World Enough and Time

St. Lucia. We took the tour that has this description:

Scenes of St. Lucia. Explore the island's colorful history on a half-day excurssion that stops at Caribelle Batik, tours a historic sugar mill, and visits a colonial merchant's house. Savor the view of the harbor below and enjoy snacks and a complimentary beverage. Some sections of the road are winding.

They weren't kidding on that last point; most of St. Lucia is built vertically. Houses are mostly on stilts - big ones in front, little ones behind, or vice versa, or sideways.

And the tour turned out to be fascinating. To my surprise, my favourite part was the sugar mill, both beautiful and fascinating, in a tropical steampunk style. It was also great because it's where they gave us snacks and rum punch. The snacks themselves were fascinating: first, a guide showed us examples of the local produce: cocoa pods, coconuts, starfruit, oranges, limes, different kinds of lemons (that didn't look like lemons), breadfruit, bananas, sugar cane, cashews, and almonds. They suck the sugar cane and use the fibrous remains of the cane to brush their teeth - if they don't have a toothbrush to hand. maaseru laughed at me for sucking the sugar cane dry and flat - but it was delicious, hardly sweet at all, with a delicate flavour. We ate in a large open verandah overlooking part of the gardens, and little birds - some of them sparrows, some of them sparrowlike but black, with bits of blue on their breast - came and boldly begged for bits of coconut.

And the plantation was surrounded by rainforest, and beautiful exotic flowers.

( My photos... )