St Lucia - Rumour?
 

Heard a rumour of potential problems in St Lucia with thefts and some violent crime in smaller Hotels. Even quoted a case of attack on a VS crew member? Anyone any current info or is it just the same as everywhere else!!

Well I would be very wary of going there if I was a Catholic. On the whole it sounds like a place worth avoiding at the moment.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000.../1/wnun01.html

[This message has been edited by JuniorJetClubber (edited 09 January 2001).]

St. Lucia is generally a friendly island, but it is ridden with poverty. The minibus taxis you casually take from the airports cost their owners the equivalent of £60k - they take out a mortgage to buy them, pass them down the family, etc etc. A large percentage of the population live in shanty towns and the economy is crap... most local cars have no working lights, pickups full of passengers in the bed turn over frequently and the one doctor and nurse on duty in the hospital have a few problems...

Property-crimes against tourists are not unheard of, especially if you walk around with four Leicas around your neck and say things like 'gee, neat, watermelons.'

This is the first religious motivated attack I've heard of and generally you would be unlikely to be involved in trouble if you stayed to the big hotels/resorts and took the advice of friendly locals.

Buy their palm-tree hats and hand-carved parrot ear-rings, pay for them in US dollars for an obviously exaggerated price, but $20 ain't gonna hurt you and you get the benefit of an instant friend :)

A must see place, but avoid obvious displays of wealth in what is, basically, a third-world economy country. Don't take photos of the locals either... guaranteed to get unpleasant at best.. at worst, it will test your running skills and ability to stand up to a pounding !

Holiday prices for the island are definitely negotiable at the moment... now's the time to book for a good deal, but do stick to those large hotels on the beachfront (Sandals, Club St. Lucia, Rendezvous, Rex, etc.)

In general I would agree with TBone.

A couple of points I would disagree with, though. Mostly it is not a problem taking photos of locals, but it is advisable to ask their permission.

The point I would strongly disagree with is to use all-inclusive resorts like Sandals. They are a blight upon the Caribbean. They put huge compounds up, fill them with rich tourists, and encourage them never to venture out into the island. They are rarely staffed with locals, and the profit from them leaves the island. Therefore, their island hosts benefit little from their presence. What's more, people who go there do not see the real Caribbean. St. Lucia is a really beautiful island, the locals extremely friendly and helpful, and it would be such a pity not to see the place in all its vibrant, colourful glory. If I had my way, such leeches as Sandals would be forever banned.

However, as TBone says, this is a third-world place. Going around with huge displays of wealth hanging around your neck or on your wrist is, at best, tactless, and at worst, a stupid temptation to put in people's way.

As for that Telegraph report, I can't imagine what caused them to do that - every Caribbean Island I know has a very tolerant attitude to any particular religion, or to people having none. There is a huge mix of religions everywhere, from Catholic to Baptist to Revivalist Evangelical, to Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and varieties based on whatever their ancestors practices back in Africa. Voodoo still has quite a hold in some places, but is harmless. Don't believe what you saw of it in the James Bond movie! :)

St. Lucia's tourist industry is, thankfully, not as over-blown as that of, say, Trinidad, Jamaica or Barbados. I know of places in Trinidad where, if you have a puncture in your car, you don't stop to change the wheel - you drive home on a flat tyre.

A few years ago Antigua had a widely-reported case of a yacht-owner and his family being hacked to death in their sleep. Thankfully, crimes like this are extremely rare.

As TBone says, a must-see place. But take elementary precautions, remember that these people are poor. When I was working in St. Vincent, I was earning US$2,000 a month. Work it out - and I was among the top 10% of earners on the island!

Hug,

I completely agree with your sentiments regarding the larger hotel chains. However, in terms of safety, these have got to be the best bet, especially if you are taking children.

With the concern about safety in the original post, that's why I recommended them.

There is still nothing to stop you popping into Avis and hiring a jeep for a few days (you can see pretty much all of St. Lucia in three to four days unless you decide to delve further into a particular area), or getting a taxi and heading off into town for the local bars and restaurants.

If you are feeling more adventurous, go to one of those smaller ones - you will meet more people and get a better flavour for the real Caribbean life (i.e.... slow, very slow, even slower and friendly !), but you do slightly increase the risk.

Go, enjoy, it's not necessarily a rich person's holiday if you shop around - you might end up ,like me, singing and playing 'The Piano Man' every night for a week with a local customs officer who was moonlighting at a piano bar. Great memories.

Best of all, St. Lucia has it's own brewery and distillery... Piton lager is cheap, plentiful and good (actually tastes like lager should) and if anyone is going, could you bring me back a bottle of 'Seventh Heaven' please :)

Piton ain't bad, I s'pose - I always preferred Carib, provided it's St. Kitts not Trini brewed...

To return to St. Lucia and Sandals, did you realise that they actively discourage people from going outside? To the extent of making it difficult to hire cars, or phone for taxis? Even losing the guy who guards the gate so you have to wait 30 mins to get out? I've heard several reports about behaviour like this, in different Sandals resorts.

And to make things quite plain, they're not the only offenders.

If you want to go to the Caribbean, you can see it cheaply, and safely, without putting yourself in a prison compound, where the guardians fleece the island of everything it can afford, don't give any work to the locals...

BTW, TBone, you ever hang around that corner table in the Lord Nelson @ ANU?

I've never been to a Sandals resort so I have to take your comments at face value, Hug. To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me, but then bear in mind the clientele the chain aims for...

Wealthy American and British tourists with a week of holiday or a honeymoon... in either case, lots of cash to get rid of.

Almost without exception, the tourists I met were 50% Brits, 50% Americans - the former running away from family disputes to get married with a few friends or honeymooning, the latter generally just spending as much cash as possible with their one week off. They couldn't believe we got so much holiday (trans. vacation) :)

We managed to persaude another young couple to come out with us on a Jeep expedition and on the way we picked up a hitcher who gave us a errr 'guided tour' of one or two towns for a small consideration (I think his directions home ended up in a tour and he wanted some cash for it, but what the hell - we learned a lot !) but they were the only people we could find who were interested. That's the culture of 'all-inclusive' holidays I'm afraid.

People who buy these packages do not want to go drinking with the locals in the good bars. They prefer dinner in one of the three restaurants, followed by free waterskiing whilst the nanny looks after the kids.

If you're a reasonably qualified diver, you will love St. Lucia. There's a superb wreck in about 60ft just outside Castries harbour - merchant vessel, carrying explosives running away from a U-boat, missed the natural crescent harbour and blew up on one of the promontaries.. the ship is peeled open from bow to midships and becomes more shiplike at the stern. The bed is littered with armoured cars, guns, jeeps, you name it, and the fish are quite friendly too :)

Vis at that depth is about 200m... unbelievable.

You pays yer money and takes yer choice, but don't be put off by the recent bad press - just find a good value holiday !

P.S. Hug, the Nelson was not a bad joint, but I could point you in the direction of a lot lot better !

[This message has been edited by TBone (edited 11 January 2001).]

I heard about that wreck - never dived it, although it sounds great! I'm NAUI Advanced - next is Rescue Diver qualification, then Dive Master & Instructor ticket... Did most of my diving in St. Vincent and Montserrat, some in Tortola... Heading back there this summer (hopefully) to dive Grenada for two weeks with a bunch of school kids, see how many of the little horrors we can drown... Kit being overhauled as we speak!

And yes, I know a lot better than the Lord Nelson - but it was convenient when you've only got an hour or so to wait for the next flight arrival!

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Breeding Per Dementia Unto Something Jolly Big, Toodle-pip

To answer the original question, a Virgin crew member suffered a serious assault in her hotel room at the Bay Gardens Hotel on Jan 5th. Virgin is no longer using this hotel in St. Lucia.

Used to live in Anguilla, went to St Lucia a couple of times and enjoyed every minute of it, stayed in a local hotel and drank with the locals with no probs whatso ever..mind you was talking local carib by then!!

VP8

Sure, VP - you and I and anyone else who lived there could do that. But when you know the local scene, when you know how to deal with the locals, it's very different from someone who isn't familiar with the Caribbean. In St. Vincent, which was at the time one of the most backward places imaginable (and probably still is), I used to go drinking at the local rum shacks. I wouldn't recommend that to visitors, though...

HUGS

Yeh never thought of it that way, going in bright eyed and bushy tailed!!

VP8

Ever try "Pappa Spoons Rasta-rant" Hug? On the road to the airport from Blue Lagoon.Just got back from hols in BVI-a lot of local comment about the trouble in St Lucia-trying to keep a lid on it because of the tourist industry , but apparently it's been an on-going thing for a while now.
Agree with comments on Sandals etc , mind you a great deal for families and honey-mooners , but no employment for the locals , and in Antigua the locals are now barred from a sizeable chunk of their own island.
Plenty of work out there at the moment , if anybody's interested. Pay still the same though , but happy to say the rum is maintaing a high standard as always!!

I know Pappa Spoons very well! Ate there a few times when poverty was at its worst! His soul food was the best around. Irie!

And the Blue Lagoon - what was the bar along from that? Next to St. Vincent Dive Experience, at the end of the beach right opposite Young Island? Loved that place. They did the best conch fritters ever!