Wallowing in the mud

When I thought of coming to St. Lucia I felt that there was only one thing I had to do and that was to go to the sulphur springs. I don't think anyone can come here and not have that experience. It's fantastic. The day before, we had been randomly traveling and ended up in Vieux Fort. As we walked along the streets, I was drawn to a sign saying something like "Little Healing Spa". We went in and a woman took us into a little back room with scented oils, a massage table, cosmetic/skin products, etc and said they do 'treatments': e.g. full body massage, facial, scrub and reflexology was $180EC. Not a bad price considering one of those could be $200TT depending on who's doing it. The woman told us we must come back, especially me, as I was 'the visitor'.

However, yesterday at the Sulphur Springs as we scrubbed our skin in black sulphur gravel (skin scrub), walked on the gravel, mud and rocks (reflexology), soaked in the black hot water (sauna and steam bath), lathered ourselves in sticky mud (full body massage with natural skin products), we realised we were getting it all for free, from the Source itself (Nature). Minus the chemicals and manmade additions. I'm amazed that people don't go there and bottle the mud, gravel or water. Or maybe they do?

While there we saw two white things float down from the bridge that crosses the sulphur spring. I got up and went closer to see that it was pieces of tissue. Can some humans not tell the difference between a garbage bin and an untouched natural setting? That goes for whoever left the condom and underwear on the rocks.

We didn't wash off in the spring/waterfall, but decided to wash off in the sea, which we never actually 'got' to on our drive back, so I drove back with my head caked in a black helmet of dried sulphur which took a lot of shampooing to get off.

This morning my skin feels soft and smooth ... and no doubt my insides got something too, after being infused with the egg-ish sulphur odours that topped off the experience.

*

Elspeth