Knot In The Sand

For anchoring boats on the black sand of Anse Chastenet, St Lucia.

Iron

A curl in a fence on a balcony overlooking the ocean at Anse Chastenet, St Lucia.

Donkey

Chillin' on the hillside north of Soufriere, St Lucia.

Bougainvillea

In a wall at Anse Chastenet, St Lucia.

Black Sand

Peppery sand in the late afternoon at Anse Chastenet Beach on St Lucia.

Ginger Flower

Seen somewhere in our travels on St Lucia. The root is used to make the spice, and smells wonderful.

A Hermit Crab

A little hermit crab puttering around Anse Cochon beach on St Lucia.

Anse Cochon

To got to one of our favorite places on St Lucia, you have to turn off the main road, and travel a few miles down a very steep, poorly paved side road, until you come to a more-lowly-still unpaved road through the trees. Here you either hold your breath and hope you don't meet any one coming the other way, or park your 4WD in the shrubs and walking a quarter mile to Anse Cochon.
And this is what you will see: a calm, tawny little beach anchored by a little resort and a gathering of fishermen at the ends.
Catamaran tours stop by for a few hours, but the beach is so hard to get to, it doesn't feel crowded.
Sea birds watch fisherman bringing in the catch for the Friday night fish-fry at Anse La Raye.
It was fun to sit an watch them work.
We wanted to have a relaxing vacation, but avoid the usual tourist-trap, sequestered feel of so many resorts catering to foreigners. At times, being in an outsider in poor a foreign country outside of the cocoon of an expensive resort was, I'll admit, intimidating and at times a little scary. Maybe a little too much adventure! It didn't feel that way here. This was a beautiful place to be able to just be, and swim. I watched a scared little hermit crab scuttle into the shade. I felt a school of tiny silver flying fish go skipping past me through the bay.

Ladera

Here is an excellent place to have a drink.
Perched between the Pitons, the bar at Ladera Resort overlooks Jalousie Bay and provides a, may I repeat, excellent place to order a drink and watch the sunset from up high.
A view of Petit Piton to the south.
Ladera is gourgeous, with beautiful grounds, open-air rooms and private pools. We wanted to stay here but it is mucho, mucho dinero. So we visited once for sunset, and once for dinner instead.

La Haut Plantation

We walked up to this little hotel up the hill from Villa Des Pitons for lunch one day. You can see the surrounding jungle and rich green interior mountains very well in these photos!

A Guest

I'm sure this little friend at Anse Chastenet wanted to share our lunch, but he didn't get to. Watched us the whole meal though.

Bird Flying Over The Water

We saw this bird, which I believe is a type of frigate, at Anse Cochon beach in St. Lucia. He was watching the fishermen in the bay very closely.

Island Cat

Check out the little buddy we made at Villas Des Pitons in Soufriere. He begged outside our door every night.

Anse la Raye Falls

By this point we had been in St Lucia long enough to not believe the locals camped out at the trail head trying to convince us we needed to pay them to visit Anse la Raye Falls, or at least give them $5 EC to borrow a walking stick. After a short shady hike we reached the falls, populated by a couple of mid-sized tours and their enthusiastic guides.
We didn't chance diving in though--the water in the pools below was green!

La Sikwi Sugar Mill

La Sikwi is a restored 19th century sugar mill in Anse la Raye, St Lucia.
Once abandoned on an old estate in the fertile inland hills for many decades, today the mill holds a museum. The grounds surrounding the mill are now a tropical garden. It's a familiar story on St Lucia: remnants of the days when agriculture was king revamped to harvest what it can money from the island's new cash crop, tourists.
Inside the mill, an impressive water wheel once leased by the government to provide hydroelectric energy for the town.
Fruit harvested from trees in the gardens: bananas, citrus, cocoa.
This aqueduct carried water to power the wheel inside.
The gardens are colorful, functional, and varied.
In a room below the mill, holes in the wall for stoking fires used in the sugar-refining process. A bar was added, now large tours take lunch in this room.

Anse la Raye

These little buildings on a hill make up the little fishing town of Anse la Raye, St Lucia.
Being foreign and trying to navigate the narrow roads here in a rented 4WD is an excellent way to get everyone in town to come out and try to talk to you while you're driving, which in a way is charming but for shy people like us was a bit overwhelming. I suppose that's a small town for you. I would have liked to have gotten more photographs but walking around town with a camera would have made us even more conspicuous, if such a thing were possible.
From the highway, the town and bay of Anse la Raye.
Anse la Raye beach littered with fishing vessels and construction equipment. The two residents here in the water are bathing their dogs. I saw many dogs on St Lucia, but these were the only ones I saw who appeared to have owners.
Church and cemetery on the waterfront.

Vieux Fort

At the southern tip of St Lucia lies the city of Vieux Fort. We drove through town to find The Old Plantation Yard restaurant for some lunch.
It was tasty!
Horses graze along the road out of town. That's the airport in the background.

Anse de Sables

The rocky beach below Moule a Chique is Anse de Sables. It's too rough for swimming but the views are quite nice.
Popular with wind- and kite-surfers.
The Mariana Islands and Moule a Chique in the distance.