On Thursday morning we woke up early again and met Lucius
outside for our drive to the Health Ministry.
We grabbed a little more EC from the ATM and met Lisa outside to wait
for our driver. I don’t know if I’ve
mentioned it before, but the Health Ministry is right across the street from
the harbor where the cruise ships dock.
Yesterday morning there were two big cruise ships in the harbor, a
Carnival ship and a Royal Caribbean ship (The Adventure of the Seas to be
specific. I’m sure someone I know has
been on that ship). The drive from Castries
to Soufrière takes about an hour and half and is very windy as you have to go
through the mountains. I’m usually
pretty okay with car sickness, but I made the mistake of sitting in the back of
the van and I quickly began to feel nauseated.
It didn’t help that our driver was in a hurry because we were running a
bit late. I’m a little embarrassed to
admit that after about an hour, I had to ask the van to stop so I could get
out. Let’s just say I had to eat two
breakfasts that morning.
The rest of the drive went by without a hitch, though, and
we went straight to the hospital in Soufrière.
The hospital is not very big and is really more of a clinic, but it used
to be a great deal bigger before it was damaged by a hurricane. It is a very nice building and is only a
block away from the sea! When we arrived
we met two more of Lisa’s staff, Nisa and Francillia. Then we started giving presentations to the
people waiting to see the clinic’s doctors.
Nisa and Francillia both gave similar presentations to the one Mary Anna
made to the preschoolers about the 6 food groups. Each of the students also gave a short
presentation about a topic we had prepared the night before. My topic was dengue fever prevention, as it
is in season in Saint Lucia right now.
Other talks included: flu prevention, diabetes prevention, water safety,
and exercise.
Once we were done at the hospital we walked around Soufrière
a little so that Lisa could get some things done for work. Then we got back in the van and went a short
way up a mountain to reach a beautiful little restaurant called The
Beacon. It was lovely, open air restaurant with a gorgeous
view of the Pitons, the two largest and most iconic mountains on Saint Lucia,
and Soufrière. We had an amazing lunch
of fried butterfish, potatoes, coleslaw, plantains, and green banana
salad. We also had some nice, fresh
golden apple juice to drink. The meal
finished off with some really tasty cherry-topped cheesecake and vanilla ice
cream.
After lunch the driver of the van took us around to the tourist
sites around Soufrière. We went to a
small waterfall with a little botanical garden attached. It was not the biggest waterfall in Soufrière,
Diamond Falls, so it was less busy. It
was still very pretty. A lot of people
brought swimming suits so they could swim under the waterfall, but we had our
nice clothes on and could only put our feet in the water. Then we went to see the sulfur springs. Again, we couldn’t go into the mineral pools,
which all the Saint Lucians said were very good for your health. Instead we went up to where the spring comes
out of the volcano. The smell was
very strong and not pleasant, but it was really cool to see the steam coming
off the spring and the desert like plants surrounding it.
Then it was time to head back to Castries. I took some anti-nausea medication that
Griffin brought so the drive back was much better. It did make me very sleepy though. We did have a little incident on the drive back, however. The gutters along the roads in Saint Lucia aren't covered, so there are deep canals along the sides of the road. Well our van tried to get by another vehicle on an especially narrow road and we got the front passenger (left side) wheel of the van stuck! Some neighborhood men and Lisa helped to push while the rest of us sat in the back right side of the van to weigh it down and give it traction. Voila! We were free! The hole thing only took 10 minutes! What an adventure! We got back to the apartments at about 5 PM
and rested for a while. At 7:30 PM,
Richardson drove Lekei, Griffin, and I to a local internet café so we could try
to get more reliable internet. However,
the internet was moderately expensive and we couldn’t use our own computers, so
I decided to take my chances at the apartments.
It worked well enough for me to get a little Skyping in and to do a bit
of research. Hopefully it will get
better over the next few days so I can get research done for my presentation on
Wednesday at the Health Ministry.
A note to my family: We have to go to Soufrière. It’s right next to that beach mom loves so
much between the Pitons and there’s so much to do. Lisa’s staff gave me a lot of recommendations. I got the number of The Beacon from Lisa so
we can eat there. You can’t beat the
view. She also said to go to Diamond
Falls because they have a better botanical garden leading up to it. Also, Nisa assured me that the drive north
from Vieux Fort to Soufrière is much easier to handle than the one we took from
Castries, so hopefully I won’t get sick haha!
Nisa also said her sister works in the spa at Coconut Bay. She said she would friend me on Facebook so
she could give me some suggestions of things to do.
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