Take a walk on the wild side of St Lucia

A new Botanical Trail proves there is more to the island than luxury honeymoons, says James Henderson

St Lucia. Romance. The two have long been woven together. And that’s because the island has been so successful conjuring up its mercurial mix of welcome, charm and character-filled hotels – a unique variation on the seductiveness of all the Windward Islands. So yes, as a couple, there’s plenty to lure you here. But part of that charm is St Lucia’s physical luxuriance, and – whether or not you are visiting with a significant other – you’re reminded of this at every turn. Other Caribbean islands have a lush beauty about them, but nowhere else does this culminate in the crescendo of the Pitons, St Lucia’s iconic twin volcanic peaks, which in a moment of pure geographical drama soar 2,500ft from the sea like massive incisors.

Mind-boggling fertility is everywhere. Trees drip with fruit, hotel gardens explode with colour and even roads seem under threat as growth encroaches from either side. Not long ago this was known simply as “bush”. But there is more to bush than you could ever imagine. To celebrate it, St Lucia has come up with the idea of a Botanical Trail that will tempt couples and singletons alike. Launched just before lockdown, this loose collection of sites of natural interest – parks, gardens and plantations – is now reopening as the individual elements become Covid-certified.

Tet Paul, a community project, claims to have the island’s finest view of the Pitons. From the village of Chateaubelair, I was led by guide Bertha up a ravine to the Tet, a plateau. She pointed out local crops and tropical trees – breadfruit, cashew and lime, sweet potato, ladies’ fingers and pineapple; the last grows in an impressive explosion of spikes. On the plateau itself, the sounds of village life rose to meet us – music, a shrieking laugh and a dog bark. The culmination of it all is a viewing platform: the massive pointed Pitons really are magical.

Rabot Hotel by Hotel Chocolat is one of a number of luxurious options clustered around these extraordinary mountains. Its pool, dining room and most of its rooms gaze across greenery onto the Petit Piton, which hovers above like a pyramid. It’s easy to spend time gazing at something so majestic, particularly with a cup of local “cocoa tea” (unprocessed, unsweetened chocolate) to hand. Interestingly, chocolate, bitter or sweetened, is included in almost every dish on the menu at Hotel Chocolat. The hotel name itself hints at an important dimension of the island’s fertility: plantations. In the late 1700s the difficult terrain here was found suitable for cocoa forests, cultivated to satisfy a taste for the drink in European chocolate houses. The estates have now been revived by Hotel Chocolat, which offers “Tree to Bean” and “Bean to Bar” experiences. You can splice a sapling at their research station and see cocoa pods harvested, and then, on a cool new deck of polished concrete, grind beans into a paste, mix in cocoa butter and create your own chocolate bar.

The most impressive formal garden on the trail is Mamiku, created by landscape designer Veronica Shingleton-Smith. Mamiku has around 300 species in its 12 acres. Gavin the gardener leads me through woodland, glades and rainforest, pointing out gumbo limbo, otherwise known as the “tourist tree” (because its bark goes red and peels) and galba wood, which is so heavy it sinks in water.

In the 12 acres of flowering plants, sprays of ixora and hibiscus billow into the walkways, but there are rarer exotics such as Gmelina philippensis and orchids as ornate and threatening-looking as a lion fish. Gavin and I witnessed a hummingbird dogfight as we wandered the pathways. These beautiful small birds are surprisingly aggressive.

Shingleton-Smith designed many of the hotel gardens in St Lucia and I met her daughter Impy, also a gardener, at Cap

Maison. The hotel sits on a cliff near the northern tip of the island: the cliff-side vegetation remains untouched, but the lawns are festooned with colour.

“It’s all about depth of field and contours,” she said. “We build up layers of colour against the walls. Trees are interspersed, but we’re careful to maintain sight lines from the balconies.”

As we walked, Impy showered me with plant names, in English, in Latin, even in French Creole (St Lucia’s other language, the result of the island’s partial French history). There are pentas, pink and red five-pointed stars; seemingly luminous portulacas; cat’s whiskers and mother-in law’s tongue (a rather spiky, variegated standing leaf). She also mentioned some iNature’s path: the lush beauty of St Lucia is legendary

jSatisfy your sweet tooth at Rabot Hotel unexpected uses: hibiscus as shampoo, for example (it even gives your hair a red tinge). In Haiti, another hibiscus, nicknamed “choublac”, is used to polish shoes. Besides cooking, bay leaf is used medicinally, as a tea after a chill.

The Botanical Trail emphasises the use of plants in St Lucia’s traditional medicine. Hospital was the place to go if you broke a leg, but for colds and other ailments you visited the village herbalist, who would recommend a leaf or a bark to boil as a tea or use in a poultice. Tamarind is drunk to lower high blood pressure, while leaf of life is used to treat inflammation.

These traditional health remedies have found their way into spa treatments and even cosmetics. St Lucian Theresa Edwards has a skincare range, Skin Alchemists, that uses products from around the Caribbean: Surfer’s Paradise soap gives a nod to the St Lucian habit of a “sea bath”, using locally grown sea moss, while her Dark Matter soap reflects the sulphur springs in the island’s second town of Soufrière, where people take volcanic mud baths.

The most revealing hike on my tour was at Babonneau (also the home of Rainforest Adventures, with a tree-top tram-ride and ziplines). Escorted by Samantha, I marched 800ft to the shoulder of La Sorcière, on tracks scattered with leaf litter in all stages of decomposition. Flitting between languages, Samantha brought the forest alive. Here was bwa lélé, used as a whisk (lélé means to move or dance), there bwa anson, whose sap burns aromatically. I learnt that z’ailes mouche (fly wings) is a palm whose straw is woven into hats, that Cyathea arborea is used as a general detoxifier, and “cheena”, a local quinine, wards against menstrual cramp.

Hiking in the jungle is hot work, so it was a relief to be back on the balcony at Cap Maison, admiring the view across to Martinique through the colourful profusion of the hotel gardens, as much part of St Lucia’s medicine cabinet as it is part of what makes this the Caribbean’s most romantic island.

Overseas travel is currently subject to restrictions. See Page 5