What Saint Lucia taught me about privilege
To summarize: I'd rather not.
What was supposed to be five days on Barbados turned into ten. There was always one more thing that we wanted to do before moving on, and I could have stayed even longer, but with 1600 nautical miles left before arriving in Mexico, Toño and I decided to keep moving.
We were supposed to sail for Martinique, but after being tipped about Saint Lucia, we changed course and set sail for the small island just west of Barbados. While Barbados was always a British colony with an economy based on sugar cane plantations, Saint Lucia has been disputed by the British and French many times. It is a mountainous, volcanic island with lush green jungle and a rugged coastline. Today, it has become a paradise retreat for ultra-wealthy Americans, and while I’m sure there’s so much more to the island, that was the part that we got to see.
We anchored up in the bay between the Pitons—the two landmark peaks on the southwest coast, and found that the cove was occupied by a five-star resort that charged 2.200 euros a night for the cheapest rooms and up to 20.000 euros for the luxurious villas built in the jungle.
Convinced that we had been cast as the hippie travellers who sneak into the hotel in a new season of White Lotus, we casually let ourselves drop into the freshwater pool and chilled out in the shade of the hotel restaurant while I reflected on how our white privilege made it possible for us to pass unnoticed—at least for a split second.
There were some steep roads to walk along in the area, but trekking the mountains cost 50 USD each, and we did not feel the urge to stay longer than we needed to get some work done on the hotel WiFi. We did, however, have time to visit one of the many lush-jungle-hot-springs that are scattered across the stunningly beautiful island.
Pretending to belong among the billionaires was fun for a couple of hours before it became uncomfortable. Colonialism did not seem like a thing of the past on Saint Lucia, but a lived reality, and my white guilt aside, everything about the resort that had been built on “Jalousie Plantation Beach” (yes, that’s actually what it’s called) felt off-putting: from the in-your-face privatization of the most emblematic bay on the island, the intense racial hierarchy, and the atmosphere of exclusivity and isolation.
The place gave me the ick, and after two nights on a buoy, we set sail north, towards Martinique and the sailors’ hub of Le Marin, while I, in a momentary relief, realized that even if I can have access to places like this, I really don’t want to.