The beaches here are beautiful – postcard style golden white sand, blue skies, turquoise crystal clear water, and of course palm trees all over the place. However, the view is often spoilt by sunburnt chavs and fat Americans. I thought I’d be glad to hear English spoken again but it’s actually quite irritating to hear the inane chatter of fools. I had to endure a middle-aged Cockney woman and her daughter performing the whole of a Little Britain sketch in the supermarket yesterday. Ugh.
This island is clearly a much poorer place than Martinique. Whereas Martinique is officially a part of France (an overseas department – or an extra floating county if you like) St Lucia is an independent nation within the Commonwealth. And so many more Lucian locals make their living out of ripping off, hassling or generally intimidating tourists here than their Martiniquan counterparts. Example – as we came out of a restaurant the other night a man hurried over to our rented car and gave it a quick few wipes with a dirty rag before demanding ‘at least five dollars’ for his unwanted, and frankly pointless efforts. Another, more scary incident was when a man shoved his hands through the car window, eying the car keys, to demand money for having given us some quite unnecessary directions through a three street town.
So apart from the pretty beaches St Lucia’s not a particularly pleasant place to be. I feel guilty for having enough money to have come here, but not enough money to hand out five dollars to anyone who asks. I feel guilty that I live in a country where the cheapest food you can get is at McDonalds, rather than one where McDonalds costs twice as much as everything else, and I feel scared to go out at night because of the high level of robberies and bag snatchings and the generally hostile vibe that I’m feeling. We had lunch in a scruffy canteen the other day (we’re avoiding the shiny plastic tourist areas as much as possible) and paid the equivalent of four pounds for three large and tasty meals. But whenever we go to somewhere like that I feel as if all the eyes that are on us (and there are many) are thinking “Why don’t you go back to your big hotel with the massive gates and security guards? What are you doing in our bit?” ...maybe I’m just being paranoid but I’m certainly not feeling as welcome here as I did in Martinique.
Having said all that we’ve managed to have some fun here too. We went to the volcano and covered ourselves with hot sulphurous mud and then showered it off in a hot waterfall, we went to the cinema last night which was like stepping back in time to the 50’s what with the decor and the people cheering and applauding the film, we’ve had lots of delicious food and we’re staying in a huge posh house. So I shouldn’t really be moaning. Can’t wait to get home though!
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