It certainly started out on a somber note: text messages from American Airlines that our flight was delayed one hour, two hours, three hours and finally six hours… We eventually took off six hours and eight minutes late, which put us into Miami International Airport at 3:17AM. It was a toss-up as to whether it was worth exiting security with our carry-on bags, catching an Uber/Lyft and making our way to the hotel we’d booked only to return five hours later for our flight to Guadeloupe. In the end I was so shot that I found a reasonably quiet gate, pushed some benches together and set the kids up for a sleep until we were due to board our next flight. It’s amazing how resilient they are.
When we finally rendezvoused with Lisa after her work week in Florida, we boarded our jet to Guadeloupe – which thankfully departed on time – and were treated to a majestic flight across the islands of the Caribbean. The Exumas, Puerto Rico and finally Montserrat before we touched down in Point-A-Pitre. Roughly an hour’s drive along the southern coast of Grande-Terre took us to our abode for the next eight days in the bustling seaside town of Sainte-Francois. The kids were in the pool within a few minutes of our arrival, we weren’t too far behind!
On our first full day in Guadeloupe we venture to the most southeastern tip of the Guadeloupe “continent” (as the two main islands of Grande-Terre and Basse-Teree are called) to Pointe des Châteaux: a picturesque archipelago stretching out into the ocean with a hiking trail and grand crucifix overlooking the rugged ocean. Looking back towards the island from the point we spotted the beach of Plage Grande Anse des Salines, and spent the morning snorkeling and swimming in the protected waters behind the barrier reef. Both kids took to their masks and snorkels like they’d only used them yesterday, the water was teeming with aquatic life and quite a bit of coral. We found a local woman selling fruit and coconut sorbets – a very welcome treat in the near-100% Caribbean humidity – before we made our way back to Sainte-Francois via some of the local art galleries.
We spent a day exploring the northeastern tip of Grande-Terre, the protected cove of Point de vue Plage de la Porte d’Enfer was a welcome spot to toil for an hour or two along the rugged coastline that makes up this portion of the island. Unfortunately Lilia stepped on a sea urchin at the beach, which put her out of commission for a couple of hours, but thankfully dowsing it in some rum from a nearby cafe had the swelling down pretty quickly. After the fact, when I was snorkeling in the bay I saw that the rocky crags of the cove were littered with thousands of the spiny devils and we were probably lucky that all four of us didn’t end up with spines in our feet!
Before grabbing lunch at a boulangerie in Anse-Bertrand we stopped off at the northeastern-most tip of Grande-Terre – Pointe de la Grande Vigie – and took in the view along the eastern coast of the island. It reminded us both of the cliffs of the Nullarbor in South Australia, even the low-lying brush along the road to the lookout had us thinking of Australia.
On our way back south to Sainte-Anne we stopped at one of Guadeloupe’s many rum distilleries – Distillerie Damoiseau – but before arriving were lucky enough to stumble upon a crew harvesting sugar cane. The cane fields are ubiquitous in Guadeloupe and dot the countryside between every town. One of the farmers was nice enough to machete a cane for me so the kids could sample the nectar and chew on the sweet stalk. Quite a cool experience for the kids…
Distillerie Damoiseau was a fantastic stop on our way to Sainte-Anne, with all the safety regulations in the US there’s absolutely no way the general public would be able to walk through a production distillery like we did at Damoiseau. The cane tractors we happened upon on our way to the distillery were actually bound for Damoiseau, we entered the facility as the tractors were unloading the chopped cane into the crushers and walked through the entire distilling process from end to end. Lisa commented a few times how much her crew at Stonestreet would have loved the adventure… After tasting some of Damoiseau’s rum – chest-pounding stuff – we continued on our way to Sante-Anne, an afternoon of cocktails, beers and plenty of frolicking in the calm waters of the town beach made for a very relaxing Caribbean-style finish to the day. I heard Lisa say, “This is vacation!” more than once.
The fish markets in Sainte-Francois were a fun adventure on our way to Anse à la Gourde one morning. Each boat seemed to have its own stall on the wharf, where the fisherman would scale and clean their day’s catch. We saw everything from parrot fish through tuna, dorado and even a human-sized swordfish up for sale. I do want to just note two memorable foreign language experiences on day four… First was Lisa trying to get fancy with her French to order an iced latte at of one of cafes in Sainte-Francois: she ended up with a cold glass of milk. The second: much to my chagrin, “poulet roti” is actually not a Fijian-style roti filled with chicken, but is in fact a whole rotisserie chicken bagged up to take home. I thought I was getting a couple of chicken rotis for lunch, but instead ended up going home to make chicken sandwiches with two whole chickens!
I left the camera home for our adventure to the Tuesday night market in central Sainte-Francois. The rotunda in the center of town was filled with vendors hawking everything from rum punch, fresh fruits and vegetables, locally made sarongs and even some quite tasty Indian cuisine. We sampled the Indian fare, some dessert crepes, and with a couple of beers just sat and watched the world go by with reggae and steel drums pumping over the loudspeakers. Definitely felt like we were in the Caribbean.
Another minor foreign language mishap had us waiting around the house one morning for a local fisherman who we thought we’d lined up to take us out to the remote islands of Petit Terre. Don’t get me wrong, with a comfortable deck and pool there were worse places to spend the morning than the house where we stayed in Sainte-Francois… After lunch we eventually gave up on Monsieur Genaste and headed back to our favorite beach on Grande-Terre: Plage Grande Anse des Salines. It was even better on our second visit, with slightly cooler temperatures and much calmer swells, the kids had a ball snorkeling in the protected waters behind the barrier reef and collecting trinkets from the ocean floor. Lilia had seriously perfected her duck dives by the end of the day.
Fort Fleur d’Epee in the bustling seaside town of Le Gosier was an interesting adventure one morning, the fort saw most of its action in the mid- to late-1700s as the French Antilles were being liberated from the slave trade. It was still in remarkably good condition, the kids loved being able to wander through the maze of tunnels and explore some of the dungeons carved into the stone. “Dragon caves” according to Max.
While in Le Gosier we also had a paddle at the town’s main beach – La Datcha – and enjoyed lunch at a beachside burger bar where Lisa finally found a salad, something she’d been craving for a few days. Unfortunately the greens put her stomach out of commission for about 24 hours and had her remaining in close proximity to a bathroom. Note to self: when in Rome, eat like the Romans… The southern facing beaches of Grande-Terre, while boasting silky smooth, white sand, were a bit of a collection point for seaweed during our stay but that didn’t stop the kids from having a ball every time they found themselves in the water. Îlet du Gosier is a small island in the bay across from La Datcha, a boat runs back and forth between town all day and for a few euros we hopped aboard and spent the afternoon exploring the reef and beaches of the key. The coral and sea life a few hundred meters from the beach was amazing. One thing to keep in mind: no toilets on the island even though there is a fully-fledged restaurant and bar. When Lilia wanted to relieve herself we were told “the forest!” Lovely.
Back and forth over the span of a few days, via broken French and English, we had organized with a local fisherman to take us to the remote islands of Petit Terre. The two islands of Petit Terre lie roughly an hour boat ride from Sainte Francois, they’re uninhabited and are famous for their sea life. Turtles, rays, sharks, barracuda, you name it… So on Good Friday we arrived at the marina in Sainte Francois at 8:30AM to meet Monsiuer Genaste. When I found him, he was attempting to start the engines of his boat while it was hooked up via jumper cables to his dilapidated car. He wasn’t having much luck. The owners of the house where we were staying were in the marina for a morning stroll and agreed with me that we would have to be nuts to go out in the open ocean with the fisherman in question, so tried to help us locate a charter to Petit Terre for the day without success. The Petit Terre islands have a limited number of visitors that can visit each day in order to protect the wildlife, and the earliest we could find a charter was four days hence (and we’d be on Basse-Terre by then). So we chalked it up to a learning experience, spent a couple of hours feeling sorry for ourselves, and eventually headed west to Pointe-à-Pitre and the Guadeloupe Open quarter finals.
Pointe-à-Pitre is the capital of Guadeloupe and is home to almost half the inhabitants of the islands. Central Pointe-à-Pitre is usually a hive of activity with a market that runs seven days a week, but with Guadeloupe being a strictly Christian territory pretty much every storefront was shuttered when we visited. We had tickets to see the Guadeloupe Open quarter finals in the afternoon, so after strolling around Pointe-à-Pitre for a while we headed over to the tennis arena to watch the game. It was a great match, a tie break in the first set with the Serbian player taking the match in three sets. Thankfully the clouds came over shortly after the match started to give us some shade!
We’d planned on visiting the Friday night markets in nearby Le Gosier – the largest weekly market in Guadeloupe – following the tennis but we didn’t realize that Good Friday meant everything, and I mean everything, would be closed. The markets were a non-event and we actually had a little trouble even finding dinner on our way back east to Sainte-Francois!
As the tides and wind shifted during our stay, the beaches around our house in Sainte-Francois became covered in seaweed for a couple of days. With 200+ beaches on the Guadeloupe continent we had plenty of other options though, so we ventured to the northwest portion of Grande-Terre one day to Port Louis and the majestic beach of Plage du Souffleur. Pristine white sand, coconut palms lining the beach and gentle Caribbean waves welcomed us in Port Louis, it was an amazingly picturesque beach where the kids were quite content to enjoy the afternoon while I dove a few hundred meters offshore. I wanted to include a photo of one of my parking efforts below. There are effectively no parking regulations in Guadeloupe, so the general rule is: if you can find somewhere that doesn’t block traffic, you can park!
For our last morning on Grande-Terre we took Lisa to the local town beach near the house where we stayed, a spot where the kids and I ventured one morning whilst Lisa was staying as close as possible to a toilet. Couldn’t have asked for a better end to such a jam packed first week in Guadeloupe: the turquoise waters of the Caribbean lapping at the white sand with the locals chattering away in French as they enjoyed their Sunday morning. Wrinkled boobs, tanned skin, and shrieks of glee from Lilia and Max, a great way to end week number one! Next stop: Basse-Terre.
What an amazing and beautiful vacation!
A magical tour!
wow-wow–wow
What a wonderful adventure for the lucky Valtenbergs. Hopefully the little ones will remember some of the wonderful events.