Simply a great day in Guadeloupe. We move from the Au jardin des colibris to the opposite end of the Basse-Terre island. The promised two bedroom house apparently has been transformed and was a garage in its previous life. Still it is very good. The only problem appear to be the distance from the kitchen to the terrace. Takes time to bring the food there and back.
Everything is intuitive in Guadeloupe. We stay in Basse-Terre island. The name of the island means – the low land. Why the low land? Bacause here are the highest mountains of the Guadelope 🙂 . Today we are heading to another island – to Grande-Terre (or the large land). Guess if it is greater than Basse-Terre.
The destination for today is a place with a lovely name – Porte d’Enfer (or door to the hell). The place is close to the far North of Grande-terre.
The morning started with the sunset in Plage de Grande Anse. This is a popular place but the beach has a lot of place for people as it is several km long and rather wide. We are on the West shore of the Basse-Terre island so we see only the glimpse of the sunset in the sea. The sunset is accompanied by the rainbow as well. The sun is somewhere behind the hills.
Yesterday we moved from the yellow bungalow to the blue one. Now we have something like banana tree just out the window. Much more creatures around (or may be closer?). Even hens (they are everywhere) want use our terrace and table as their own. We manage to save the bread just before too late. Hummingbirds visit us more frequently. They fly around as close as a meter from us. They say that there are three kinds of hummingbirds here.
Off we drive to have the today’s main adventure – to enjoy the blue lagoon and the mangroves. Th lagoon is located in the North of Basse-Terre. Th journey starts in the small port in Sainte-Rose. The Lagoon is popular between snorkelers still we are eager to se the mangroves.
A froot of the mangrove looks like a thin green pen. When it is ready it falls down to the water. Here it may drift several kilometres (keeping all the way a vertical position) while it finds the place it can reach the seabed to settle down. Thus sort of green islands grow in shallow places in the Lagoon. They are not islands indeed but a thicket of mangroves.
A rather small motorboat takes us to some of mangrove islands. We start by driving close to one of them (meaning – touching the mangroves with our boat and hands). No climbing ashore as no shore there 🙂 So we have a bunch of interesting stories before to proceed further to the coral reef. Most of our travel companions go snorkeling. Others just wade in the warm water. The journey ends with some sort of toddy party.
Our schedule for today has several small hikes. Having done with the breakfast in company of hummingbirds, sparrows and lizards, we at first drive to the north-east of Basse-Terre to search for Saut des trois Cornes (falls of three horns). The track starts at Sofaia where locals go to heal themselves in a sulfur water. While we make ready for walk several cars loaded with local families arrive in the parking place to have some sanum per aqua. We will do it on a way back.