Mrs. Peptic and I were on vacation the last week in St. Lucia and in spite of her continued protests I convinced her to let me do one explore. The day started off and stayed rainy - perfect weather to be indoors and explore abandonments. St. Lucia is a small island who's income is derived from tourism and bananas - mostly the former these days.
We charted a private taxi for the day and a young guy named Hans showed up, camera in hand to take us to the normal tourist destinations. I explained to him that I had absolutely zero interest in seeing any of that. Instead I wanted to see things that NOBODY sees and the 1st stop was an abandoned shopping mall just up the road from our resort.
After a very queer look and some explaining why, he said that he knew the place and agreed to accompany us. This was great! I now had my wife and a tour guide, who had never done an explore. Both were curious what all of my excitement was about.
We pulled into the muddy driveway and everyone's excitement built when we saw that it was like Noah's ark. There were several horses, goats, sheep and even a guard dog greeting us!
1. Mall From the Road
2. Mall Entrance
3. Guard Dog. Be careful when you enter - he attacks by humping your leg...
Upon entering I was somewhat disappointed as the building wasnt so much abandoned as simply not finished and left alone. Hans explained that the mall was originally started about 5 years back and the bank in Trinidad that was financing the venture went tits up. With that, construction stopped and the result was now an half constructed empty shopping mall.
Undeterred we continued our explore and below are the results:
4. Inside Entry
5. Shops Stand Empty
6. Graffiti
7. Bank Vault - "Treasure Inside"
8. Upturned Tables
9. Going UP!
10. To The Bat Cave! Bats are on the ceiling.
11. Nature taking over.
12. 2nd Floor Looking to Entrance
13. 2nd Floor From Back Looking to Entrance
14. Waiting for shoppers - and shops...
15. Guano and Algae.
16. Escalator Looking From 3rd Floor.
17. Lonely Chair
18. Mr. & Mrs. Peptic Ulcer
Much later in the day we came to the site I REALLY wanted to explore - an abandoned resort. Much like the shopping mall, construction began on this place and financing fell through. The government currently owns the place and there has been talk of turning it into condo's, low income housing, selling it outright to an investment group or just letting it rot. Given that its on the Atlantic side it would be one of only a few there however the perpetual seaweed that has plagued that part of the island makes it extremely unattractive.
Given that it was late in the afternoon, raining, and we were paying Hans $55 an hour, Mrs. Peptic was not as excited about this potential explore as the 1st one so these were all I was able to obtain:
19.
20.