☀️ #62 The Blind Sightseers “Escape The Lockdown” With Distant Memories: “Castries, St. Lucia” 🇱🇨 (2019)

The Blind Sightseers logo

   Hi friends and welcome to Day 62 of this monumental, inconceivable and definly memorable blind sightseers tour….!

St Lucia logo

🇱🇨 Good morning friends!

Sarah & i booked a Catamaran cruise to the Pitons…What a stunning trip. Last year we had booked a trip through the multiple layers of the rain forest (read post) so we thought we would see Saint Lucia by sea this time. Let’s see what we’ll be doing…

Pitons Cruise…😲  

Beaches. Mountains. Rainforests. Volcanoes. Springs. When it comes to natural beauties, St Lucia’s in a league of its own. This trip takes you on a tour of some of the island’s best bits and, because they can all be seen from the sea, you’ll get to enjoy them from the comfort of a catamaran.

Setting off from Castries, you’ll glide along the island’s west coast, passing mangrove-lined beaches and lush forests. And then it’s time for the star of the show. As you enter Soufriere bay, the twin mountains of Petit and Gros Piton will rise out of the sea before you. Topping over 2,000 feet each, their summits have only been tackled by the most daring of climbers. We’ll circle the bay for some great photo opportunities, before heading to one of the scenic bays along the coast. We’ll make a quick stop, and you’ll be served snacks, drinks and get the chance to dive into the Caribbean Sea for a quick swim. Last up is Marigot, the most famous cove on the island. This was a favourite battleground of the English and French back in the 18th century and, more recently, was the setting of Dr Doolittle.

The catamaran…

Once again we din’t need a coach as the catamaran was waiting for us at the dock. My main concern was actually getting on board the catamaran. I had movies playing in my mind of the catamarans from ‘JAWS’ an it’d be hard to climb on board, never mind staying on top of the net thingy in the centre as it bobbed up and down. “Wow…That’s massive i didn’t know they made catamarans that big” i said as Sarah expertly guided me (step by step) on board . Now that was over and i was sat down i could simply enjoy the fantastic ride! 😀  

The Pitons…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll3Fg_ctrRs&t=7s

The guide was great and told us all about the Pitons (see Sarah’s video above) as we just marvelled at this beautiful creation. 😲

View from our boat of the Pitons

View from our boat of the Pitons with Sarah in front

View from our boat of the Pitons

View from our boat of the Pitons

view of the Pitons from our boat

view of the Pitons from our boat

Summer bay…

Beutiful bay with our boat anchored

Upon leaving the Pitons we travelled to a small bay and stopped for about 30 minutes. The guide told us we could have a swim in the water if we wanted, Sarah said to me “Don’t even think about it! You’re staying right here as you’re banned from swimming” We all know why this is!! (read Martinique drama post) 🤣  

Beautiful bay from our boat

The guide also told us the locals would paddle up to the catamaran and try and sell you small crafts they’ve made themselves. This was a main income for the people so don’t worry we are not being invaded, lol! 😀  

view of our Beautiful bay from our boat

We love getting a small souvenir from each place we’ve visited, so when he paddled to us we said “Wow we don’t even have to move and risk tripping up, the crafts are coming to us”. 😀  

Sarah bought a small turtle ‘Timothy The Turtle’ that lives on our sideboard. 🐢

Timothy the turtle

view of our Beautiful bay from our boat

We had a few more minutes to soak up more memories of this lovely bay, when a nice lady asked if we wanted a photo together?!

Me and Sarah on the boat

Me and Sarah on the boat

Leaving the bay…

☢️ HEALTH WARNING…😲  

Leaving the bay we had a nice long ride back to the dock…But just when you’d thought you’d finished, Sarah (having already blessed us with a video) surprised us with a stupendous panorama! 😀  

Sarah panorama of the beautful coast line

Back at the dock…🛳  🌧

As we were here a year ago on the ‘Bread fruit tasting mission’ we knew exactly where to go. This is great when you’re blind as it instantly familiarises you with your environment. We were walking along the right hand side of the road when Sarah spotted a very colourful market stall up one of the side streets. “They might have a Caribbean shirt for you” Sarah said as we stopped in front of the stall to have a look. Although it was overcast the sun was burning as we tried to edge our way closer to the small shade of the stall.

Sarah found a shirt with both her favourite colours but it was tiny as it was for a small child. We said hello to the lady and she told us her daughter was living in England and we got chatting further.

After about 5 minutes…🤔  

“Do you have a shirt in his size” Sarah said whilst pointing at me. The lady started looking around her stall and said “Wait a minute, i think i can get one of those. Do you have time to wait here while i’ll go up the road and see?” “Yes of course we’ll wait here” Sarah said as she was stood like she owned the stall behind all of the products. Sarah said as the lady disappeared up the road “Steve, it looks like i own my very own Caribbean shirt stall in Saint Lucia!” 😀 I still can’t believe i didn’t take a photo of this monumental moment! The lady returned after about 10 minutes, nobody came to the stall but the lady did bring back the right size, and it is now Sarah’s favourite shirt! 😀  

Saint Lucia Caribbean Shirt

We walked away from the lovely lady with huge smiles on our faces, my smile as i had a fantastic new shirt and Sarah’s as she’d owned a stall in Saint Lucia for 10 minutes. Then it starts raining but it was nothing like the rain in England. The mixture of the burning hot sun and the slight cooling rain gave it a soothing feeling. “It’s liquid sunshine” i heard a few people saying as we walked our familiar route back to the ship after looking at all of the stalls. Yes ‘Liquid sunshine’ is exactly what it felt like! 😀  

On the ship…🛳  

We couldn’t believe it was the last day of the cruise, although we’ve had a fantastic adventure and we’ve still got a week stay on Barbados! We had another excellent evening meal and decided to have a last walk around the ship. Sarah had seen these circular seats earlier on the cruse but they were always taken, so she jumped on the cushions and said “Steve take a photo of me on my favourite seats”. 😀  

Sarah relaxing on a cool circle seat thingy

Walking around even further Sarah captured a lovely photo of the dock and the island all lit up at night. This was a perfect image to end our cruise in Saint Lucia, as the sun would rise upon our next week in Barbados! ☀️ 🇧🇧 😀  

Island by night

Thanks for joining us on our trip to Saint Lucia! Have you been here before? 🤔

We’ll meet tomorrow…Same time…Same place for another adventure! 😀 

⬅ Previous Day 🌴 Next Day ➡

☀️ #50 The Blind Sightseers “Escape The Lockdown” With Distant Memories: “Saint Lucia” 🇱🇨 (2018)

The Blind Sightseers logo

  Hi friends and welcome to Day 50 of this monumental, inconceivable and definly memorable blind sightseers tour….! 

Saint Lucia logo

Good morning friends! We are in Saint Lucia! 😀 ☀️ 🌴 

Wow…It’s our 50th day of our trip. I can’t believe we’ve hit this milestone already time is cruising by and i hope you’re still enjoying this adventure?! 😲    

What a day yesterday! As we had to focus on not falling to our death we didn’t get to see much of the rain forest canopy…So we thought we’d book this excursion today at a more relaxing pace. Wait a minute…Did i say relaxing? This can’t be right we’re ‘The Blind Sightseers’ lol. 🤣  

Aerial Tram: Scenic Tour…🚠

Soar above a tropical rainforest reserve on this sky-high tour. Hop on to an open-air gondola and rise up through Castries Waterworks Reserve, where you’ll have a bird’s eye view over the rainforest. With towering trees, tangled vines, and brightly coloured hummingbirds, this exotic jungle is Mother Nature at her best. As you glide through the canopy, your experienced guide will share their knowledge, point out unusual plant life, and identify the calls of local birds.

Once your feet are back on the ground, your guide will take you on a short walk through the forest, so remember to wear your walking boots. And, of course, you’ll need a camera to capture the colourful sights around you.

 On the coach…🚌  

We sat at the front of the coach (thanks excursion team) and even though our muscles were hurting from yesterdays zip lining and from walking up a million steps through the rain forest, we sat back and listened to the guide tell us about Saint Lucia. I was excited as our excursion involves an arial tram…Could i call it a cable car? If so then it’s the 4th cable car of our lockdown memory trip! 😀  

We heard a lot of people worrying about heights and if the arial tram would be safe. This is where another of our blind perks help us. As both me and Sarah have severe sight problems we don’t know how high we are, which works great as i’m scared of heights…And it worked brilliantly yesterday walking and zip lining above the rain forest canopy! So it should work well today too! 🤣  

 The arial tram…🚠

Me waiting for the Gondela

 Standing at the start of the arial tram circuit we had a few minutes to wait for our turn to begin. 

Me and Sarah sat in the arial tram

 Yay we are on board and ready to go! Unfortunately we didn’t take many photos as we simply didn’t want to drop our phones out of the arial tram and onto the floor miles below us. 😀  

close side profile of my face as Sarah is sat right next to me and the rain forest behind me

Hey…That’s a sneaky shot, lol! 🤣   

We continued to travel through the multiple layers of the rainforest in our open air ride, we travelled all the way from the forest floor and all the way to the top (and beyond) of the canopy!

Our new car was sturdy and felt very safe, and our guide continued to tell us about the incredible trees and plants we were passing, then as we climbed a little higher the leaves of the trees began to overshadow us and block our view…

And then…😲  

I’m not sure what just happened? But it seems like we’ve just travelled through a classic literature portal in our arial tram which has just trasformed into a ‘travel box’ and we seem to be travelling through ‘Brobdingnag’ as we glide through the pages of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ part 2.

This is my roundabout way of saying the leaves were enormous! I’ve never seen leaves this big ever, 1 leaf easily covered the whole tram and was so wide it was beyond belief!

We were coming up to the half way point where the tram turns around to make the return trip down, the breeze up here was lovely and there is a nice view of the northern part of the island and both oceans come into view…If you could see them, lol! 😀  

Sat looking from the arial tram looking over the top of the rain forest

view over the huge rain forest

Very close up of me looking near the camera with the rain forest behind me

 The rain forest floor…

After the tram ride, our guide took us on a 20 minute walk and continued our education of the fascinating trees and beautifully vivid flowers on the forest floor. The path was treacherous and laced with tree roots, rocks and hidden holes, so when i’d engaged my knees into full suspension mode i was ready to go! The combination of my warrior wife and my super duper sandals protected me once again…Thank you Sarah! ❤️ 

A complimentary (and very tasty) glass of non alcoholic punch  was welcoming us upon our return from the all terrain walk. There is a nice gift shop with locally made sauces and spices. We bought the photo of me and Sarah sitting in the tram from here (2nd photo in this post) which is a lovely memory for us. 😀

Back at the dock…🛳  

Right we were on a mission to try and find (and eat) some Breadfruit. This was our 3rd cruise in the Caribbean (5th in total) and the guides always talked about the Breadfruit but we’d never got the chance to eat it. But today is the day. We walked out of the dock and we were instantly greeted by a street with shops, market stalls and men trying to arrest you (i mean sell you things). Our plan (so we didn’t get lost) was to walk up the right hand side of the street as far as we could go, then return by crossing the road and walking back down to the ship…Sound simple enough. 😀  

We didn’t have to walk far before we stumbled upon a fruit and veg stall, and after a while of Sarah looking at each vegetable she said “Steve i don’t think i recognise any of the vegetables at all?!” The man on the stall asked if we needed any help? Sarah said “Your vegetables are amazing and look nothing like anything back in England” “Thank you and that is Dasheen you were just looking at, it’s local to Saint Lucia” he said as Sarah continued “We are looking for some Breadfruit to try, is there anywhere here we can try some? We’d also like to try Dasheen too?!” “If you go over the road into the indoor market there is a place who cooks it all day” “Wow thanks very much” Sarah said and we crossed the road.

Breadfruit & Dasheen…😋  

We found the little cooking place and it had a few tables outside. The lady said “ Hi Can i help you?” Sarah said “We’re looking to try some Breadfruit and Dasheen if we can pleas?” “What would you like them with?” “Just some Breadfruit and Dasheen on their own please” “What with?” “It’s ok we’d just like to try them to see what they taste like, so on their own please”. The woman getting a little impatient said “You have to have them with something they’ll be too dry on their own” I thought it wouldn’t be too dry for me as i can eat dry toast without butter for some reason, but i digress. Sarah asked “What would you have with them as we can’t see well enough to see your menu?” “I’ll make it nice for you, take a seat”. 🤔  

The lady placed the food down in front of us and we got stuck in. Sarah said “Wow it looks like Tipex” We both tried some Breadfuit and decided it tasted of absolutely nothing! I said “I didn’t think something could taste of nothing?!”  After we both decided it was used as a filler like a potato we started on the Dasheen. “Wow, now that’s nice” we both said “it’s so herby and really tasty we should’ve just had a plate of this” i said “Yeah but there is no way i’m asking the lady, lol!” 😨 😀  

The bird feeder…

We left the indoor market discussing Breadfruit and Dasheen as we walked back towards the ship, when a really funny and cool guy walked over to us. He said with his thick Caribbean accent  “Would you like a bird feeder?” Sarah said “No thanks” we had only slowed our pace down a little ⇧This bird feeder is the one you want” “We’re good thank you we don’t need a bird feeder” The man had walked in front of us now so we stopped “I made this bird feeder and it’s just $30 US” “£30 dollars, we are fine thanks and that’s too much” “ok, $25” the man said as he was making us laugh with his humour “That’s still too much and we don’t have room in our suitcases anyway for a bird feeder” The man made a small laughing sound and said “Watch this…You see this is a special bird feeder” he continued as he pulled a couple of wooden bits off the bird feeder and made it smaller “This is a special travel bird feeder as it comes apart” Oh man i thought he’s got us on that one, lol. Sarah continued “It’s still too much for us” Afterr another 20 minutes chatting with this man (we really liked him he had such a cool character) Sarah bought the bird feeder for $15. 🤣   

The bird feeder

Back on the ship…🛳 ☕  

 With another relaxing strong iced coffee we chatted about the fantastic day we’d had and the experiences we’ve shared, and it wasn’t long before we had the photo shoot and the lovely evening meal.

The food photo quiz…🤔  

I wonder if you guys could help us? We’ve taken this photo of a fantastic plate of food but we have no idea what it is? And we can’t remember? Could you have a go at describing it for us? We just know we must have loved it as it inspired a photo. 😀   

IMG 0352

 The photo shoot…

We had such fun messing around (i mean being serious) during the shoot. The photographer was great and kept talking so i could have some idea where they were standing. Now we have even more photos together that we’ll cherish. ❤️ 😀   

Sarah and me touching foreheads

Me and Sarah both looking at the camera

Sarah * i looking at each other and Sarah has her hand on my cheek

Sarah with arms aound my shoulders

Sarah with arms aound my shoulders

Photo of me in a suit and a purple spooty bow tie

Sarah with head laying on her arms and a huge smile

 We’ve had another memorable day, isn’t Saint Lucia beautiful? Have you got any rain forest experiences? 

Thank you once again it’s such a blessing to have you guys join us on our adventures. 😀  

But the drama, fun and exploration hasn’t stopped yet!

We’ll meet tomorrow…Same time…Same place for another adventure! 😀 

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🇱🇨Tropical Delights Tour: Day 5 Castries, St. Lucia

🇱🇨The Incredible Pitons At Saint Lucia!

The Pitons of Saint Lucia from our Catamaran

Sarah & i booked a Catamaran cruise to the Pitons…What a stunning trip. Last year we had booked a trip through the multiple layers of the rain forest so we thought we would see Saint Lucia by sea this time….Wow, we were not disappointed. 

View of a posh resort in Saint Lucia from the Catamaran

Sarah & i onboard the Catamaran with Saint Lucia in the background

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