Zipping Around in St. Lucia

Brrr!   The 2013-14 winter months are long and we are experiencing unusually bitter cold temperatures.  We need a break from winter.  So, we book ourselves on an 11-day Southern Caribbean Cruise. 

Day 7:  At 8:00 a.m., the ship docks in the capitol city of Castries.  Later today the ship will sail over to Soufriere where the Pitons are located.  They are an iconic symbol for St Lucia.  The Gros Piton is 2,530 feet high, and the Petit Piton is 2,438 feet high. The Pitons are a World Heritage Site.

Pitons

But first things first:  We are doing the “St. Lucia Tram & Canopy Zipline” tour.  We have done this shore excursion on a previous visit but we enjoyed it enough to do it again.  Let’s go zipping!

We board bus #17 and meet our driver Herman.  He drives the winding roller coaster roads to our destination Rain Forest Sky Rides.  Here we meet our guides - Clyde and Nicholas.  We are geared up in harness and helmets and board the tram.  The tram slowly glides through the forest for 1.25 miles ascending 800' to the starting point for our zip-line ride. 

Tram Tree Trail

We leave the tram and hike a narrow, steep dirt trail (lots of steps) to our first of nine platforms.  

After we finish the last and longest zip-line, we hike back to the tram platform and ride it to our starting point.  Herman returns with our bus and drives us back to the ship. 

As the ship leaves Castries, we notice a photogenic lighthouse perched high on top of a hill.

St. Lucia Lighthouse

We watch St Lucia fade into the misty horizon and we move closer to our next port – Martinique.