruise ships. The people normally go back to the ships for dinner and a lot of places close. It's crowded and a lot of the places to visit aren't worth the grief of going into the city. The local town square and church were cute. The market was bustling. But, was it worth all the grief of the traffic? Not really. There were dozens of people trying to get us to hire their taxi and even the vendors in the duty free shops were overbearing. For my money, not worth the trouble.
One of the things I learned about St. Lucia was that staying on the regimented path is a crime. There's so much to see and do. There are so many beautiful places. We did all the regular stuff, and we missed some overrated things too. We didn't visit the cocoa plantation and make our own chocolate bar. We did stop at a chocolate factory in the middle of nowhere and get some great chocolates. We didn't take a tour of the volcano, but we did go on our own and took our time and enjoyed the baths thoroughly. We didn't ride in a crowded van along the banana plantations, but we did stop and then went to the rum distillery. We didn't climb a Piton, but we did find the most charming restaurant on the shore in Soufriere. We went kayaking instead of speed boating or sailing. It depends on what you really want to do.
One of the important things about doing things on your own is making that possible. Like I said, you may not have cell service in St. Lucia. What we did was stop and get a local SIM card for a few bucks and voila! You can visit a Flow or a Cell or a Digicel and they'll help you. It's a great option, especially if you need to Google directions.
I mentioned that there are some must sees that I wasn't thrilled with. Castries was that way all around. The must sees were cute, they just weren't worth it. The governor's house on the hill overlooking Castries was another disappointment. The traffic was so bad and the parking is so small that we just kept driving. It wasn't worth it. There were so many better things to see on the island. Boat tours we found were great if you wanted to go on a boat. Otherwise, pointless. They're expensive, time consuming and you miss out on a lot of other things. If you like to ride on boats, it's for you. Other than that, we found that the east side of the island is beautiful and sorely overlooked. The north end I may never know about. didn't bother to go up to where the all inclusives were.
There's a lot to learn about St. Lucia. For instance, they have several national holidays. Most of them are religious. They're independence day is in February and they are a commonwealth of Great Britain but self governing since 1979. They do celebrate Christian holidays, mostly Catholic. One of the biggest is the Feast Day of St. Lucy or St. Lucia; their patron saint. If you want to celebrate Carnival, it gets tricky. Carnival is just before Lent in winter. It comes into direct conflict with their independence day a lot of the time. Therefore, Carnival is a festival in July these days. That's when they do all the stuff that other places do for Carnival in the winter.
One of the things you'll find during Carnival weekend in the winter is that there will be a lot of music concerts in parking lots and outdoor restaurants and bars around the island. St. Lucia is like most other islands and is noted for it's Reggae and Calypso music. But, watch out folks, that's not what you'll hear. I was staying in a residential area in Marigot Bay during Carnival weekend the proper. We could sit on our balcony and listen to it from our apartment at night. I promise you, I heard no music that I expected to hear. Everywhere we went, we heard American Country Music. The locals love it and can't get enough. In the area we were in, it was the most popular music everywhere you went.
Before I close this entry, I'll discuss a couple of other things about life in St. Lucia. First, language. Everyone speaks English. There's so many British and American tourists running around that it just makes sense. They're also a commonwealth of Britain. They do speak a Creole (pronounced Kwee-ole) with a French twist from regimes past, and it's a beautiful language. You'll probably not hear much of it as a tourist though.
The other thing is safety. I was warned to guard my belongings in Castries. I didn't encounter any issues. People begged and tried to sell me everything in the world, but I encountered nothing but nice friendly people. Once in the smaller towns, it became even less of an issue. Don't let ridiculous rumor guide your choices for vacation. I've found that the world over and just have to say that you just need to be practical and you'll be fine.
So, that's how it works. You can get cash from many ATM machines around the island. That's how we got cash. the fees aren't bad at all. Just make sure you use one associated with a bank. We learned a lot about life on the island. We learned that water in residential areas tends to be filtered rainwater. Makes sense, because it rains 5 times a day in the dry season. TV is largely by app, although they have local channels. Your American apps probably won't work there, so don't try. You aren't there to watch TV anyway. Internet is abundant across the island, so Wi-Fi is standard. It's all a little different, but all fascinating. I love to try a different way of life once in a while, and St. Lucia offers just that. It's not third world, it's just a bit different. So, if you make your way to the charming Island Nation, embrace the different, the lifestyle and enjoy!
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