If you have been following this blog at all, you know that I love to visit gardens, especially botanical gardens. Caroline and Jim were also eager to see it. And, happily, the restaurant next door had excellent food for lunch after the visit! (Caroline’s favorite meal in Martinique, in fact.)
Jardin de Balata(aka Botanical Garden)
Here are some of the things said about the garden:
One of Martinique’s most famous sites, the Balata Gardens will let you know why this is “the Isle of Flowers.” This private botanical garden just outside Fort-de-France is home to a staggering number of begonias, bromeliads, bamboo and about 300 different types of palm trees.
The Balata Garden is the image of an earthly paradise. Bamboos crackling in the wind, dancing hummingbirds, shimmering tropical flowers, a refreshing pond, surprising exotic leaves, shady hills and views of the sea… Nothing is missing from this enchanting place of delights, colors and fragrances.
One of my besties from junior high and her hubby were going to be joining us in Martinique for about nine days. I could not have been more excited! We had been talking about this for over two years.
Prior to their arrival, we took time to clean Seahike and eat out (once). Here are some pictures I took from my walk to and from the chandlery to buy deck cleaner:
This is where we had dinner. Weird, we didn’t see Pamela Anderson or Davis Hasselhoff. . . but they do have Heineken!
The food was yummy. Michael had a pizza with lots of toppings. I had a chicken, potato, squash, and apple salad.
After visiting the Memorial ACTe Museum (see previous post), I stopped by the Cathedral de St-Pierre et St-Paul. Unfortunately all of the exterior doors were locked. Here are some pics of the exterior:
I don’t know who any of these folks are (below). I assume they are saints in the Catholic Church. They caught my eye because: 1) they are on the exterior of the building, and 2) they are each accompanied by something: a book, an eagle, a child, a lion . . .
We said goodbye to Cathie and Greg the night of the 17th. They were headed to Iles de la Petite Terra and we were headed back to the mooring ball.
We returned the rental car on the 18th and I took myself to a little nearby cafe. I wasn’t sure what I was ordering for a pastry but I figured it would be good no matter what it was. I posted the “mystery” pastry on Facebook and my worldly friend, Jayne, knew what it was immediately. It is a chausson aux pommes, which is kind of like an apple turnover.
Cafe au lait and chausson aux pommes
The other guests and I were “serenaded” by this guy (the big guy on the right):
I continue to pay attention to the flowers. I rarely know what they are, but their mere presence makes me happy.
These two days were dedicated to hiking. The four of us had two paces, which meant that we didn’t hike the entire route together either day. But it also meant that each of us had a hiking partner, so it worked out swell.
February 16: La Soufriere Volcano
Today’s hike was to and up the volcano. Sitting at more than 4,800 feet – the highest point in the Lesser Antilles – La Soufriere Volcano is often referred to as “la vieille dame” (the old lady) by locals. This active volcano (the last eruption occurred in 1976) is located in the southern part of the island’s national park on Basse-Terre. The path to the summit is well-marked. Along the way, you see all sorts of flora and fauna. It is said that it takes two hours to hike the quickest route.
I like this note (I don’t recall where I found it):
“The route to the summit will take at least two hours of your time and the journey will start with a car ride up through the lush green forest road until you reach a car park at 950 metres altitude. From there you’ll have to continue on foot for another half an hour until you reach the foothills of the volcano—this is where your surroundings will begin to change. As you get closer to the summit, you’ll feel as if you’re in Jurassic Park with all the volcanic gasses and the smell of the sulphurous vapours. But, peculiar smells aside, the view from the summit combined with the strong wind blowing through your hair is undoubtedly stunning. Adventure seekers, add this hike to your list of things to do in Guadeloupe.”
It was a clear day at sea level, but not so much on the volcano. We primarily climbed in mists or clouds. It got quite windy at times. When we reached the top, a gust of wind almost knocked me over. The view from the top was. . . nonexistent. We only saw clouds. It also rained off an on. Needless to say, we spend a very short amount of time on the top before heading back down. It was nice to get down far enough (and on a different side of the volcano) to get out of the strong winds.
I liked the hike a lot! Here are some pictures, even though they are mostly of clouds! 🙂
Today’s post will cover our visit to the Deshaiesbotanical gardens, Gosier island, a gyrocopter tour, Point des Châteaux, and Distillerie Damoiseau.
February 13: Deshaies botanical gardens
We’d just completed our visit to the zoo followed by a 1.5 hour lunch (the restaurant was really busy so service was slow. . . but the food was great!). Now we had about 1.5 hours to visit the botanical gardens. We stayed until they closed.
The gardens (as is true with any garden) are beautiful and calming. This one is quite large (5 hectares) with lots of winding paths (on which we got rather lost at times) and a little stream flowing through parts of it. It also has some animals. It was a delightful visit!
The gardens have different worlds: The world of tropical Asia The world of explorers The world of palm trees The arid The world of tropical trees The simple The humid Caribbean
We stayed on Seahike on the 2nd and worked on a puzzle. We tried to rent a car on the 3rd so we could drive to the Boiling Lake Trailhead, but nothing was available. I decided to walk into town to have a good cup of coffee and stroll around.
Roseau is not a rich town, or at least not all of it is. The downtown area seems to be doing well, but that might be because that’s where the cruise ships dock. But the rest is a study in contrasts. Consider the pictures from the walk to downtown compared to the downtown area.
It was tour day! We’d been told that we would be visiting five sites. That turned out not to be true. But we thoroughly enjoyed what we saw, smelled, tasted, and did!
So, we took the dinghy to the little dock near Seahike and waited for the other tour members – as well as the driver/guide – to arrive. Upon meeting the other tour members (three of them), we learned that they are all Norwegians. This was super exciting to us as my ancestry is 100% Norwegian and Michael is half Norwegian. They were all super nice and friendly and spoke English, which was nice since we don’t speak Norwegian!
We’d read really good things about this guide and they proved to be true. He was super knowledgeable, kind and very funny and outgoing! I swear he knows just about everyone on the island!
Big picture first: We hiked to Middleham Falls, jumped into and swam in Titou Gorge, had a great lunch, then climbed up Trafalgar Falls. In between, our guide stopped the car numerous times to pick up various flora for us to taste or smell. Sometimes we just admired the item and he told us how they used it in Dominica. Other times, he asked us to identify the flora by smell. Boy, was that much tougher than I thought it would be. The Norwegians were much better at identifying the product than Michael and I were.
We left the marina on the 20th and anchored in Rodney Bay South, waiting for a weather window to sail to Martinique.
We took the dinghy to town to drop off our dirty laundry (which, by the way, cost $80 (!) to wash and dry, although it was probably three loads). When we got in the dinghy later that afternoon to pick up the laundry, the motor wouldn’t start. We tried for some time, then left it alone for 15 minutes so it could sulk since it was clearly having one of those days. 😉
This time it started right up. We took off towards the marina (the laundry is there) but about halfway there, the motor stopped. We couldn’t get it going so we were preparing to row the rest of the way. Turns out we didn’t have to do that because a couple in another dinghy asked us if we wanted a tow. We did!
We picked up our laundry and went back to the dinghy. The motor started and ran all the way back to Seahike.
But it appeared that the dinghy had a leak. There was more water in the bottom than usual, even after a good rain. Michael decided this was probably as good a time as any to buy a new dinghy.
There was a celebration happening later in the day on the 10th in Soufrière. We had learned that the day before from our friendly waiter. What we didn’t know is that it would impact our ability to eat breakfast in the town. After trying about five places, a super helpful and smiley woman recommended Seashell Beach Restaurant on the other side of town. It is a resort restaurant, so of course it would be open.
On our way to try to find food (before we were told about Seashell):
They had just finished serving breakfast when we arrived, but she told us that we could still order an omelet or scrambled eggs. Michael had the former and I had the latter. The view from the restaurant was great, and we ended up being really glad that the others were closed.
