Guadeloupe - Island tour by car
Nimue
Fri 28 Jan 2011 02:15
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Whilst waiting for parts in Pointe a Pitre, we tried to book a hire car
for a few days, but the chap in the office advised us in ‘Franglais’ that NO
CARS WERE AVAILABLE FOR WEEKS! Could this be actually true?
The answer is yes, as we were advised that due to the high demand by African,
Moroccan, Tunisian and Egyptian tourists on vacation on the island, there were
no cars for hire! We did think this a little weird at the time, but on
reflection why shouldn’t they come to Guadeloupe on vacation? On the second
occasion we visited the hire car company I must have looked really fed up, as
the same chap said there may be a car available in a few days time. This
was in fact true, so we did a whistle-stop tour of the Island on Saturday
afternoon and all day Sunday in a lovely, virtually brand new car. St. Francois
on the south coast was our first stop, as I wanted to visit the restaurant owned
by the same brothers who own a restaurant by the same name in Camaret on the
Rade de Brest in France. In 2006 we moored Nimue in Camaret for a year in
2006 and occasionally ate at “Les Freres de la Cote”. Their business card
also showed they had a restaurant in Guadaloupe, so as we were on the island I
decided to try and find it. We located “Les Freres de la Cote”
within minutes of arriving in St. Francois, which is situated on the southern
coast of Grande Terre (which means Big Land, but in fact is the lower of the two
islands). Unfortunately it was closed, but the menu looked inviting and almost
identical to the one in Camaret. So we decided not to wait until it opened for
dinner and returned to Nimue for supper.
Our nice new hire car with less than 6000km on the
clock and air con.
Colourful looking church in St.
Francois   Les Freres de la Cote restaurant, which
unfortunately was closed On Sunday we drove virtually around the whole island and visited the
beautiful botanical gardens in Deshaie (pronounced Day ey) on Basse Terre
(meaning Low Land, is in fact mainly a high, forest covered, mountainous and
volcanic massif). We also checked out the anchorage in Deshaie, as we
intended to bring Nimue here as it’s an ideal place to set sail for
Antigua.
Michael surveying the anchorage as Deshaie
Interesting photo, as local appeared to be panning for gold
We also spotted Otra Vida (foreground) but no Martin
We
started to drive up to La Soufriere, the active 1467m volcano, but a just
a few kilometres up the heavens opened and visibility was lost, so we turned
around and headed back to Pointe a Pitre. A very enjoyable and
interesting day and Guadeloupe does actually have a lot to offer.
Finally we found a very large Leaderprice supermarket, so took the
opportunity to stock up on lots of heavy
groceries. |
