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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

St Lucia Maxi-Blog [PhotoTravel]

The last week I have been offline, unable to blog because there has been no reasonable way to get online or even to make a telephone call. It's made a wonderful change, to be honest - absolutely no reason not to relax and take some offline time (in every way). Nonetheless, things have come up during the week that just have to get written about - the urge to blog is strong. I've been holding this while I've got the photos ready, so please excuse the delay.

Why no online time? It seems my global ISP doesn't have a dial-up access point on St Lucia, and neither of my cell-phones worked there (there was GSM coverage but apparently neither Vodafone nor Nextel have roaming agreements so it was emergency-only). The last time this happened was in Zimbabwe many years ago, so the desire to compare St Lucia with Zimbabwe was strong.

First Impressions

First impressions came from landing at the small airport in the capital, Castries. Most British visitors would arrive at Hewannorra airport (UVF) near Vieux Fort in the south of the island, but because we were travelling in from Miami via San Juan, we arrived on a cloud-hopper at George FL Charles Airport (SLU) at Vigie, just outside Castries. SLU is very reminiscent of Harare airport, with the bustle of hawkers and the just-a-field-with-a-hut feel about it.

The differences? Well, the red mail boxes, the clear caribbean-english so reminiscent of days watching cricket and the overall sense of order amongst the chaos, all led to a greater sense of security than Harare. And the overall feeling was one of upward-bound hope, not the Zimbabwean feeling of a downward spiral (I was there just as the first riots were happening in the mid-90s).

Landscape

By taking the helicopter straight to the hotel we missed out on the rest of the comparison. Humming above the lush green landscape was certainly the right way to arrive (confirmed all the more by the taxi ride back!) and it led to a sense of seduction by the landscape which took all week to wear off under the grindstone of reality. The hotel itself, the Jalousie Hilton, is a place of contrasts and contradictions. It's set in an unimaginably perfect location: amongst rain-forest in the slope leading down to a sapphire bay, between the signature peaks (The Pitons) that comprise St Lucia's national flag.

Recently the subject of an application for World Heritage Site status, it's the perfect place for a resort, as well as the worst - beautiful and yet ecologically very suspect. Fortunately, instead of clear-cutting the rain forest the hotel has been built as a network of villas set amongst the trees, and the fact the property is partly owned by the government means that development in such a sensitive site could only proceed cautiously. One hopes that the financial extremity of the ongoing aftermath of the Banana War didn't make them consent to cut corners.

Banana War

Chatting to Americans at an adjacent table in Bangs restaurant just outside the Hilton compound, I alluded to the banana war and was surprised to discover that they didn't have any memory of them happening. Just generally talking to people around St Lucia it fairly quickly became apparent that a) the banana industry has been devastated by the loss of European subsidies, regardless of european claims that the settlement was fair and b) everyone blames the Europeans.

No-one (St Lucian or American) seems to remember that the reason the banana subsidies were in place was because Europe was providing support to its (mostly former) colonies, nor that the reason the subsidies were removed was not because the europeans wanted to do so but because of complaints by the United States to the World Trade Organisation under pressure from 'big banana', the US fruit corporations. The europeans faced an impossible dilemma of choosing between outrageous tariff barriers on all luxury goods or of giving in on allowing Big Banana to wipe out the Caribbean industry. Keep in mind that the USA went on to impose illegal tariffs on imports of steel to protect its own industry, apparently just to win the mid-term elections...

Driving around the island we passed signs of the new aid packages Europe has put in place to try to reduce the costs of banana production (we saw new drying sheds with circle-of-stars logos on them and a typical EC information sign nearby). But St Lucia is clearly hurting, and really needs the income it receives from the tourist trade.

Being Local

The hotel we stayed in was sadly not really doing as much as it could to help. The Jalousie Hilton is certainly a beautiful place, but it has so little that seems locally produced. For sure they employ plenty of staff, and that's a huge help. But the food, the furnishings, even most of the stuff in the gift shops, all had an American feel to them and were clearly not locally sourced. By contrast, the similarly-specified Ladera Resort on the mountain ridge overlooking the Hilton was doing all it could to use local produce and crafts, and it came as no surprise to hear many locals speaking positively of it.

Living

The standard of living faced by most of the people we met seemed tolerable but low. One local told us that everything is really expensive because it has to be imported, so even a good job doesn't necessarily earn enough to overcome the uplift. I had a close encounter to ram the point home. After a happy few hours snorkelling on Monday, I was unfortunate enough to be stung by a jelly-fish while walking in the surf on Wednesday. It turns out that I am in some way allergic to it and I ended up in Soufriere hospital getting a cortisone jab and then spent the night in a fever.

The hospital was clean, and the night nurse friendly, but the equipment, sheets and so on all were old and weary - clearly investment is needed. The dispensary had drugs though. Similarly, the town itself was tidy but weary - very much like other former colonies I have visited, which showed signs of earlier investment that had not been sustained. Other hints were the laundry being carried out either in the river or at street-corner water pumps. Still, people were happy, proud and well-dressed and the government seemed to have taken all the steps it could to replace bananas with tourism. While not as bad as visiting, say, Jamaica, there were still plenty of pushy people selling tourist tat of one kind or another, especially at the (many) view points along the road on the west coast. But every one of them was polite and - amazingly - goverment trained and licensed.

Sunset

No photo blog would be complete without a sunset. Leaving the island at the end of the week, I was grateful for the chance to visit such a beautiful place. They say that the south of the island is 'the way the Caribbean used to be' and I'd certainly recommend others to visit - in particular, Ladera (on the mountain ridge above Jalousie Cove, with a perfect view of the Pitons and of Soufriere) would be a great spot for a three or four day break.

The place makes a point of being eco-friendly and using local resources so that their income supports the local economy. All of the suites have an open wall to the west, giving daily views of the sunset and stars as well as offering great air conditioning! They also all have a plunge pool. The restaurant there is excellent too - very reminiscent of Nepenthe, near Big Sur in California with its high views and tasty food (and high prices, it must be said).

So go there (or somewhere like it), if you can. Partly because it's beautiful, and partly because it's eco-friendly and supports the local economy by using local furnishings and foods. Spend wisely. St Lucia needs you almost as much as you need the holiday...

posted at 6:26 PM (UK) | |