Two travel bloggers, both of whom should have known better, get ripped off en route to the Pitons of St. Lucia and end up on a ride from hell through a Caribbean port.
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Castries, St. Lucia
Matthew and Augustine recently took their first cruise and our travel agency was also onboard hosting a group. Despite knowing Matthew for a decade and a half and angering readers with my Sunday contributions – we rarely travel together. This was a rare treat for us to see something new and for our kids to meet for the first time.
We boarded the same tender for Castries, St. Lucia and set off to see what we could find. We were prepared for anything from the beach to shopping, to an adventurous journey to the mud baths – do your worst St. Lucia, we can handle it.
Our First Mistake
We didn’t have a clear concept of what we wanted to do for the day. Call it kindness and or general courtesy, neither of us wanted to infringe upon what the other did with their day so neither of us were firm with our plans.
Enter: a hawker. A man approached trying to sell us on a tour of the mud baths, the Pitons, and a few other things. In fairness, we did want to see something of the island. The last time my family visited we spent the day at the beach and loved it, but we’d never done the mud baths, and had only seen the Pitons from the water. Our new friend assured us that he could get us to the Pitons and back in an hour and a half give or take. We needed to be back on the boat in four hours so this seemed like the right amount of time. We negotiated on the price some to get a little bit of a deal but leave enough in it for the driver and his… agent to be able to make a day’s wage or half of one at least. We agreed on $100 USD for our party of six (three kids, three adults) to spend 90 minutes in a van seeing the sights. The agent brought us to his “driver” a Nissan Maxima to which we declined as we couldn’t have safely made it work if we wanted to for the number in our party.
We moved on to a van complete with linoleum flooring and a kind driver equal to the task.
Mistake #2
Matthew had been concerned about whether he and Augustine might become seasick as this was their first cruise. They might have had some initial discomfort on the ship but nothing compared to the nauseating slide through the hills and switchbacks of the countryside. The weakest stomachs among us put everyone on notice 20 minutes into the journey that it was not going to end well.
But by 45 minutes through the potholes and cliff edges – every last one of us could have vomited on command.
At this point, I asked, “How much longer?” knowing that we should have been nearly there in our 90-minute roundtrip journey.
“Fifteen more minutes.” Our driver, allegedly a police officer moonlighting as a private chauffeur, reassured us as we made our way through a quaint fishing village. I was looking around for boats to just to take us back to the dock and call the whole experience a lost cause and liberate our party from the torturous return. I found no such boats upon my quick scan and the drive continued.
After 20 minutes had passed I began worrying that we were going too far in to make it back on time for the boat. No one really cared enough about mud baths or mossy mountains to stay in that vehicle much longer.
“How much longer?” I called.
“Fifteen more minutes.” Matthew and I shot glances back and forth at each other. This was not good.
“Sorry, but you said 15 more minutes, 20 minutes ago. Now it’s still 15 more minutes. How far is it?”
“It’s a two-hour drive there, and two hours back, so-“ He said.
“No. Stop the vehicle. We don’t have that much time. The ship will leave. The guy at the dock said 45 minutes there, 45 minutes back.”
Then a fuel stop. Luckily, we weren’t asked to empty our wallets so we could complete the journey as is custom with gas scams, but we did wait in the car while $35 Caribbean Dollars (2:1 USD) was pumped into the vehicle and our trip could resume.
Our well-meaning driver started doing some math out loud but he wasn’t getting the numbers right and there was no question that we would not return in a timely fashion. It seemed entirely possible that we would have just paid $100 to have our bowels tested for absolutely no reason, and ruined what could have been an otherwise delightful afternoon at the beach or just swimming at the pool on the ship while everyone else was onshore.
He offered to stop off for a roadside rum tasting which we had already declined when he called it a “rum distillery” earlier in the trip. He really was not getting the point. We told him we needed to turn around and he said “it’s just ten minutes more” and then started gunning this poor Toyota-something around curves and over potholes as if we could really do anything to end our ride. Were we each going to grab a kid and, sling open a door and tuck and roll into the jungle?
Mistake #3
We allowed him the extra ten minutes after the extra 20 minutes from the originally agreed upon 45 minutes. We shouldn’t have let it get that far.
Luckily for us, we got some amazing pictures from a roadside photo opportunity of the Pitons in the background that seemed all but perfectly planned.
The fact that such a pull-off location with a clear view and a gazebo existed in about the ten minutes was likely coincidental. He had some place further he wished to take us and was certain we would hang on a little bit longer which we did until we almost didn’t. From Thailand, my wife and I learned a valuable lesson when the driver is destined to take you every place that pays him a commission with vague touristic benefit – just get out of the vehicle and don’t get back in.
We all knew better, but maybe we were so out of practice that we kind of let it happen like an obvious ending to a poorly written children’s TV show that somehow we still felt compelled to watch.
Return
We took our photos, remarked that we should both write a version of this incident and see how divergent they are, and clamored back in to the linoleum-lined Toyota.
“It’s much faster going back” he shouted over his shoulder as we careened down the somehow narrower roads back. Yeah, I bet it’s faster on the way back when you stop trying to drop us at your buddy’s roadside distillery.
We came back upon the fishing village where I’d previously glanced about for a boat to take us home. Matthew wanted to grab a shot and it was a good time for everyone to take a break about 20 minutes into the journey back. If we weren’t all on the verge of emptying our stomachs before, this was taking us to the edge. We took a few more photos, green around the gills, and then piled back in.
Wouldn’t you know it, we got back 20 minutes faster taking the same roads back, up and down the same hills and our driver didn’t have to flash his badge once.
The van pulled up to the port and we’d had enough. We paid the man, thanked him as if he hadn’t completely wasted our day and our money, and went inside to return to the ship.
For a couple of so-called travel experts, we made some pretty obvious and rookie mistakes. We both knew what was happening from the tout at the beginning, to the upsells, to the length and distance of our journey. But I guess maybe that’s the point, even when you know the scam and see it coming, you can still fall into the trap. Still to this day, the one thing I wonder is: was he really also a cop?
What do you think? Have you been taken by a travel scam before? What was your experience and how did you get out of it?