St Lucia

Our next stop was St Lucia.  We were scheduled to do a nine mile zip line.  We were very excited for this visit.  We were told to prepare for rain the entire time and being in a rainforest certainly didn’t give us much hope for a better outcome, but we came prepared. 

The island was beautiful.  St Lucia is one giant volcanic island.  It is very small in size.  I think I remember them telling us that it was only 5 miles wide and 7 miles long or something like that.  That might even be a little generous.  Everyone drives on the opposite side of the street, so that took a little getting used to.  Also, they have over 60 kinds of Mangos that grow on the island.  They range in color from normal mangos like we are used to all the way through the rainbow.  They even have purple ones.  It was cool to see all the different kinds.  They are a very poor country though.  They gather water in big buckets on the roof of their homes.  It is gathered from the rain, heated by the sun and then used in the home.  It was very interesting to see how that worked.  Gas is over $7 a gallon there and milk is almost unheard of.  If you want a gallon of real milk you are likely to pay over $11 a gallon for it.  They have public schools and each school has a different colored uniform.  The neighborhood a child lives in is identifiable by the school uniform they wear. 

When we got to the zip line, we suited up.  I was very surprised by how clean they were and how concerned with hygiene the company was.  It was a very nice surprise.  We went through the extremely quick safety briefing, LOL, and then we were on our way.  I somehow got volunteered to go first as I was the only one in our group who had any sort of experience with zip lining – although let’s be clear that my experience is nowhere close to the kind we were doing.  LOL!

 The nine miles consisted of 15 platforms, a 50 free fall, a Tarzan swing, and several short trail hikes.  We went in a group with several other couples and it was very fun to visit with them and get to know them as we hiked along. Overall, it was a fantastic afternoon.  We learned a lot about the culture, had a wonderful time and we loved our tour guide.  I would definitely recommend this excursion to anyone visiting St. Lucia.  It was worth every penny.