This is looking over the southern town of Soufrière, founded by the French and the original capital of Saint Lucia. Centre of shot in the background are the Pitons - Petit Piton at 743m high and the larger Gros Piton at 771m behind it. They are two volcanic spires and a famous feature of Saint Lucia's geography, as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We drove down into Soufrière before heading back uphill along this bloody awful patchwork of a road that gave the car's suspension and our butts a good hiding.

It was all worth it though for our next accommodation: Anse Chastanet, sitting above its own gorgeous beach and in full view of the Pitons!

I got straight to work with the camera hehe.

Petit Piton on the left, Gros Piton on the right.

The shower in our room deserves a mention: an open area in the corner with views out to the water.

The resort is built on the side of this hill. Our room was on top of it all with a stunning view down to Anse Chastanet beach below, after which the resort is named.

It's a hard knock life. Notice the room is completely open to the elements and has no air conditioning. I was a little worried about that but it never seemed to get too hot, again thanks to that breeze, and there are several fans in the room to make it a nonissue.

We watched the sun go down before heading down the hill for a feed.

Every Tuesday night the resort does a big Caribbean-themed dinner on the beach, and today just happened to be a Tuesday :) After that we washed it down with a couple drinks on the water.

Our view of the Pitons at night, with Soufrière out of view to the left.

My first attempt at a shot of the Milky Way since upgrading my camera gear recently to something more capable of capturing it. This isn't what it looks like to the naked eye (a long exposure and some emphasis in Photoshop are needed here) but there were a lot stars up there, especially compared to New York hehe.

We've woken up to worse views.

Not a bad spot for breakfast either, several metres above the ground surrounded by tree tops.

The resort offers many excursions, one of which the manager insisted we do: a trip to their private farm on the other side of Soufrière from where they source the bulk of their produce. One of their chefs greeted us there and after giving us a tour put on a lunch for us. Ceviche with mango and other bits and pieces; a salad of carrots, onion, and more mango; and a big ol' skewer of beef to top it off. Lovely :)

When we got back from the farm we jumped on a water taxi headed for the next beach over. This is looking back at Anse Chastanet beach with the resort above. Spot the structure a little further up the hill to the right.

That is Jade Mountain, which was to be our third and final accommodation. Plenty more on that to come!

Pulling into Anse Mamin beach next door.

Anse Mamin is a little slice of heaven five minutes from Anse Chastanet by water taxi or fifteen minutes by foot. Many of the resort's staff recommended this beach to us, and all claimed it serves the best burgers in the world hehe. Despite those claims, there were only four other people here besides us and nobody in the water. We practically had the place to ourselves! Food and drinks were brought to you by waiters, and of course we had to try the burgers. They weren't bad :)

Behind the beach is 12km (7 miles) of wooded trails. The resort offers a mountain biking excursion through here which I would've loved to have done, but time didn't really allow.

But that's ok, I wasn't complaining.

We had to leave Anse Mamin later in the day to go for a couple's massage the resort had scheduled for us hahaha! Bloody tough trip this one. Afterwards we lazed on Anse Chastanet for the rest of day, sipping cocktails, and watching the occasional boat go by.

The next morning we jumped on another excursion for a bit of snorkeling beneath Petit Piton behind me.

Geez I look white underwater!

I knew what I wanted for dinner that night.

The dude running the excursion found this starfish.

It looked like no starfish I've ever seen but it started clamping on to my hand as I was taking this photo hehe.

Hmm, I'm not the only one who looks white at least.