1981 - St Lucia is a very pretty island, and many exclusive resorts are located there.  If you are a diver or a newlywed, you have a good chance of finding St. Lucia's resorts to your liking.

English is the official language, however you can't rely on English being spoken by the residents who don't work in the resorts. Many St. Lucians speak a French patois, consequently, we didn't venture very far from the Malabar Resort (now called Rendezvous, a couples-only resort), where we were staying.  As soon as a tourist leaves the grounds of their hotel, they are fair game to pick pockets, racial comments, beggars, and rudeness.   

One notable exception to this is the Rain Restaurant (now called Chez Paul restaurant), located in the main town of Castries.  Rain Restaurant had an international reputation for good food, so we decided to try it.  The food was indeed very good, and sitting out on the deck overlooking a city park made up somewhat for the negative feelings we had developed for St. Lucia during our short stay.

A funny story, which happened in the open air dining room, while we were watching some voodoo-like folkloric dancers perform during dinner one evening at the Malabar Resort. There was a couple sitting a few tables away from us, and they decided to order some bubbly - obviously for a special occasion.  Their waiter was a very pretentious fellow, who was quite thrilled to be able to use his wine serving skills.  He quickly scurried off and reappeared with the bottle, the bucket and the rest of the equipment.  The only problem is, he didn't quite manage to trap the cork as it flew out of the bottle, sailing up to the roof of the dining room.

As anyone who travels in the tropics knows, the ceilings and walls of any open air rooms are usually quickly colonized by lizards of various sizes and colours.  So this cork sailed up to the roof of the dining room, and nailed one of the lizards.  Down the lizard fell - PLOP - right into the middle of the woman's plate of food! Not being anywhere close to dead, the lizard kicks into four wheel drive, and scampers out of the food, over the woman, and heads for the free outdoors, never to be seen again.  The woman (to her credit) is rolling with laughter.  The pretentious waiter on the other hand, watches all of this in absolute horror.  He disappears in the back, never to be seen again!

The flight to St. Lucia from Barbados was in an old twin prop aircraft, which gave us a bumpy landing at the small airport located next to Castries.  This was certainly convenient, since the main airport where we subsequently departed from was located at the south end of the island.  When it was our day to leave, an American Airlines Boeing 737 took us off St. Lucia back to Miami.

The ride to this airport from Castries was un-nerving, to say the least.  The driver didn't speak English (despite being licensed to pick up at our resort), drove like a maniac over the rough coastal route that runs down the easterly side of the island. Once we arrived, we drove right by a ditched airliner located beside the main runway!  You might want to consider flying from Castries to this airport - an alternative to driving for up to two hours over very rough roads.

One excursion you should try to go on is the trip to the volcano, located near Soufrière. Lots of boiling sulphur, and the site offers a chance to get up close and personal to a volcano - not a common occurrence normally available to tourists in the Caribbean. However, before you go check out the personal safety factor with your hotel's concierge or front desk.

St Lucia is probably the only Caribbean Island to which I would not return to - although it certainly is the island of beautiful sunsets!