We wanted to visit Guadeloupe, but didn't want to take New Morning to
the marina in Pointe a Pitre. While rocking in the wake of one of the
ferries that serves The Saints we were inspired to just take the ferry
to Guadeloupe for the day. So on Monday we went into town about 8:15
for the 8:30 ferry, but it never came. They told us it was broken and
would be there on Tuesday. So on Tuesday we went to town again, and
they assured us it was late, but had just left Three Rivers and would
On Wednesday we changed the plan and went for the 6:45a ferry since it
spends the night in The Saints and we'd be on the first trip. It
worked! So on Wednesday morning about 7:30 we arrived in Three
Rivers. And quickly discovered that Wednesday was Abolition Day, most
of the island was on holiday!
Guadeloupe. Most spectacular were the waterfalls in a national park.
And since it was a big holiday they were celebrating by offering fruit
juice, fruit, cake, etc. to the visitors. Between the time we arrived
and when we returned from the water fall the rangers had dressed for a
party; US national park rangers never looked like this!
The rest of the day we drove around much of the rest of the western
half of the island, but most things were pretty well shuttered for the
holiday. We did find a great restaurant on the ocean for lunch and
made the most of that with rum drinks, great food and wine. But when
we drove through Bas Terre, the largest town on the west coast, it was
shuttered and empty. Overall we found Guadeloupe to have spectacular
scenery, so much more lush and green than the other islands we'd
visited. To get our departure processed today we ended up driving
from the NW of the island to the capital and saw more very lush
countryside; really a beautiful place.
We were surprised that we'd never really heard of Guadeloupe, despite
it having a population of 450,000 and clearly being fairly
prosperous. It turns out that 93% of the tourists are French and
clearly they don't market the island to anyone outside of France. Too
bad because it's got some pretty spectacular scenery and good
infrastructure.
