 In this programme exploring some of the most exotic of all the Caribbean Islands, Globe Trekker Zoe Palmer travels to the beautiful islands of St. Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe, with their combined English, African and French heritage. Meanhwile, Zay Harding visits the fascinating former Dutch colonies of Curacao and Bonaire, just off the South American coast
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Zoe Palmer starts her journey in St. Lucia's capital Castries, checking out the wonderful local markets before heading out of town. The Caribbean islands are known for their sun, sand and  sea, and St. Lucia is no exception, but the island also has a dramatic mountainous interior to explore. From Castries Zoe travels to Fond D'Or Bay, and then Rodney's Fort, to learn about St. Lucia's history of slavery. Heading south to the pretty town of Soufriere, Zoe visits a local cocoa plantation, and also tries out some Rastafarian food.
From St Lucia Zoe takes a short ferry ride north to the French island of Martinique and its capital Fort-de-France. Just outside the capital, Zoe visits the remains of the birthplace of Martinique's most famous colonial daughter, Napoleon's wife Josephine, whose family owned a sugarcane plantation here once worked by slaves.
From Fort-de-France Zoe heads north to St. Pierre. Once the economic capital of Martinique, it was a flourishing port city with a thriving population of around 30,000 until - in 1902 - it was  destroyed by the massive volcanic eruption of nearby Mount Pelée, which killed virtually the entire population. Today, the Mount Pelée volcano provides a scenic and peaceful backdrop to St. Pierre, and Zoe is guided on a dramatic climb up to the crater of the volcano.
From Martinique, Zoe travels north to the little-visited, traditional island of Marie-Galante in Guadeloupe. In the early 1800s thousands of slaves worked the island's sugarcane plantations, and although slavery has of course long been abolished, sugarcane is still harvested here much as it was during the time of slavery. Zoe visits one of the island's 3 distilleries, which makes very high quality rum – which is also extremely alcoholic, as Zoe discovers!
Meanwhile, Globe Trekker Zay Harding starts his journey through the Dutch Antilles in Curaçao's capital Willemstad. Here he visits the beautiful synagogue, built in the 1730s, which  is the oldest in continuous use in the western hemisphere. Elsewhere, much of the town's old colonial Dutch architecture is being restored, and Zay checks out one of the most attractive restoration projects. On the site of the town's former slave market, Zay visits a disturbing museum that documents the brutal history of the transatlantic slave trade.
After sampling the island's famous orange-flavoured liqueur - Blue Curaçao - Zay heads on to the nearby island of Bonaire. Here there are huge natural salt deposits, which were worked by slaves until the 19th century, and are still a major commercial business today. Zay checks out some very simple slave huts here which are said to have been used by the slaves to shelter from the worst of the midday sun, as the sunlight was so bright against the white salt deposits that it otherwise caused many of the slaves to go blind.
 Elsewhere on the island, the marine environment has been well preserved, and the coral reef offshore has some of the Caribbean's best diving. Above water, Zay goes kayaking in the island's dense mangrove swamps, which provide a pristine habitat for much of the island's wildlife. Nonetheless, the island's parrot population, in particular, has plummeted in recent decades, as many wild parrots have been illegally captured for the pet trade. Zay ends his trip visiting a parrot refuge where numerous former pet parrots are being cared for in preparation for release back into the wild. The future of Bonaire's wildlife, it seems, is in good hands.
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