I told a colleague originally from St. Lucia that we would be visiting his birthplace, and he said that the one thing he recommended we had to do was to visit Soufriere, a town on the southwest coast of St. Lucia. Soufriere, which has strong French-Creole heritage, is near the famous Pitons, Gros Pitons and Petit Piton, the twin volcanic peaks that appear in almost every St. Lucia tourism ad. The name “Soufriere” comes from French and is named as such for the area’s sulfurous volcanic landscape. “Les Pitons” in French means “mountain peaks” or “pegs.” In English, they are another word for “metal spikes.” Given that St. Lucia changed hands between the British and the French 14 times, seven times to each side, ending with the Brits, you can easily see the British and French influence here. Because of this turbulent colonial tug-of-war, St. Lucia earned the nickname “Helen of the West Indies.” The French influence clearly persists in the island country given the naming of places like Les Pitons and Soufriere itself. But alas, while “Soufriere” pronounced the proper French way would be said “Su-free-AIR,” the British (and lazier) pronunciation of “Su-FRAIR” is more widely said by locals.
So today, we hired a driver to take us down the twisty, windy “hair pin bendy” roads to Soufriere. Everywhere we went, there were mango trees upon mango trees upon MORE mango trees. I just couldn’t get over how many mango trees there were everywhere. I’d never been any place quite like this before! It seemed like they just grew out in the wild and no one person even owned a lot of these trees. Some are so tall and gigantic that you’d never even be able to reach even a tiny fraction of the fruit available! And when there weren’t mango trees, there were bread fruit trees, more bread fruit trees, and endless other fruits like papaya, gooseberry, guavas, wax apples, and the list just goes on forever!
Along the way, we stopped at some really well staked out viewing points of the Pitons and Anse La Ray (Bay of Stingrays), had some delicious local tastes of hand-pounded cassava bread (cherry-raisin and pineapple, the latter of which Chris declared “tastes just like a hot cross bun without the raisins!”), also visited Toraille Waterfall (overrun by cruise ship tourists and was our first time really feeling like we were surrounded by other tourists this trip!), and did a quick tour of the Sulphur Springs. It’s described as the Caribbean’s only “drive-in volcano,” but that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. You can drive up to the edge of the area, and then you have to get out and walk around it. You are also assigned to a guide… who expects a tip at the end (damn U.S. tipping culture invading other societies!). When doing the tour here, of course the smell of rotten eggs was pervasive. As soon as we got out of the car, Kaia yelled out, “It smells!” The area also had lots of fruit trees, including a fruiting mango tree and a fruiting cashew tree. I’d imagine these trees’ fruit would be especially delicious!
For lunch with the help of ChatGPT premium and my targeted prompting, we went to Martha’s Tables just off Sugar Beach in Soufriere, a little quaint open-air restaurant that feels like you are eating on a huge deck of someone’s private home. They had a large, lush backyard filled with so many types of fruits and vegetables that I couldn’t even name them all. When we complimented our server and said we loved the garden (which we have to walk through to reach the restrooms), she went into the kitchen to tell the chef (maybe Martha?), and the chef came out eagerly to give us a mini tour of her garden, filled with guavas, pomegranates, golden apples (also known as June plums), wax apples, and so may pineapple bushes! None of the fruit were ready for picking except the wax apples, so the chef picked off a large bunch of the wax apples, and to my surprise, gave them all to Kaia! Kaia was ecstatic; she kept squealing nonstop every time she came across yet another pineapple bush! The meal and setting were amazing, but this level of warmth and hospitality was truly above and beyond. We left feeling very welcomed and taken care of.
Our next and final stop before heading back up to Rodney Bay was at the Tet Paul Nature Trail, where we’d go for a hike to see more views of the Pitons. The trail was originally developed as a community tourism/eco-tourism project, run and managed by the people of the town just below. Our kind and friendly driver ended up having to watch Kaia nap in the car because she passed out on our drive to the Nature Trail. This ended up benefiting us because if she had come, she would have whined endlessly about the uphill climb and how long it was (45 minutes isn’t that long, but for a four-year-old, that feels like an eternity without sitting…!).
The most interesting thing about this trail was that the entire time, it felt like I was in an open-air compost pile because of all the fallen, rotted fruit (mostly mangoes!) that were everywhere. There was so much fruit, too much fruit, that no one could ever keep up with all this. While the smell stunned me a little in the beginning, after a while, it actually just felt nice, like we were truly immersed in nature. And along with all the beautiful bird songs, it felt very special. The trail also had many other fruit, like the locally beloved wax apples and bread fruit. And we got really lucky when we saw not one, but two different Antillean crested hummingbirds. I have loved birds since I was little, likely due to the influence of my dad who loves birds, and whenever I see a new, colorful species out in the wild, I always get excited. These little hummingbirds are a stunning blue and green irridescent shade with some black, and most notably have a funny tuff of “hair” on their heads. The hair almost looks like a bumpy mohawk! One of them posed for us for what seemed like a very long time, and our guide (as with the volcano, a guide was required here) noted that it is actually very rare to see these hummingbirds; often he will go weeks with multiple tours and not see any. So the fact that we got to see two was very, very special.
When we finally reached the pinnacle of the trail, known as the “Stairway to Heaven,” we got to see the sweeping views of the Gros Piton et Petit Piton we had originally come for. We also got to see different angles of Sugar Beach, Jalousie Bay, and the south coast. After this hike and all the spectacular views we saw today, I can understand why people love St. Lucia and think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Some people like mountains, while others prefer the beach and ocean. And for those who don’t like either, they have rainforests. St. Lucia has it all — and in a single view point and region!
On the 1.75 hours drive back to our hotel, I still admired all the mango trees we passed by every other second. I know that soon, this will not be my view out the window, and so I want to soak it all up as much as possible. Mango. Trees. Everywhere. I was just floored. I will likely be thinking about this for months to come.