Written: August 20, 2010
The first day we got up early, had some “pain américain” with jam and cereal, and then Ingrid and I hopped into the very tiny car for our grand tour of La Grande-Terre. I kid you not, they do NOT exaggerate when they talk about how small European cars are. They are small!
Guadeloupe has two main parts of the island, Grande-Terre and Basse-Terre, which are connected by a small land bridge. Locals call it L’île-Papillon, or the butterfly island, because it looks like a butterfly (although Ingrid thinks it looks like a vulture). Grande-Terre is mostly flat and is where most of the sugar cane fields can be found, as well as the rum distilleries. As part of our tour we stopped at a Damoiseau rum distillery where I bought my first (legal) purchase of alcohol, a nice bottle of Guadeloupean rum. We also stopped in a small town on the coast called Port-Louis to see Ingrid’s mami (Grandma). Her mami was absolutely adorable and she was very welcoming to me. She spoke mostly creole and Ingrid had to translate for me because even when she spoke French to me, the accent was so thick that it was hard for me to understand. After driving around Grande-Terre for a bit, we returned a kaz (creole for “home”) to have lunch with Jacques, Ingrid’s stepdad. After lunch, we headed out to Pointe des Châteaux, which is a beautiful point on Grande-Terre where there is a big hill you climb and you can look out on all of Grande-Terre, see the big éoliennes (wind turbines) and then look out on the ocean and see La Désirade in the distance, which is one of the smaller islands part of Guadeloupe. This was probably one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. It was hard to pick out which picture to put on the blog of Pointe des Châteaux because there were so many good ones, but voilà, I chose one I thought was one of the best.
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| View of Guadeloupe from top of Pointe des Châteaux. FYI, I did not take this photo in black & white, this is just how it turned out with the sun and some hazyness. :) |
After Pointe des Châteaux we went to Saint-François and went to a small market and then we went to Sainte-Anne to go nighttime swimming. It was only 8 o’clock, but since we are closer to the equator, the sun sets at 6:30 every night so by 8 it is completely dark out. The beach was lit up though and there were tons of people there. It was nice to go swimming after spending a long day in the heat and humidity. My arms are almost constantly glistening with sweat and I am constantly feeling sticky, but I’ve gotten used to it now. After swimming we went to Pointe-à-Pitre, the largest city on the island, to find some food but it was too crowded in Place de la Victoire, so we went to a small stand in Morne-à-l’Eau and got some bokits, which are sandwiches made of fried pizza dough which you then put fried eggs, ham, sausages, cheese, and mayonnaise and ketchup. Pretty delicious!
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| Bokit |
DAY 2
We went to Pointe-à-Pitre to the market. Before even entering the market, a Haitian woman flagged us down and took us to her stall to show us all the various spices and varieties of punch. When they say “punch” here, it is not like an American “fruit punch”. A punch here is made of strong rum, which is then mixed either with sugarcane syrup or with different fruits such as pineapple, passion fruit, or coco. They often have a “ti-punch” (little punch) as an apéro, which is like a small alcoholic drink that you have before you eat your meal, kind of like an appetizer. So after buying a punch of ananas (pineapple) and fruit de la passion (I think you can figure that one out for yourself) we got flagged down by another Haitian woman who proceeded to show us all of her stuff as well. So after buying some sel épicé (spiced salt) and assaisonnement créole (creole seasoning), we left the market (so I wouldn’t be coerced into spending all my money by very persistent Haitian women) and went to meet Ingrid’s parents for lunch.
Almost everyone here has a two-hour lunch break. The shops close down during lunch and people go home or go out to eat with friends and family. After taking a nice two-hour lunch, we attempted to go to Basse-Terre, where we were going to meet Ingrid’s friend Giselle at one of the rivers to go swimming, but instead we ended up getting lost and driving around for about an hour. Eventually we ended up at Plantation Grand Café, where we thought we would get a tour of a coffee plantation. WRONG. After we parked next to a huge field of banana trees, we walked up to the billeterie (where they sell the tickets for tours) and asked if it would be possible just to buy some coffee without doing the tour and the lady very confusingly told us that we could buy coffee at a supermarket. We were like, uhh, duh! And then she tells us that Plantation Grand Café is a bananerie (a banana plantation). Woops! We left and gave up on finding the river so we returned home early.
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| Mural in Pointe-à-Pitre |
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