With an itinerary ruled by the schedule of non-stop flights between different island counties (up first: Barbados and Grenada), the third stop on our Christmas in the Caribbean trip was Saint Lucia. We flew into Hewanorra International Airport on the southern tip of the island late at night, drove about an hour north along the west coast and landed at Still Beach Resort in Soufriere, which would be our home base for the next three nights.
Pre-broken ankle, we picked Soufriere because it was close to a ton of adventure-y things like the Pitons (which we planned to hike), a drive-in volcano, and mud baths. It was also the launch point for a fishing charter we booked. Needless to say, most of our plans for Saint Lucia were dashed thanks to my broken ankle. If you’re looking for a more relaxed, beach-centric Saint Lucia trip, heading north to Castries and Gros Inlet is the move.
Despite the bummer of a broken ankle, we hit the pothole-ridden streets of Saint Lucia to see as much of the island as possible in a few days.
Day 1: Anse Chastenet and Dinner in the Clouds
The restaurant at our hotel didn’t keep any semblance of a regular schedule, so we had to outsource all of our meals, starting with our first breakfast at La Haut. Afterwards, we headed north to Anse Chastanet Resort to check out the beach. The drive took nearly an hour to go something like 4 miles because the roads were so bad – aka, potholes the size of entire cars. When you get to the resort, there is a public beach to the left where you can rent sunbeds and umbrellas as well as sign up for scuba classes. For dinner, we made our way up a mountain to Treetop Restaurant and Bar, a once-in-a-lifetime experience where the food/drink (Indian-Caribbean) & the views were on the same (incredible) level.
Day 2: Fishing Charter and Lunch at Sugar Beach
The next morning, we were up early to meet the fishing charter we had booked for the day. We caught a few barracuda, Bill went swimming around the Pitons at Sugar Beach and we cruised around the southern coast of Saint Lucia. Afterwards, we stopped for lunch at Sugar Beach, a super pricey resort where they shipped in white sand for the beach since the sand around this part of Saint Lucia is brown. The enormous American-style, ADA-compliant bathrooms at Sugar Beach will always hold a special place in my heart thanks to this trip. After days of trying to maneuver a broken ankle, giant boot and crutches around the tiny bathrooms of the Caribbean, these giant hotel room-sized bathrooms were (almost) the highlight of the trip.
Day 3: Driving North & Reuniting with Bill’s Runaway Phone
Our last day in Saint Lucia was a travel day and Christmas Day, where we needed to drive the entire length of the country north to Castries to retrieve Bill’s phone from a cruise ship (long story short: he left it at the beach in Grenada, someone from a cruise ship thought it belonged to a passenger, and then it traveled around the Caribbean on the ship for a bit until we synced up in Saint Lucia) and hop on our flight to Dominica from the George FL Charles Airport. This tiny airport on the beach may have been the smallest airport we’ve ever been to… and the coolest. The airport is so small that you wait across the street at a beach bar and your flights are called by someone who just walks across the street and calls everyone to board.
Up next: Dominica for 24 hours.
