I gave him three Eastern Caribbean dollars and kept the necklaces. It was humiliating. I knew the people in the windows were laughing at me. All I wanted was to get the guy off our backs. Soufriere was filled with crack addicts and scavengers looking for any way to get a buck off an American.
We were here to fill up on groceries, a stash of food for our drive across the island. The pleasure of gathering food in small third world towns is that it reacquaints you with brands that have fallen out of favor in other parts of the world. An obscure flavor of Laughing Cow cheese. A brand of crackers I hadn't seen since the 1970's. Sunkist soda.
Soufriere is one of the most dramatic towns in the Caribbean, with its steep green mountains sliding into a round bay. It is also the site of St. Lucia's largest botanical collection.
The gardens contain possibly the world's finest collection of gingers and heliconias and birds of paradise - those brightly colored magnificent plants we associate with expensive tropical arrangements in dull office lobbies.
