Soufriere

As part of a promotion at the time we booked, we got two free tickets to the Soufriere adventure cruise. This is basically a catamaran trip (booze cruise) down the west coast of the island to Soufriere. In Soufriere, you do the drive-in volcano, the botanical gardens/diamond falls, and eat lunch at a local restaurant. As a note, I detest group tours which stems from sometime around 2nd grade and a trip to France. So, keep that in mind when reading the following information.

The booze cruise portion was lots of fun and I would highly recommend it (the Spirit of Carnival), but I wasn’t crazy about the volcano or the gardens tour. The Volcano tour itself was fine, but I wouldn’t do it again, as I didn’t really feel there was much to see and it smelt BAD. Like I was gagging bad. The botanical gardens were SUPER boring, IMO. Diamond Falls was nice to see at the end, but you can’t swim in it or anything so you just walk by it, single file with the other 100 people that are with you. Eh.

Lunch was REALLY good. Local food at a local bed and breakfast—plantains, jerk, rum cake, etc. It well exceeded my expectations. The name of the restaurant was the Qualibou Restaurant & Bar, and you may want to check it out, not only for the local food, but for the KILLER views of Soufriere, the sea, and the Pitons.

I highly recommend you go to Soufriere —pictures do not do the beauty of this town justice and it’s very “classic Caribbean.” If you dig Carib culture, you’ll dig Soufriere. J However, I might find another way to do it. Ideally, I would charter a sail boat down there from Castries down to Soufriere and take cabs to the places I wanted to go. I think it would be a great combo of being able to experience the town, experience the west coast by sea, and skipping the group tour crap.

The hubs and I with the Pitons in the background.

Me in front of Diamond Falls.

The hubs at the restaurant overlooking the Pitons.

The Volcano.

Enjoying the view and the sunshine on the way back to Castries.