So many days, so many adventures. We did not waste our last day, but after packing, we took a taxi to the southernmost point for some views.

We walked to the Diamond Botanical Gardens this morning, just a bit over a mile. We never figured out why the name Diamond, but it is a beautiful place.

These “Crab’s Claw” flowers were all over the garden.

These flowers come in red, pink and white.

Tiny flowers, big leaves.

More of the foxes’ tails, which here were also called hot cat tails.

Cat’s whiskers! Great name for such a flower.

Nutmeg is the seed in a fruit that looks like a peach.

Nutmeg tree with fruit.

The Botanic Garden also contains hot mineral baths. Josephine, Napoleon Bonepart’s wife-to-be, is said to have bathed here although this history is disputed. Fourteen were originally constructed but only three are useable today.

The hot Diamond Falls feed the mineral baths. It comes down at about 113 degrees F, heated from the caldera that we visited previously on this island, Saint Lucia.

This is a sign that every geology teacher needs!

Brian examining a flower. Unusually, we did not have a guide for this walk, so we had to try to figure out the plants ourselves. Signs helped most of the time.

A symmetrical fungus!

Lizard checking out a flower.

Similar to the crab claws, but upside down from their orientation. Did not figure the name out.

Cocoa pods, which grow from the trunk and are yellow when ripe. The “World’s Best Chocolate” starts here, the sign says.

Bananas are grown commercially on Saint Lucia. Most are exported to the UK.

Beautiful vines hang in the dense forest.

These interesting pods hang from a palm tree. Clare wondered if they were inspiration for some of the women’s hairstyles on this island.

This is actually the road to the garden, which we walked along this morning. Pretty narrow!

A hawk-like bird on a wire.

The Petit Piton, behind the restaurant where we ate lunch.

Old building in front of volcanic rock outcrops.

Beautiful people in fancy clothes on a catamaran for a Sunday afternoon party.

Mangos!

Female Frigatebird in flight. Some of these birds migrate from Africa in the summer.

Sign in front of our tiny resort.

Lots of advertising for the local beer, here with its namesake mountain in the background. This is in Soufriere.

Last evening, we saw a sea taxi dropping people off at our tiny resort. We were swimming, and we must have been watching this guy carefully, because he came over to us to see if we wanted to hire his boat. Well, yes, we did. We asked him to come at 9 the next morning to take us two coves over for the “best” snorkeling on the island.

First, scrambling over rocks that match them almost perfectly, tiny crabs greeted us travelers. Talk about camouflage!

So many fish! This is a Foureye Butterflyfish.

Every color of fish, and interesting coral, too! Parrotfish.

The water was so clear, we could see dozens of feet deep! Tube sponges.

Small school of Triggerfish. Clare wanted to become student with them….

Sargeant Majors were the most common fish, greeting us on our every stroke.

We swam for almost an hour, going deeper to see bigger fish, then coming back shallower. This could be a Barracuda.

A Squirrelfish? They liked to swim close to the surface.

More schools! What are they learning out there?

Urchins and other clinging creatures.

Finally, we got tired and stopped for lunch. To Brian’s happiness, they served a “craft” beer – his first IPA in a month!

View of the little cove with “Harry Potter’s Hat”, where we had lunch.

On the way back on our Sea Breeze motorboat, we could see both pitons at the same time (impossible the previous day on our walks).

Adventure over before the heat of the afternoon. Great morning!

Neither Brian not Clare had ever had a mud bath. It seems a strange idea, putting mud all over yourself on purpose, but our first taxi driver Dwayne, thought it was one of the best things to do on his island.

These are the baths, water black with powdered pyrite (iron sulfide).

Hydrothermally altered volcanic rock adjacent to the mud baths. We watched 20-something aged tourists take Instagram pictures of each other, but we will not burdon anyone with ours.

After the mud baths, our guide took a picture of us inside the caldera. This is the famous “drive-through” volcano, with a bunch of mud pots boiling inside.

A tiny Yellowstone National Park?

Next we walked up to the top of Paul’s Head (Tet Paul) to see both the Pitons (we could only see one from our resort).

This, the Grand Piton, is the one we cannot see from where we are staying. People can hire a guide from the village (on the left in this view) to hike up and down, an excursion that takes 4 to 8 hours, depending on the people going.

The guide told us about a lot of the plants. This one had many names, one of which was the Fox Tail.

This one is called Duck’s Feet because of the shape of the leaves.

View of the Petite Piton, from the other side (side that we cannot see from our resort).