The bred car that stops by the bungalows most mornings
Although we had thought about going out to Les Saintes this morning, we realized last night that many of us were very tired from the hike. So we decided to play today by ear. I was up at 6:30 and sat by the table and enjoyed the morning. Lilly went out for a run around 7:00. She asked Naveed if he was interested, but his shoes were so muddy that he declined. Bought some bread when the little truck came by at around 7:30. At about 8:00 the others started to wake up. We ate breakfast at our bungalow with the Ciots. It was very windy and almost chilly. I had to put a jacket on.
The bred car that stops by the bungalows most
mornings
We decided to break up our group a little bit for the morning. My dad and Sophy wanted to go down to Point-a-Pitre to have breakfast and perhaps walk around a little bit. Naveed, Susan and Barry wanted to go down to Point-a-Pitre to look for a sailing boat. Lilly and Brigitte wanted to do some shopping and decided to take the girls with them. Thierry and I decided to go to the beach and also check out the ferries for Les Saintes.
By about 10 o'clock we headed out. We took the three boys with us. First we wanted to go down to Trois Rivieres, where the ferry boats leave. The wind we had this morning at breakfast had swept over Basse Terre and had really cleared out the air. As we drove down we could see the mountains very well. In fact, we could even see the 2nd and 1st Chute de Carbet from the coast road. We heard that Columbus made it up these falls and only now that we saw things so clearly could we understand that it was actually possible to see the falls from the ocean on a good day. Even the volcano tip was visible. It must have been an excellent day for hiking up the volcano. We stopped briefly to take pictures of the coast line and Les Saintes. You could even see Dominica in the clouds behind Les Saintes.
View of Les Saintes from the coast road on Basse
Terre
We drove through a town with the funny name of Bananier. It did not take long until we reached Trois Rivieres. We drove down the windy road to the town center by the water. There we parked the car where they sold ferry tickets. The kids went out to the rocky shore and played a little bit. Karl finds lots of "treasures" on the ground (read: trash). He found one champagne cork with a partly rusted wiring on it. He also found a small light bulb.
Gaetan posing by the rocky shore in Trois Rivieres; Les
Saintes can be seen in the background
After talking a little while with the lady in the ticket stand we decided to pre buy tickets for the ferry. She gave us a price off and we were not tied to a particular day or time. The little church/chapel we saw about 6 years ago was still there. This is where we got help to jump start our car after forgetting our headlights on during a trip out to Les Saintes. We walked down about 100m (300ft) to the docks where the ferry would come in. They have a nice little restaurant there. Perhaps that would be a nice place to eat at following a trip to Les Saintes on another visit to Guadeloupe?
Me posing with Karl on the docks in Trois
Rivieres.
After this visit we decided to drive back towards Vernou and stop halfway at a beach Thierry had visited last year. It turned out to be a very nice beach.
A sign on the main highway point off to the beach where we
stopped
We parked in the shade. The first thing on our agenda was to get fed. They had several small vans making food on the beach with little plastic tables. We sat down at a place where they served BBQ:d chicken and salad. We got 4 full servings for about $17 in total. That is hard to beat, especially given the view.
Sitting down by the beach to eat lunch
After we ate the boys ran down to the beach and started digging mud holes. They liked it very much. When the holes were big enough they sat down in the hole and filled it with sand around them. Karl was able to get that all they way up to his chest.
Karl is up to his chest in sand. He could not get out by
himself afterwards.
We stayed at this beach for a while. Last year when Thierry was here it was almost empty. By the afternoon of our visit the beach was quite full of people. A fair amount of local people had come to visit. We pulled out around 3:15 and started heading back to the bungalows. We made a stop to visit the monument set up in honor of Christopher Columbus. It marks the point where he landed in Guadeloupe in 1493.
Karl, Gaetan and Erik posing in front of the monument for
Christopher Columbus' landing in Guadeloupe
We got back home and only Sophy and dad were home. We heard from Sophy and dad about their visit to Point-a-Pitre. They told us that you could see signs of preparation for the Carnival which is to culminate tomorrow. Sophy mentioned that the streets were narrow. There were a lot of things to see at the market. Everyone tries to peddle spices, according to dad. There were a few interesting houses. Not many flowers left at the flower market. They also visited Palais de Justice (which was built around 1932). My dad pointed out that the architecture reminded him a lot about the "McIntosh" architecture from Scotland. They stopped by Continent on their way home. They had gotten back to the bungalows at around 2 o'clock.
Shortly thereafter the girls returned. Lilly immediately left to visit the doctor so that she could obtain her medical certificate needed for diving. The sun was shining and it was really a nice afternoon. It sounded like the girls had had a nice day. A bit later in the afternoon we heard a big crashing sound, followed by a 4 letter curse. Barry hit the pillar of the driveway with the rental car, taking out the optical sensor for the gate closing mechanism. He also got a bunch of scratches on the rental car, which is probably a bit more difficult to deal with.
Second stay at Jean-Jacques' place -- second attempt to
destroy their driveway
For dinner we had ordered food from the restaurant where we ate last night. We got an assortment of colombo style spiced meat. We drank a few rum drinks and some wine with that. Barry and Naveed were out in town, while Susan brought over her own food. Nice dinner.