Days Out in St Lucia: En Bas Saut Rainforest Trail

During our stay at Crystals, we asked Monica about guided rainforest walks and she offered one of her staff, Pas, to act as our guide. The next day we set off after breakfast and.... got a flat tyre straight away! Once replaced we continued our journey, through small towns then further in to the countryside, bound for the Edmund Forest Reserve.



Again the road turned to track, we bounced around in the 4x4, which was bouncing around on the dirt tracks. Slithers of concrete slabs changed to rocky, bumpy, holey sections, which occasionally made small offerings of smooth, concrete slabs. The journey took around 40 minutes from the last small town (Fond St Jacques) to our destination, high up in to the rainforest and to the En Bas Saut trail. This same area is home to St Lucia's highest point, Mount Gimie (958 metres above sea level).


Mount Gimie)

The En Bas Trail is deep in the Edmund Rainforest, comfortably protected in a reserve , there are no dwellings or farming allowed by law. The entrance is marked by a small, wooden hut. We ditched the 4x4, donned a big stick and followed Pas in to the green and pristine ecosystem.



I would consider myself fairly fit, and we walked the length of the trail in about an hour. The walkways are well maintained, although a little slippy in parts. Pas was an informative and chilled out guide, he showed us and explained about different trees; like Mahogany, Gomier, Blue Ma Haut and Giant Chatannier.



After a short time it began to rain, and it rained for the rest of our time in the forest, which put a dampener on things, although we could then appreciate why the environment was so green. I was a little surprised about the level of biodiversity; although we were surrounded by trees, the only fauna we saw were fresh water crabs. We heard the St Lucian parrot, but did not see one during our stay in St Lucia. During the journey into the reserve my face had been glued to the windows as I watched a vibrant selection of flowers go by, but there was none of this along the trail in the reserve.



We made our way up and down steps, and along muddy paths, we hopped across stepping stones in small streams and gaped at the texture of the forest; steep slopes and cavernous gulleys. The real treat awaited us, Pas had led us to the En Bas Saut Waterfall. As we walked down some creaky and half rotten steps, the landscape opened up to share with us a magical kingdom. Even though I was soaked through and disappointed that the rain was stopping me taking a million photo's, I managed to hide under a stowed towel and take this:



We didn't stay long and it was too chilly to swim in the fall water; but I'll go back again one day. The hike back up to the car was easy going, I had wrongly presumed that the trail would be harder work, so was pleasantly surprised.

Soaked through but fulfilled and happy, we made our way back down the track to civilisation. We could have picked a better day to go but regardless, it was a beautiful insight in to what make up the lungs of our planet.