Yesterday, we embarked on an exhilarating excursion to divulge in 3 activities in the protected rainforest close to the Castries. The activities included an Aerial tram through the rainforest canopy, zip lining and a short hike on the forest floor. I suppose we got an added extra, but we’ll tell you about that later…
We were picked up from our hotel at 8.25am, after a short scenic drive we arrived at the rainforest around 9am… Upon arrival, we were welcomed by Trisha and Jeffory who were our guides for the adventure. We also met Tara and Ian, another couple who were on their honeymoon and looking to do something rather eccentric so this excursion was ideal! 
Loading up the gondola (aerial tram) saw myself and Elle at the front, Jeffory followed, leaving Ian, Tara and Trisha in the back. Although the journey up there was slow and steady, we were intrigued to learn that the Saint Lucia is home to poisonous scorpions, tarantulas and snakes… Of course, not to leave out the forever biting mossies!
Leaving the canopy we embarked on a small trek learning facts about the rainforest and the plants and animals that live within. We saw chocolate in its raw form, growing high up in the trees, a chestnut tree with roots growing large and flat, and a fruit that has fiberglass hairs inside that cause excruciating pain and itchness when touched. Coming towards the end of our first hike, we came to our first platform for zip-lining. Watching 
Elle and Tara fly down, the nerves were flowing through me, being afraid of heights was something that I’d have to overcome… However, once being linked up to the wire and taking an imaginary seat, off I flew down the line. Simply wonderful. Yes, I did look down but it was only to my own surprise, due to being within the trees, it actually didn’t look too far down, despite being over 300ft in the air. We took around 7 or 8 zip-lines winding through the forest, learning about the different plantation, trees and wildlife along the way.
Okay, so something which is a definite once in a lifetime opportunity, on our 6th zip-line, we all flew down one after the other, with Trisha following last… Once she’d unhooked herself she made us all aware that there was a HUGE tarantula nesting on the tree which we were all surrounding, bare in mind that the space we were in was just about big enough to fit all 6 of us on, therefore no matter where we were, we were close to the female spider which was now running ferociously around the tree! Our guide, Trisha, even admitted that it was the biggest that she had ever seen therefore we knew it wasn’t something to be taken lightly! We had all volunteered Elle to go first down the next line before realising that we were being accompanied, therefore Elle managed to escape first, but shortly followed by each of us! Obviously seeing this was such a shock to the system, but inspecting the tarantula lead to us seeing that it was a blacky, brown colour with a white hairy tinge… but, the most impressive part was that it had pink furry tipped legs! I say impressive but EW! None of us aboard that platform were keen on spiders, let alone learning that we were being hustled off by a big hairy tarantula! May I add, that during the gondola ride one of the ‘facts’ we were told was that Saint Lucia is home to venomous tarantulas…
After zooming down from the spider, we headed onto our final zip-line, commencing at 540ft long, we whizzed down for what seemed like forever, absorbing the scenery and embarking on the breath-taking views. We all stopped for a photo after an
other short hike in front of one of the tallest trees there, a gigantic chestnut tree. No photo nor video could capture the heights which we were at and finally landing on our feet still didn’t feel as if we were quite on the ground floor! Taking the gondola back down to sea level, we experienced some views which were out of this world. Although the sky wasn’t clear enough, from the top you can see the neighbouring island Martinique on a clear day. Despite this, we still managed to see the Atlantic ocean from our height and with a 40x optical zoom camera Abi also managed to get some footage which was invisible to the naked eye! Throughout our zip-lining experience Abi also managed to get some excellent GoPro action videos from up in the air, credit to Jeffory for being able to provide the correct clip-on attachment to the safety hat, otherwise we’d have had to of said goodbye to the GoPro for our first adventure!
Arriving back on flat terrain we quickly found our feet again after settling with a passion-fruit punch and browsing the gift shop. We were picked up shortly after and arrived back at our hotel. We grabbed a quick lunch which consisted of vegetable pizza, cheese toasties and rice (the combinations which all-inclusive allows!) Shortly after we grabbed our snorkels and headed down to the beach to top up our tan and had a dip in the sea. This was the first time we actually managed to snorkel properly.
The swimming lessons paid off because we chased a crab with the GoPro underwater after I scared it shouting for Elle to bring the GoPro over to film it rather than the transparent fishes which she were trying to capture on the camera. Managing to get some good footage, we quickly realised that the crab was actually in the water and could now be anywhere, therefore taking carefully considered steps in the water!
A day to remember! A day that will stay with us for the rest of our lives! A day which only by chance we managed to catch some amazing views, see some amazing and scary animals and a day that will forever be in the top 10 best days ever!
Today will be spent sun-bathing and snorkeling so that we don’t look like 2 British tourists who have just arrived on the island! Also in store for the rest of the week, we have booked an all-day excursion to Soufriere to experience local fishing villages, the drive-in volcano, natural sulphur springs and mud baths, followed by a sunset catamaran ride back to the Marina.
Check in with us soon!
Elbitravels x
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