Trip Report, Guadeloupe, Jan 26 ? Feb 12
Flew with Air Canada from Ottawa to Montreal then off to Guadeloupe and returned via the same route. Uneventful flight, though the evening following our return, a plane skidded off the runway in Ottawa due to some freezing rain.
We rented an apartment in Anse des Rochers, near the Anchorage Hotel. One bedroom apartment had dishwasher, washing machine, TV, AC, microwave, stove and mini-oven, patio with table and chairs and a separate dining room as well, and an ocean view. Owner rented one of his cars to me for three weeks and picked us up at the airport and brought us back there at the end of our stay. These accommodations amounted to three times the size of what we rented in St. Martin in Oyster pond the previouse year, at roughly the same cost.
Anse des Rochers, on Grande Terre, is on the south-eastern wing of Guadeloupe, near St. Francois. It's a beautiful upscale area with many fine homes, apartments and of course the famous Achorage Hotel. During our stay, the management of the hotel announced plans to upgrade the hotel to the tune of 8,000,000 euros, beginning March and scheduled to end in December 2008.
St. Francois is a wonderful little town, with a daily market in the town square (traffic circle in this case), near the church. Each morning, the place comes alive with vendors and locals and tourists all shopping and haggling for the days fare (veggies and fruits, spices and herbs, and rum of course, known as the ?tsee punch?. The place is abuzz with music, glorious smells, smiling faces and easy conversations. Within walking distance is the fish market, on the old port. Here, if the seas haven?t been too rough, you can buy from local fisherman part of days catch. The town also has three other large to mid size grocery stores, and numerous small ones.
The town has it's own beach, and a lovely one at that, called la Plage des Raisins Clairs. Countless trees growing what appear to be grapes are scattered along the beach, providing shade and lots of edible fruit later in the summer. In the parking lot are vendors waiting for you to drop by at lunch to sample a little Creole dish and a tsee punch. You won't starve at this beach. Farther west, along the southern coast, is a magnificient beach known as Plage de Bois Jolan. Close to half a mile long, it is entirely protected by a reef, and its waters clear and calm. The beach is lined with coconut trees, and many other species that can provide relief from the scorching sun. Here there are no vendors but on weekends many families come and BBQ right on the beach in stone lined pits as the children laugh and play. Further down, St. Anne has its own municipal beach as well as the Club Med beach, known as Plage de La Caravelle. Both are beautiful, well kept and protected by reefs. I did go to Anse Tarrare beach (the naturist beach) and was sorely disappointed. Though the area has a natural beauty to it, it's not really a beach, but rather a stony shoreline with bits of sand accumulated and put in one spot by the naturists who frequent the place. It's small and cramped and the nearby bushes had the ?bush boys? yanking at themselves too too much. I went, I saw, and I never went back. What did come as quite a surprise was the beach on the north side of Pointe des Chateaux. A reef too protects it, and the early part of the beach is textile, but farther down is naturist. I much preferred this beach to Tarrare. Here you're facing the Atlantic so the wind blows a little more and there are no shade trees.
I visites a few sites, one being the rum distillery near Le Moule which was quite fascinating if only for the fact that you're free to practically walk all over the place once they let you in. I've visited a few distilleries, but this self guided tour thing I kind of liked. There's a heck of nice little restaurant at the corner of the town square in Le Moule where the creole fare is great and the host wonderful. In Basse Terre the Botanical Gardens near Deshaies definitely deserve a visit.
The driving on the island is great, the roads are good and the drivers courteous for the most part. My only problems were with the lack of clear road signs while passing through Point a Pitre so I did have to turn around a few times.
There's a lot of construction going on around the Island, from what I saw on Grande Terre. About 2,000,000 people pass through the airport every year, and this year saw about 100,000 more than last year. Property values have nearly doubled in the last five years, largely on speculation though construction standards are now more rigid in order to protect homebuyers from damages caused by hurricanes and earthquakes.
My only word of caution to anyone who decides to visit Guadeloupe would be, be careful not to fall in love. The local people are beautiful, kind, and very helpful. You bet I'm going back?next year.
