St. Lucia – Wednesday | The Escapades of Pookie and Allan

Interesting day. We had booked a tour thru Viator…””Rum tasting and Caribbean food”. What a disappointment. And it was a pricey tour!

We started out being picked up in a van at around 9 am and another couple was already in the van. We all went for the included breakfast and had a nice light meal of salted cod in homemade buns. We also had a very thick drink made with spices and tea leaves. I had to add a lot of sugar because it was rather bitter, and I still didn’t finish it. It was very thick almost like hot cocoa but tasted terrible.

After breakfast we visited a rum distillery and took a short tour and then did a tasting of as many rums as we wanted to taste, of which there must have been 20 choices. Most of them were very good, especially the spice ones.

We stopped at another area where we sampled homemade flavored rums. They were really delicious…pineapple, herb, rosemary, garlic, ginger, papaya, and so many more. They were all infused with fruit or herbs and were very tasty.

We went to a road side store and sampled small tastes of different condiments and from there we went to lunch at someone’s home which consisted of….(wait for it…) salted cod. Again!

We traveled to a farm and had to cross a stream barefoot to get there. No one told us until the day before to bring water shoes. It wasn’t in the tour description when I booked the tour.

While I was trying to navigate the stream in bare feet over the rocks, our driver marched across wearing heavy boots. I raised my voice from the middle of the stream and said “Hello??? A little help here would be nice!” He reluctantly came back over and offered his arm. Geesh!!

Once across the stream, we sampled some fruits, cocoa seeds, and drank coconut water. The cocoa seeds you just suck on and you don’t actually bite into them. They have to be dried first to taste like chocolate. The coconut water was much better than yesterday and I enjoyed drinking it.

Then some man on the farm roasted cashews for us. Apparently, raw cashews contain urushiol, a resin that is toxic if ingested. To remove this substance, cashews must go through a rigorous roasting process to ensure they are safe to eat. This is why you will always see cashews shelled at the grocery store. Who knew!

The man roasted the cashews and since the resin is flammable, he has to stay at the cauldron, stirring it constantly to keep the fire that lunges up, at bay.

Then we crossed back over the stream, barefoot, and our driver drove us back to the resort, while pounding Caribbean music played on his radio. Usually that music is restful and mild. Not so with what he was playing. I thought I’d blow my brains out!

All in all, even though we drank rum, the tour definitely wasn’t what was promised in the description. So, I decided to tell them and ask for some remuneration.

This is what I wrote to the person who runs the tour:

“This tour was overpriced since we definitely didn’t experience most of what was in the tour description. No grilled pork, no blood pudding, no local sides, and no local beverages. We were offered water during the drive.. we thought a tropical rum drink might be offered. We never stopped at a banana plantation and only tasted half of a banana at the farm at the end of the tour. We never tasted fish fritters or stewed pork, plantain chips, ginger fudge, or tamarind balls, all of which again was in the tour description . At Tony’s place we never toured the farm as promised, just tasted a few pieces of fruit, and to get there we had to cross over a river. That was mentioned in the description, but nowhere did it say to bring water shoes. We weren’t told to bring water shoes until the morning of the tour and we had not brought water shoes with us from home. Crossing over rocks in bare feet was not what we were expecting.
We tasted the same salt cod fish for both breakfast AND lunch and an American salad was served with lunch along with a small glass of local beverage. No Caribbean sides as again promised in the tour description. Disappointing. I wish we could get part of our money back since so many things in the tour description on your site were not experienced. We didn’t have any guide we were expecting to have, who would have told us about St. Lucia, and instead, had a driver who was not interested in talking at all.”

We got back to our resort in time to shower and go to a wine tasting. We again met a couple we had met last night at the pub and enjoyed tasting wine with them. We met a young couple as well and offered them our bottle of champagne from yesterday which they were very happy to receive.

Then we went to La Toc for dinner and sat next to a lovely young couple from Norway. We had the best time chatting with them and they gave us some useful information on Norway for when we go there.

While we were in the restaurant, the tour person in charge of booking our tour today, wrote me back and said he was willing to give me $80 back through PayPal because we were so dissatisfied with the tour. He also said that the restaurant that served most of the Caribbean foods we were to enjoy, closed last year. I wrote back and said…Then update your site!!! How would we ever know that… and had we known, we would not have booked the tour if most of the Caribbean foods were not being offered!!

Unbelievable!

We saw Ray again tonight at dinner and she made a big fuss over us. She said she was thrilled I ran up to her at last night’s party to hug her. (Meanwhile, after thinking about it, I’m thankful no one tackled me when I ran up to her… thinking I had a gun or something!). 😂😳🤪