The Pitons
When we traveled down south to Soufriere, we got to see the other side of St Lucia. Where some live in luxury, there are plenty who live in poverty. Soufriere was a village at the bottom of the Pitons, a dramatic set of mountains that run down to the water edge and beyond. The anchorage is too deep to anchor so we must pick up a mooring. We were met by the boat boys and told them we want to pick up the mooring ourselves. We have a new paint job and wanted to protect it from their fenderless boats. It seems they didn’t want to listen and then were fighting over who was going to pick up the mooring for us. Eventually we were tied up with minimal assistance that we didn’t want anyway. I offered the guy some change for his tenacity at hanging around us and he was disappointed He said he was expecting EC20 to 25. This was close to $10US and we said that was too much and not what we had written in our book. Besides, we repeatedly told him we would pick up and he did very little to help us and more to hinder us. Finally gave him a beer and off he went. We weren’t sure of what we should give. One has to be careful because we wanted to leave the boat and didn’t want anything to happen to it while we were off it. But it seemed to turn out all right. It just seemed to us that we were back in an area of the world that thinks we are the local ATM and dish out cash at a whim. This was also the first time that we had been approached by kids that paddle out on anything that floats. It was very reminiscent of Indonesia with the “Hey Mister” except here they say “Hey Mon”. They still asked for the usual soda, candy, presents. They did ask for trash but we had no idea how they would dispose of it so decided to keep it till we can find a suitable receptacle. I would think that most of the trash would end up in the sea, given there was barely enough room on half a surfboard for the kids. I took a walk onshore up supposedly one of the steepest roads in the world. It was steep, really steep. Not for the faint hearted but I got commanding views of the Pitons and over the anchorage. Well worth it. The anchorage was so dramatic we just decided to relax a few days and enjoy the scenery