When the Michael W Travels family visits Caribbean islands we typically don’t stay at fancy resorts. While my boys love playing in the pool, I can’t do that all day. I always look for things to do that will give as a sense of what the island has that makes it unique.
While researching things to do on Saint Lucia, I came across one site that sounded pretty unique, Sulphur Springs Park which is billed as the “Caribbeans only drive in volcano“.
Sulphur Springs has two attractions, you can visit the crater of the volcano where you get to see pools of bubbling water and you can also pay to take a mud bath!
We bought the combo ticket which cost EC$30.25 (around $11 US) for adults and EC$12.50 (around $4.50 US) for kids.
If you pay to drive up to the volcano, you’re waved through a gate and you drive a short way up a hill. Cars will be parked along the road as there isn’t an actual parking lot.
Along the short minute or 2 drive, you see smoke rising from the volcano and you’ll also notice a sulphur smell throughout the grounds.
When you’re ready to visit the volcano a guide will show you around during a quick 15-20 minute tour.
Visitors used to be able to walk right up to the bubbling pools but after a tour guide fell through (I forgot how many years back), it was made off-limits.
There is now a viewing platform which will get you pretty close to the action while also keeping you out of harms way.
I’m pretty sure that the large hole towards the bottom of the photo is where the guide fell in.
Along the walk, we saw some small waterfalls as well as some local plants. The most interesting thing we saw besides the bubbling pools were cashew trees. The guide and another employee of the park shared a good amount of info about the slow process of producing cashews…
After checking out the volcano we headed down to the pool for a mud bath.
At first the area was super-busy but once a tour group left there was just a handful of people in the baths.
I wasn’t sure of the proper way to enjoy a mud bath and there weren’t any employees around to ask. A driver for another couple visiting Sulphur Springs was taking photos for them. He then told me the way it works.
First you take a dip in the warm water. Then you put mud from the buckets all over.
How do I look?
After getting covered in mud, I went back into the warm pool to get most of the mud off. The experience was a lot of fun and I hoped that Lucas would give it a try. The problem was he was tired and didn’t want to get dirty! Kim had hoped to try out the mud baths but Theo was hungry and needed to be nursed.
In the end I was the only one who got to enjoy the mud baths. Lucas was curious but wouldn’t do it and Kim enjoyed taking photos of the mess that I made!
Overall, I’d definitely recommend a visit to Sulphur Springs Park if you visit Saint Lucia.
