The reason we’re off to St. Lucia is because, well basically we messed up on the Europe leg of our year off. Having planned to spend a full 4 months in Europe, it wasn’t until a few weeks before we were about to travel that we realised we were only actually allowed 90 days (thanks Brexit). So rather than have an extra three weeks dealing with the British winter, we decided to use a few air miles and fly off to the Caribbean for a couple of weeks. There’s two weeks left of the kids first home-school term, and it sounds a better idea to spend them lying on the beach somewhere rather than shivering at home!
Prices for holidays in the Caribbean vary wildly. We are only really after something cheap and cheerful, and the best value deals at this time of year are normally to be had in Barbados and St. Lucia as it’s just at the end of their rainy seasons. We went to Barbados a few years ago and absolutely loved it, it had an excellent vibe, the locals were lovely and it felt very safe. Both from a wandering around kinda perspective and weather point of view. They both occupy a fairly sheltered part of the islands which (normally) avoids the worst of the extreme weather known to decimate some islands from time to time.
Obviously safety is a factor you have to consider when taking small kids around the world, and there are some islands in the Caribbean that I might think twice about visiting with my family, but St. Lucia has a great reputation for being safe and family friendly.
This is a big day for the kids, they’ve been on airplanes before, but not for a while now – Bam doesn’t remember it at all and Hunter only has a vague recollection. They spring out of bed nice and early, and after a quick check to see we haven’t forgotten anything we head off to Heathrow. I have always been under the impression that two hours before your flight departs is the right time to arrive at an airport. But it seems that since Covid this is no longer true. We arrived with three hours to spare, but due to the ridiculous queues for check in and security, we arrived at the gate with only twenty minutes before the scheduled departure time! I don’t know what the specific reasons are, or if this situation will improve, but it’s worth bearing in mind if you’re travelling from a major airport.
I guess that all the time we have recently spent driving around Europe in the van has trained the kids well to deal with long travel times. A few years back I would have been dreading having to entertain them on a long haul flight, but not any more. The nine hours we spent on the plane was easy, and two meals and several films later we touched down in St. Lucia.
We arrived in Hewanorra airport in the south of the island in the early evening and were immediately struck by the temperature as we exited the plane. Even after dark the temperature here doesn’t dip below 26 degrees and the humidity is high. We grabbed our bags and made our way to find the hire car we had prebooked. We are staying in the north of the island, and a taxi can cost around £100 each way. But if you plan ahead you can book a hire car for two weeks for around £500 and completely avoid having to use any taxis while you’re on the island. The other benefit is that you can visit all the towns and attractions without having to pay for a guided tour, or at the very least a taxi, to get you there. The problem with picking up a car at night however, is the walk around is done in the dark car park right outside the airport, so make sure you have a torch handy to look for any defects you might get stung for when you return the car. Having agreed the car was fine, we got in the car to set off. I had heard that driving on the island can be a little bit hairy (as it is on most Caribbean islands), so I asked Clayton the car hire man if this was true. Clayton laughed. This was not a good sign! So now I was on high alert for our drive up to the hotel, not entirely sure exactly what to expect. You remember I said that this was the end of their rainy season right? Well just to make my drive that little bit more stressful here came the bloody rain, and in biblical amounts. The journey to our hotel was only 39 miles, but it takes at least an hour and a half. “That can’t be right” I thought, then I started driving and understood why. This is a volcanic island, and the roads that Google took me along seemed to go up, down and around every single peak on the island. Hairpin hillside roads pockmarked with enormous potholes mean a slow journey anyway, but then add to that the pathetic underpowered headlights on my Suzuki Swift and the torrential tropical downpour and you have a rather stressful and slow drive to top off my already rather long day. The other thing about driving in St. Lucia is the ridiculously large storm drains at the edge of every road. You cannot escape the carriageway here, if you do stray off the tarmac then you are definitely gonna end up in the ditch. As an aside, we had thought to download an offline map of the island on Google maps before we left, and this was an absolute saviour. This island has literally no street signs, and you will need some form of guidance to get you around.
When we finally arrived at the hotel we were ready for our welcome cocktail (I could have done with 5 or 6 to be honest) while we checked in. Our kids don’t normally get tired, they seem to be able to stay at 100% energy levels for extraordinary lengths of time. But I think at this point they hit the wall. It was about 10pm local time, which is 2am back at home, and they’ve been on the go since about 6am! Hunter spontaneously burst into tears, purely due to fatigue. Having never seen this reaction from him before we decide to hit the hay and check everything out properly the next day.
Luckily everyone woke up the next day perfectly refreshed and ready for buffet breakfast day one! I love having an included breakfast when staying in a hotel, the only challenging part is finding something the kids will eat. Fortunately there’s bagels and cornflakes, so even fussy Bam can find something to eat here.
At lunchtime we took a stroll around Rodney Bay to see what we could find. There was a food court at the top of the mall where the locals seemed to be gathering for lunch. Now we all know I’m a big fan of a food court, it’s the variety I like. The variety of food available here was somewhat narrower however. There were five food vendors here, but to be honest there might as well only be one, they were all selling exactly the same thing! And I don’t mean similar, I mean exactly the same. I guess they all had different flavours and methods as they all seemed to have their own regular customers, but to my eyes it all looked like it could have come from the same kitchen! It’s a general theme here in St. Lucia, the food is a really tasty creole spiced combination of barbecued meat (normally chicken and pork), barbecued or fried fish, and various sides including rice, salad, yams, plantain and macaroni cheese. Perfect, I love it!
Time for tropical home school. Once again the boys draw the short straw and have to do school in the 31 degree heat out on the balcony next to the pool (honestly, it’s way harder than it sounds, I promise), while the girls get to sit at the table in the air conditioned hotel room. The upside of this is that when Hunter gets too hot, he can have a dip to cool off between lessons.
We also seem to have made friends with the two hotel cats. Bam is to blame for this really, she constantly talks about having a cat, so this is heaven for her. Every day at breakfast she steals some milk and cake for Butters and Ginger as she has now called them!
The next few days are spent like this, with afternoons spent on the beach after school. There’s an aqua assault course in the sea just off Reduit Beach, and we are allowed to use it whenever we like as part of the hotel package. The kids take this offer literally and spend hours on it every day. I tried to keep up with them for a few hours, but despite the fact that it looks soft and forgiving, my creaky old bones no longer appreciate being bounced around like a rag doll, and I bow out, choosing instead to be the designated photographer as I float about in the bay. Hunter somehow managed to get stung by something while in the water, and his upper arm was covered in painful red welts. The lifeguards said it was most probably a “white tip” (some kind of anemone I believe) growing on one of the steps to the assault course. A quick douse from the 5 litre bottle of vinegar they keep handy (I guess it happens a lot) and we’re good to go. They take water safety pretty seriously here, and the guys thank me for telling them rather than just walking away, and say they’re gonna clean all the steps to avoid any more issues. Wouldn’t get that response from the minimum wage kids tending these things at home!
Trying to find dinner that’s suitable for adults and kids is possibly easier said then done in St. Lucia. Don’t get me wrong, the food here is great and there’s certainly no shortage of restaurants, it’s just trying to find the good ones where it won’t cost you an arm and a leg to get fed is the hard bit (especially with two fussy kids). This is not a cheap island, there are fast food outlets like KFC, Subway and Dominos everywhere if you get stuck, and these are pretty much the same price as at home. Then there are the restaurants in the hotels and on the streets near the resorts – these are invariably pretty good restaurants but quite pricey. What you need to do is find out where the locals eat. I had read about a shack at the very end of Reduit Beach, tucked in under the mountain, where a lady called Marie had been serving home cooked seafood for 42 years. Sure enough it was still there, and when we arrived Marie was having a lie down in the kitchen. I use the word kitchen in the loosest possible way, this is a shack in the literal sense of the word, and her kitchen is a stone open fire in a lean-to extension. We asked what was good today and she said she had snapper and trigger fish, that’s it. Righto, I guess we’ll have snapper and trigger fish please Marie. “No problem” she said as she rose from her camp bed “I hope you’re not in a hurry though, gotta light the fire first”. In typical Caribbean style, nothing happens too quickly here. Two beers, about an hour, and plenty of playing in the sea later though, and we were treated to two of the nicest plates of food I’ve had in a long time. Perfectly seasoned fish (bone free for the kids), along with rice, salad, yams and the best plantain I’ve ever had. Yum! We will deffo be back. Marie was perfectly charming too, as we quizzed her on how the last few years have been for her. She explained that Covid was really hard, and they didn’t receive any help here on the island. Luckily though, she had some regular customers from Ireland who had organised a crowdfunding page on her behalf to help her pay her bills and make it through. And make it through she has, especially for everyone who stumbles across her amazing little slice of heaven.
Tomorrow we are gonna fit in the rest of this weeks school (and a bit more pool time probably), so that on Friday we can explore the island a bit. Stay tuned for part two, with tales of volcanos, forts, waterfalls, boat rides and vibrant food markets.