After an unforgettable week on Grande-Terre we spent our second week in Guadeloupe on the other main island of “the continent”: Basse-Terre. Roughly an hour’s drive from our house in Sainte-Francois, we wound along the southern coast of Grande-Terre, through the capital of Point-a-Pitre, via Sainte-Rose and eventually to our abode in Plessis Nogent. Like clockwork, the kids were in the water whilst Lisa and I were unpacking, no better way to escape the Caribbean humidity.
The northwestern region of Basse-Terre has been put on the map over the past few years by the popular British TV series Death in Paradise, which is filmed in the seaside enclave of Deshaies, a short drive from where we stayed for the week. Deshaies is a beautiful spot, no question, with a plethora of restaurants lining the waterfront and a handful of extremely picturesque beaches nearby. We ventured into town after getting situated at our house on the first night in Basse-Terre to sample the burgers at Kaz A Pat after some seaside cocktails at one of the Thai restaurants on the main strip. No doubt about it: the French don’t mess around when it comes to food.
The two main islands of Grande-Terre and Basse-Terre house most of Guadeloupe’s inhabitants, but the territory is actually home to quite a handful of other islands. Whilst on Basse-Terre we spent a day adventuring to Îles des Saintes, an archipelago is composed of two very mountainous inhabited islands – Terre-de-Haut Island and Terre-de-Bas Island – with seven other uninhabited islets. After getting drenched with rain on the ferry from Trois Rivieres, we hopped off the boat on Terre-de-Haut, a picture perfect little Caribbean paradise with a main drag dotted with restaurants and stores, very touristy but definitely not cheesy. One of the locals mentioned that most of the island’s permanent and semi-permanent residents hail from the Brittany region of France. Unlike the main island of Guadeloupe, we fit right in on Terre-de-Haut with our white skin… We secured a golf cart for the day – almost all transportation on the island is via golf cart or moped – and proceeded to explore all the lookouts and beaches the island has to offer.
Our favorite spot of the day was the beach at Plage de Pain de Sucre, an isolated cove at the western end of Terre-de-Haut accessed via a steep hiking trail from the island’s main road. A beautiful beach with exquisite snorkeling at each end of the cove, the kids came into their own with respect to snorkeling here for the afternoon. Both of them ventured into 30+ foot water over the coral without life vests, very content to admire the coral and bustling aquatic life below. Dad was (is) very proud. I spotted one of the few octopus I’ve seen in the wild in my life, unfortunately Max couldn’t make it out as it changed color to match the sand when I dove down to point it out for him. And Lisa was also pretty excited to spot a school of squid hovering over the reef, something she’d never seen in the water before.
Our little golf cart almost ran out of juice with all the exploring we did during our day on Terre-de-Haut, I just made it back to the drop-off spot before it gave up the ghost. Terre-de-Haut is definitely a must if you ever find yourself in Guadeloupe. We stopped off at the creole kitchen next to our house for dinner after the 90 minute drive back to our house post-ferry, the legume/rice/chicken concoction we were served couldn’t have been a better finish to such an awesome day!
After so much action on Terre-de-Haut we needed a bit of a lazy morning at the house. The beach and tide pools in front of where we were staying in Plessis Nogent kept us all busy for a morning before we dropped off Lisa for an afternoon of pampering at Tendacayou while the kids and I set off to sample some of the beaches of Basse-Terre. Unlike Grande-Terre – which is mainly dry, rolling hilles – Basse-Terre is a very mountainous island with most of the landscape still covered in dense jungle. The beaches are dotted at the base of steep mountains, most of them with a striking orange-colored sand, very different to the soft, white coves on Grande-Terre. We swam in the waves at Plage De La Perle and snorkeled to the point at the northern end of the beach, both kids got pummeled by the shore break a couple of times, which was unsurprisingly followed by tears and hair absolutely full of sand. We met Lisa back up in the mountains at Tendacayou and then enjoyed a magic dinner on the beach in Deshaies at Mahina.
With all the jungles and mountains on Basse-Terre come waterfalls. And with a volcano on the island also comes hot springs. I’d researched the waterfalls and hot springs on Basse-Terre before our trip so we had one day where we did a big loop of the northern portion of the island, stopping off at two waterfalls, a super unique set of hot springs at the ocean’s edge, as well as paddling with some turtles along the way!
Route de la Traversee effectively bisects Basse-Terre, cutting through the center of the Guadeloupe National Park and all the different climatic zones on the island. Dotted with extensive networks of hiking trails, waterfalls and rivers it’s an eye-opening portion of the country. We had originally planned to hike down to Le Saut de la Lezarde – the first waterfall on Route de la Traversee heading east to west – but after we had some rain the night before the trail was incredibly slippery and I didn’t feel like carrying Max on my back for 30 minutes. So instead our first stop of the day was Cascade aux Ecrevisses, a picturesque waterfall a short walk from the road and an ideal spot for a dip. The kids could have stayed there all day, but we had plenty more stops to make…
Next stop was on the western side of Basse-Terre just south of Pointe Noire. Cascade le Saut d’Acomat is the end point for canyoning expeditions so was quite busy when we arrived, but the excitement of seeing all the canyoners motivated Max and Lilia to take some big plunges off the rocks into the pool at the base of the falls. Even Nervous Nellie Lisa got in on the action!
The kids were pretty shot after two waterfalls in one morning, so we grabbed lunch at Plage de Malendure before heading out to see if we coudl find some turtles between the beach and Réserve Cousteau, the marine reserve surrounding îlets Pigeon that lies roughly half a mile off the beach. It was a pretty mammoth could for the kids, between 300 and 400 yards from the beach to where the seagrass begins. The clouds were above us and we were in 40 feet of water, so it was a pretty dark and dreary feeling being out there looking at a featureless ocean floor. Eventually Lisa and Lilia spotted our first turtle, and from then on we managed to see them reasonably frequently. We even saw an eel curled up on the edge of one of the seagrass beds. The kids stopped to rest for a little while on the back of a moored boat before we made the swim back to shore, the clouds opened up on us on our way back, no better place to be than in the water when it’s pouring! A pretty amazing experience for the kids…
A lunch stop post-turtles and we continued south along the west coast of Basse-Terre. Basse-Terre is a volcanic island and is home to the active La Grande Soufrière volcano. We thought about hiking to the caldera, but it’s a five mile trek through the humid jungle and figured it wasn’t something the kids would be too keen on. However, given the volcanic activity on the island we didn’t want to miss out on all the hot springs dotting the southern area of the island, one of the more unique offerings were the springs at Ravine Thomas Bain Chaud. Piping hot water seeps out of the rocks next to the ocean and empties into two interconnected pools. The first pool is way to hot for human skin, but the second is refreshed with every wave and unlike a lot of hot springs – which can get algae deposits and house some pretty nasty bacteria – the constant flushing of the pools by the ocean makes for a supremely clean and refreshing spot. Lilia almost fell asleep lying there in the pools!
Another draw on Basse-Terre is the supremely good diving off the island’s west coast. After our mammoth day of waterfalls, hot springs and turtles, Lisa and the kids spent a morning at the house enjoying the pool while I went on a couple of dives with Tropical Sub Diving out of Deshaies. We dove at a couple of spots just off the shore south of Deshaies, the coral at both spots was some of the best I’ve seen anywhere in the world. Unfortunately the lack of any fisheries enforcement in Guadeloupe has seen a lot of the larger sea life overfished to support the tourism industry, but the reefs and coral remain very healthy. The array of colors was phenomenal, and it was also pretty awesome to run into a few turtles while we were diving. The team at Tropical Sub are very switched on, real stewards of the ocean, highly recommended.
A quick swim at picturesque Plage de Grande-Anse post-dive, dinner at Restaurant Chez Olivier in Sainte-Rose and we were done with another day in paradise!
On our last day in Guadeloupe I wanted to take the kids and Lisa to one of the dive sites I explored earlier in the week. The reef at Pointe Ferry, just south of Deshaies, is only a short swim from the shore and the dazzling coral begins at a depth of only a few meters. We spent a bit of time driving down dead-end streets before finding a trail through the jungle to the rocky shore, we had the coastline to ourselves and the snorkeling didn’t disappoint: near-perfect visibility, calm seas and so much bright, colorful coral for everyone to take in.
We put our last afternoon’s activities to popular vote: of all the places on Basse-Terre we’d visited, which one should we go back to for our last hurrah? It was a close call between the falls and river at Cascade aux Ecrevisses and the unique hot springs on the edge of the ocean at Ravine Thomas Bain Chaud, but the hot springs won so we headed south along the western shore of Basse-Terre to the trail near Bouillante. We initially shared the pools with a chatty group who were French but had been living in LA for three years, after they left we had the place to ourselves.
I wanted to include a shot of the cemeteries typical in Guadeloupe as they’re quite unique to the Caribbean: the above-ground burial sites are a prominent feature in almost every town in Guadeloupe, many of them overlooking the ocean. The one here is in Pointe-Noire on the western coast of Basse-Terre (Pointe-Noire is also home to a very good patisserie if you ever find yourself there!).
What a magic two weeks we had: so many beaches, new food, stumbling our way around in French, snorkeling, diving, waterfalls, hot springs… Awesome. We all voted on our favorite spots and experiences across Basse-Terre and Grande-Terre, the kids had such vivid memories recounting their favorites…
Best Beach: Plage Grande Anse des Salines (Lilia and Lisa), Plage du Bourg (Max) and Plage des Raisins Clairs (Sam)
Best Snorkeling: Pointe Ferry (Max and Sam), Plage Grande Anse des Salines (Lilia) and Plage du Pain de Sucre (Lisa)
Best Food: Angelo’s Creole in Plessis Nogent (Unanimous)
Best Adventure: Cascade aux Ecrevisses (Max and Lilia) and Terre-de-Haut (Lisa and Sam)
Best Sorbet: Plage Grande Anse des Salines (Lilia, Lisa and Sam) and Le Gosier (Max)
Best Quiche: the pâtisserie on the main drag in Deshaies (Unanimous)
Funniest Foreign Language Experience: Lisa trying to order and iced latte and ending up with a cold glass of milk (Lisa), Sam thinking he was ordering two chicken roti wraps and being delivered two whole rotisserie chickens (Sam)
