Leeward side one day, windward the next.
The minibus was packed all the way to Georgetown, picking up and dropping off passengers at regular stops in villages and at the side of the road.
Compared to the leeward side, the beaches here were longer and much more exposed, facing the open Atlantic. Black sands, breakers and a high tide mark of large weathered tree trunks, fringed by coconut palms were typical. Small fishing villages dotted the coastline.
At Georgetown, I got into another minibus heading further up the coast to Sandy Bay (in the area to which the Caribs fled from the Brits), getting dropped off at the side of the road. It was just past a dry riverbed littered with tree trunks and black volcanic earth, mixed in with grey boulders, brought down from the mountain in a flash flood a few weeks ago, on the 11th April. This spot was the start of the three hour walk up Soufriere.
Another passenger got off the bus at the same point and he stopped for me just up the road. He was heading in the same direction, through banana and coconut plantations. His name was Stanley Thomas and in the next half hour as we walked together, he explained to me the trade history and economics behind all these bananas and coconuts.
Seemingly all was going well until the banana wars.
Until then, Geest bought bananas off producers in the Windward islands and sold them onto the UK, which favoured producers from its former Caribbean colonies. In the 90s, with large American banana producers in Central America complaining that the treatment was unfair, and with the European Union removing the UK's favoured trade status with the Caribbean, cheap Central American bananas flooded the market and outpriced small-scale Windward island producers. All over the Caribbean, banana producers went out of business and exports slumped.
Bananas still remain St Vincent's most important export crop, but with low prices and the added problem of hurricanes occasionally wiping out an entire year's crop (as happened when Tomas hit the island in October 2010), life is tough for banana producers, who earn 18 cents (4 euro cents) per pound of bananas. That's less than one euro cent per banana. Tesco helps by buying bananas from the Windward islands, but one can imagine their profit margin is huge.
In addition, the island cannot afford irrigation and fertilization as can an island such as Martinique, which is subsidised by the French government. Yields in St Vincent average 8 tons per acre compared to 16 in Martinique.
One can see why the fair trade movement, which pays a higher price for bananas from small producers, is so welcomed, where implemented.
Coconut producers haven't fared much better than banana growers. The price for this abundant crop is low, hurricanes blow over trees, and most exports get sent to Trinidad, where the coconut water and flesh is converted into finished food and as an ingredient in cosmetic products.
Stanley also pointed out some of the other crops, for local consumption by the farmers, such as the spiky green fruit which contained breadnuts, closely related to the breadfruit.
Until then, Geest bought bananas off producers in the Windward islands and sold them onto the UK, which favoured producers from its former Caribbean colonies. In the 90s, with large American banana producers in Central America complaining that the treatment was unfair, and with the European Union removing the UK's favoured trade status with the Caribbean, cheap Central American bananas flooded the market and outpriced small-scale Windward island producers. All over the Caribbean, banana producers went out of business and exports slumped.
Bananas still remain St Vincent's most important export crop, but with low prices and the added problem of hurricanes occasionally wiping out an entire year's crop (as happened when Tomas hit the island in October 2010), life is tough for banana producers, who earn 18 cents (4 euro cents) per pound of bananas. That's less than one euro cent per banana. Tesco helps by buying bananas from the Windward islands, but one can imagine their profit margin is huge.
In addition, the island cannot afford irrigation and fertilization as can an island such as Martinique, which is subsidised by the French government. Yields in St Vincent average 8 tons per acre compared to 16 in Martinique.
One can see why the fair trade movement, which pays a higher price for bananas from small producers, is so welcomed, where implemented.
Stanley also pointed out some of the other crops, for local consumption by the farmers, such as the spiky green fruit which contained breadnuts, closely related to the breadfruit.
There were also plantings of sweet potato and yams (in the background, growing up stakes). Palm tree trunks, knocked over by hurricane Tomas in 2010, still lay across fields.
Stanley left me at a trail turning off across fields and leading to his house in the forest. I continued in the blazing sun, further up the hill to the park entrance.
Here I met a park warden who lent me his plastic water bottle (foolishly I had come without one, being so used to walking in Dominica where there were mountain streams everywhere; here running streams seemed infrequent). As we talked in the shade of a pavillion, there were green lizards on the structure. I asked him if they had a special name. Just lizards, he said. They were not at all scared of people, jumping onto me as I lay on a bench, to catch mosquitos.
The island of St Vincent, like the other Windward islands was formed above the fault line where the Atlantic and Caribbean plates meet, thus explaining the frequent earthquakes and its volcanic origins
The Soufriere volcano is still very active. The latest eruption was in 1979, the same year as independence, when the northern half of the island had to be evacuated and mudflows, glowing avalanches and falling ash and stones destroyed local banana plantations. The 1902 eruption (in the same year as the disastrous Mt Pelee eruption in Martinique which killed 30,000 people in the town of St Pierre), was severe. It lasted for ten months, killed 1,565 souls and destroyed forests, villages and plantations in the north of the island.
Heading further up the mountain, there was first a zone of bamboo.
Higher still, there was a palm forest, described as a palm break, for its impenetrable nature.
There were wild begonias in this forest.
Then weird insects that would remain totally immobile, until suddenly springing a metre to another leaf.
Ground orchids, described as St David's orchids in Dominica, grew on open grasslands higher up the slopes.
Almost at the top, the view was across to other peaks.
And down to the coast to Georgetown.
At the crest of the volcano, there was a spectacular view into the crater, which stunned me by its sheer size. Vertical cliffs dropped a couple of hundred metres down into the flat-bottomed crater floor.
In its centre was a dome of rock created by lava outpourings in 1971. Steam escaped from one side of this island. Sulphur stained the area white and the smell wafted up to the crest. Apparently passengers in Cessna aircraft can smell the sulphur as they fly over.
Later, I found out that there is a ladder down one of the sides into the crater. A family I met on the south coast talked of going into the crater to camp on the central dome. Whilst there, it rained heavily and they got temporarily surrounded by a moat of water.
Heading back down was easy. I dropped off the water bottle at the park gate and carried on through the plantations, where there were docile cows grazing by the side of the road.
The palm trees in silhouette, extended all the way down to the sea.
I waited at a roadside bar on the main road, where four young friends were playing cards, a man high on dope shouted out songs and a toddler walked around naked. After waiting twenty minutes and partly to escape the shouting, I continued walking, back through the coastal village of Rabaca to Georgetown, catching a minibus which was pumping out reggae and taking young lads down the coast to play in a Saturday football match.
