The view from the deck in the hotel room
I woke up really early, at 6am. We took our time and had a breakfast of yogurt and orange juice on the deck, looking out over the palm trees and water.
The view from the deck in the hotel room
Around 8am we walked over to the little strip mall near by and rented a car, a Peugeot 106 Kid. (The little shopping center had a lot of car rental places, Hertz, Avis, Eurocar. Apparently this was a common thing to do). We managed to get a AAA discount – even with our broken French and the clerk’s broken English.
We drove from Point de la Vedura to Point de Chateaux, on the south east corner of the Grand Terre Island. We paused for a couple of pictures in Sainte Anne, and got a little lost in Sainte Francois, but we didn’t panic and we found our way back to the main road.
Pointe des Chateaux was incredible. We hiked up to the point where there was a huge (30-40 foot tall) cross. Ruben was laughing because I (the Jew) was finding comfort from the shadow of the cross. Actually it was really hot out, and it was the only shadowy spot nearby to put on more sunscreen.
On our way back we stopped at a small isolated beach along the road. A lot of people camp around there, and actually there was a lot of trash in the shrubs between the road and the beach. But he water was so nice, warm and shallow. I wish I had snorkel equipment to see the fish swimming around. We found a coconut that had washed up on shore and Ruben cracked it open by hitting it on the rocks. Man, it smelled bad. The coconuts were not in season when we were there, so it was an old one, and the water had, no doubt, permeated the shell.
We stopped in Sainte Anne on the way back for some lunch and some shopping. We found an ATM and took out 400 francs – it was amazingly seamless to get the money. Ruben couldn’t stop talking about it. We had lunch from a mobile café – someone was making crepes and cheese sandwiches in the back of van. The cheese tasted wonderful, probably because they don’t pasteurize the cheese the way they do here. After lunch I bought some sarong wraps from a street vendor. The beach at Sainte Anne is much nicer than the downtown beach at Gossier, but we didn’t go swimming, we just wanted to get back to the cool hotel room for a break. The beach at Club Med Caravelle looks gorgeous, but it was very difficult to find the way down there (All beaches on the island are public, but you can’t necessarily go through private property to get to them.)
We got back to the hotel around 2:30 or 3pm, and Ruben snoozed. I went out around 3:30 to find as new bathing suit or thread to fix my old one as it was loosing it’s elastic. I found out that most of the shops are closed between noon and 5, then they open back up until around 8pm. So I wound up buying some very expensive needles and thread from a small grocery store up the street.
After my sojourn, Ruben and I went back to the beach by the hotel. We lay out for a while, and I borrowed some snorkeling equipment, but it leaked and I wasn’t able to find any fish. There were kids taking boating lessons from the boat-equipment place, and some of them were not much older than Matthew. Later that afternoon I wound up buying a bikini from the hotel shop (Tabac). I had problems with transaction in French, but it turned out that we both speak Spanish, so I was able to do it just fine. Who would have thought I could do Spanish well enough to buy things. I originally picked up a size 5, because I liked the color, but she said "no no" and gave me a size 2. Boy I love French sizing…
Finally, Ruben and I went to Auberge de la Vieille Tour for dinner. Oh MY! What a wonderful place and great food. My parents would love it. Tres fancy….
Ruben’s comments at the end of the day included more raving about the seamless ATM transaction, and "The topless beaches take some getting used to, but after you realized that everyone from young women to 40 year old mother’s of 3 are doing it. It’s pretty common. Viva la difference. It’s interesting to note that it’s mainly the tourists that disrobe at the beach. The Guadeloupens seem to be more modest.
