Cruise Day 5 - St. Lucia

St. Lucia was our middle island, 3rd of 5 - but was the one Tyler was most excited about. After seeing pictures of it, he always wanted to visit this island - he had even looked into doing a honeymoon there or this babymoon there even! The main reason, the Piton mountains that just set it apart from all other Caribbean Islands :)

When we found a cruise that visited St. Lucia and worked out best for our Sunday - Sunday schedule, it was a done deal :) Anyways, we decided to book an island tour for this day so we could make sure to see all the sights. Tyler booked through Cosol Tours which had incredible reviews on TripAdvisor. Turns out lots of people on our boat booked through them, we met several other people earlier in the week who mentioned they were on our same tour. They had about 7 large vans of tourists on the tour and we saw many of our new friends along the way.

We stopped at several different locations for pictures along the way but there were 6 major stops. The first stop was at a banana plantation, which is the major industry on St. Lucia. We got to sample fresh bananas and learn more about the process, their bananas are all shipped to England.

The next stop was for a brunch at a scenic building. This was the only time we were at the same place as all the other vans of people and it got a little crowded. But they had tables of several different local foods for us to try, some of our favorites were the fresh mango, pineapple, passion fruit, and fried fish with different dipping sauces. They also had water bottles, sodas and the local beer for everyone to try. I guess we were too busy eating to take pictures, but it was near this view :)

We drove through several little villages and fishing towns and it was neat to be able to see so much of the island and how the people lived. The next stop was the waterfall, the water was pretty cold so I opted not to get in. Tyler stepped in the water but also opted not to get in the freezing cold polar plunge. If we had stopped later in the day when we'd been wet already or had been in the sun, I might have done it - but just pictures were good for me :)

From here we drove to the highlight of the trip  - the Pitons! We got out of the van and transferred into a water taxi that took us to a beautiful beach in between the two Piton Mountains. In all the pictures and even from the other side of the island, the two mountains appear to be right next to each other, but in reality they are a couple miles apart. So we were able to go snorkeling between the two mountains. They allowed us one hour over on the beach, and the only regret is that we didn't have more time there. The snorkeling was pretty good, we saw lots of Sea Urchins, Coral and colorful fish, something unique was a sea snake! The beach we were on was next to a very nice hotel where Matt Damon and his wife renewed their wedding vows recently. Our boat driver told us they rented the whole hotel and made it a private event for celebrities a whole week.

The views were amazing on the boat ride over.

Snorkeling between the Pitons!

A first for both of us, seeing a sea snake!

beautiful shades of blue

say cheese!

View of the beach, down by the fancy hotel

Here I am!

"sittin on the beach with our toes in the sand"

 Our last tourist stop was at the extinct St. Lucia volcano, just about 10 minutes from the last stop, called the sulphur springs. It was described as a hot mud bath, in a natural hot springs. I had slightly different expectations for this place before we got there. Like the water is actually really really hot, hotter than a hot tub and probably too hot for a pregnant girl to get in. And even if you get in the water, the mud doesn't really stick to your skin unless you rub it all over yourself from the mud puddles upstream. So we decided to just go wading through the stream and try to get some mud on us the memory and for photo opp purposes. Tyler got pretty far down the stream, but once again - the water was way hot! And without shoes the rocks were killing my feet so I just let Tyler get some mud and he helped me get it on part of me at least :) I think it is supposed to rejuvenate you and have healing properties of some kind - not so sure about that... Then we rinsed as much as we could off and headed back.

The boiling hot sulfur water

Not quite covered, but stinky enough!

Very surprisingly, Tyler was bothered by the smell way more than I was!

It really was a fun day and if at that point I could have snapped my fingers and been back on the boat, I'd have had the perfect day. But now we had a 45 minute ride back to the cruise terminal through the winding roads and I did not do too well. Luckily we had been sitting in the front row of the van, and I was in the middle so I could totally see out, but I was so grateful when we finally stopped at our last stop. We didn't even know where we were headed but he took us to this beautiful home where we had our last food / drink offering of the day. We got fresh baked bread and cheese and it totally hit the spot! We used the bathroom in the house and those in our van just wanted to spend hours in this place. It was kept perfectly clean and had amazing views of the mountains and water. I didn't realize until later that it was the lady's house who had prepared all the food for our brunch and had baked the bread.

It's silly but this bread and cheese made me so happy - and what a fun shape of bread, kind of like a turkey leg.

 Anyways I felt so good and refreshed after that stop it was hard to get back in that van, but it was only about 25 more minutes until we were back at the cruise terminal. We had an hour or so before we had to be back on the boat - so we called home and were able to facetime with Jackson for a bit, Abbie was still sleeping. But then I headed back to the boat to lay down while Tyler hung out off the ship for a little bit longer.

So Tyler calls this his favorite day of the cruise whereas I can't make up my mind about the favorite! I probably would have liked this one but that van ride back kind of put a damper on the end. I never got sea-sick the whole week luckily, so I guess a little car sickness as the only ailment of the trip isn't too bad though!