Part of the reason we decided that
we would spend some time in Pointe A Pitre marina in Guadeloupe
was so that we could hire a car and see some more of the island. Guadeloupe
looks like a butterfly, is separated by a river and the 2 distinct areas have very
diverse landscapes.
We visited the west side Basse
Terre on the first day with a car and ventured into the Parc National De la
Guadeloupe which is a huge expanse of rainforest. Our first stop was Cascade aux Ecrevisses –
“Cascade” refers to the waterfall, which was only a short distance of the main
road and although this looks like we were the only people there, it was busy
with other tourists but it was still very pretty.
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| Exploring the river |
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| Cascade aux Ecrevisse - Pretty |
Our next stop was Bras David which
was around an hours walk through the forest and after the first 5 minutes we
never saw anyone else, great. Was a
shock to the legs walking even for an hour after the lack of activity in the
last 3 weeks! The vegetation in the rainforest was really impressive, the trees
were huge and I was particularly impressed by the size of the leaves as you can
see below.
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| Wow big leave! |
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| So green and trees! |
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| Disappearing in the undergrowth |
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| Wow big tree! |
We also managed to see few birds
along the way including a Lesser Antillean Bullfinch, Green throated Carib and Brown
Trembler – we are not really bird watchers but it is still quite interesting
when you see pretty much the same birds in Europe as the UK.
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| Antillean Bullfinch |
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| Brown Trembler |
We drove across to the west side of the island and
to Pigeon Island which is supposed to be really good for diving and
snorkelling, it is part of Reserve Cousteau which is an area which Jacque
Cousteau bought which includes the island, now a marine reserve, unfortunately
no time for diving or snorkelling for us.
The beach is relatively small and was quite packed with tourist so we didn't stay long but Mark was a big fan of Jacque Cousteau as a child so we had
to visit.
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| Pigeon Island |
We drove north to a much quieter
and prettier beach for the days lunch stop - Plage de Petite Anse, there were
only a few other locals having picnic and a quite a few friendly chickens, they
seem to be all over the place in Guadeloupe and they will eat anything your
give them! We had a fantastic view of Montserrat
in the distance.
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| Clouds in the distance are on the mountains of Montserrat |
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| Our friendly chicken - tucking into breadsticks |
Our road trip then arrived in
Deshais, a small village which we may find we anchor in later in our trip. There were some really quaint traditional
design houses.
We continued north and arrived
at another fantastic beach Plage de
L’Anse Rillet on the north west point of the
island, great view of Montserrat and almost deserted.
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| Deserted :) |
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| Montserrat in distance |
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| Look how empty |
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| What has happened to my hair - it does not like the humidity! |
Final stop for the day the small
harbour at Sainte Rose.
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