Hot Tomatoes

It's tomato season!  All over the port city of Castries you'll see little, metal wagons packed with clear plastic bags of red, red, ripe tomatoes.  Not much grows well in the volcanic soil, but tomatoes seem to turn out o.k .and are small, sweet and delicious.


The downtown market, is packed mostly with local crafts and spices.  Woven baskets, differently sized rolls of cinnamon bark and clusters of nutmeg seeds wrapped with mace.  The West Indies is also known as the Spice Islands for multiple reasons.  Walking down the side streets one gets a sense of all the different meanings of the word "spice." 

Another shopping experience is the Mega-J. Like Sam's club this store sells oversize packages of imported items.  And, most items here are imported.  In this picture, I am proudly displaying my make-shift grocery bag which is really a sarong tied in several places and filled with cheese, papaya and a bottle of local rum.