taxi or bus to Castries from Anse Chastanet beach or Soufriere

[vdp]

We'll be visiting St. Lucia on 4/22/10 (Caribbean Princess)

1) Is it possible to catch a taxi from Anse Chastanet to Castries or we have to get to Soufriere first?

2) How much should we pay for a taxi from either Soufriere or Anse Chastenet to Castries?

3) What about minibuses? Is it true that buses don't run from Soufriere to Castries after 3 PM?

Thanks a lot,

Val.

[Cardex]

We'll be visiting St. Lucia on 4/22/10 (Caribbean Princess)

1) Is it possible to catch a taxi from Anse Chastanet to Castries or we have to get to Soufriere first?

2) How much should we pay for a taxi from either Soufriere or Anse Chastenet to Castries?

3) What about minibuses? Is it true that buses don't run from Soufriere to Castries after 3 PM?

Thanks a lot,

Val.

 

Were you able to find the answers to your questions?

We have the same questions as my husband wants to go mountain biking there. Would love to hear how you make out in St Lucia as we will be there in May.

[vdp]

So far - no new information. If we don't change our plans at the last moment (we may just hire a taxi for a day or go with a tour), we'll let you know.

[vdp]

I placed this on another St. Lucia thread, so this is just a copy-and-paste (since I promised to tell how we made out in St. Lucia).

In Castries we initially checked the cheap mini-buses to Soufriere (1-2 min walk from the port), but the next one was empty and the driver said it may take an hour to fill (In Soufriere we planned to take a water taxi to Anse Chastenet).

We went back to taxi area and after some searching found another couple going snorkeling to Anse Chastenet. They planned to spend about 2 hours snorkeling and then see the volcano and the water falls. The cost was $80 for two of us - I didn't want to haggle (don't know what the other couple paid, they were already in the car. When we showed up, they closed the car windows and probably renegotiated with the driver).

It was a Toyota compact car, license plate HE1160 (reads like "HELLGO"). As soon as we got out of town the driver said he has to turn off A/C to drive through the hills. Make sure you ask the driver beforehand to keep A/C on all the time - riding with 2 other people on the back seat with open windows through hot humid St. Lucia roller-coaster roads made me really motion sick (and I don't get sea sick even on stormy days at sea).

It took over an hour to get to Soufriere. The road from Soufriere to Anse Chastenet is really bad. I think it's only 2 km but we were crawling about 3-5 mph.

Snorkeling in Anse Chastenet was very nice. Pretty clear calm warm water, good variety of coral and fish. I've never seen so many barracudas.

As far as the rest of the trip, I was not impressed with volcano - just some dirty water bobbling at a distance (you are not allowed to come closer) and a little bit of vapors. The driver did not take us to waterfalls at all for some reason (time?).

The drive back was even longer because there was a lot of traffic in Castries.

Next time I'll probably spend more and go by boat/catamaran.

[Cardex]

Thanks so much for posting this. Very much appreciated!

[IslandExplorer]

This is the kind of info I was looking for.

[vdp]

BTW, we were there again last fall and rented a small car. The drive wasn't that bad (my first on the "wrong" side of the road, however I couldn't help myself turning on the wipers instead of the turn signal). The weak 2-wheel drive could not make it up the hill from Soufriere to Anse Chastanet so we stayed on Hummingbird beach. The snorkeling was fantastic (all the way to the right as far as you want) but some locals on the beach were pretty nasty to my wife when the others were snorkeling. You may need some local currency to gas up as the gas station we used did not accept credit cards. Allow at least 1.5 hours to get back from Soufriere to Castries.