The next day we moved to the western side of the island, Basse Terre. In the middle of the island our way led us through the heart of the rainforest. Here we stopped at a small waterfall with a shallow river and got ourselves a good sunburn sitting on the rocks. Afterwards we went further north, because there were supposed to be some nice beaches there. As we arrived there it started raining again, but we had opened the travel hammock under big palm trees and didn't get wet. After a relaxed hammock time, we finally set off to our new lodging.
Wir bezogen unsere neue AirBnB Bleibe im Revé et Alizé. Wir waren von unserem Casa Boubou ja schon angetan, aber unser neues Interimszuhause war nochmal schöner. Die Besitzerin Laurence und ihr Mann haben sich damit einen Traum erfüllt, daher auch die Namesgebung „Der wahrgewordene Traum“. Auch hier war unser Häuschen wieder inmitten eines Dschungels angesiedelt. Wir hatten einen Pool und eine wunderschöne Terrasse, mit der uns auch die Regenstunden gar nichts ausmachten.
And there was another very special highlight: when you walked through the garden up to the end, you could walk through dense plants and across a small creek to a beautiful place. It looked in principle like the waterfall and the river in the rainforest that can be found in every travel guide. Only it was private and we were the only ones there. We also found a ripe mango and a cocoa fruit there to sweeten our next breakfasts. Like the Casa Boubou, our bungalow had no windows. Laurence said she always leaves the windows open day and night. We decided to close half of the windows at night - so we could sleep calmer somehow. But when everything is open, of course all kinds of animal friends come along.
Here is a small list of the visitors who have been in and around our house:
- Lizards (small and cute)
- Geckos (also small and cute)
- a giant lizard (no longer cute, and according to Lena not a lizard but a baby crocodile)
- Schnaken (unfortunately very many of them, so even lizards and geckos didn't manage to eat them all)
- Giant butterfly (which was caught in our bedroom at night. But we didn't dare to turn on the light because we didn't want to know what was crawling above us, instead we put the mosaic net under the mattress and searched for it in daylight the next morning and then spotted it)
- Average butterlfy
- Spiders (rather smaller than large)
- All kinds of birds
- And even hummingbirds
- a frog (found in the bathroom)
- a beetle (no Lena, no cockroach)
- many many crickets (who sang us to sleep)
Here is a compilation of our beautiful Rêve & Alizé:
The next day we had planned a volcano hike. At 7am we started off to the volcano. We were the second car standing in the parking lot and off we went. The national parks and hiking trails in Guadeloupe are incredibly well developed and signposted, they seem to attach great importance to it. We hiked and hiked and at some point it became steeper and wetter. We came out of the forest and everything was foggy, around you could not really see much and the higher we came the colder and foggier it got. At some point the fog smelled like sulphur, so we knew we were close to our destination. After further very steep stages, where you could only pull yourself up by posts, we finally reached the top. The wind and rain made our stay there anything but nice. We could still recognize, where the summit sign stood and from there also a way went still further, but since we could see only approx. 3 meters far and in Lena's travel guide it was written that there should be voids up there, we decided not to run further. Anyway, we wouldn't have seen anything. So we were on the active volcano but saw exactly nothing of it. Nevertheless, we still had our yoghurt and grapes, while freezing before we went back downhill. At some point my knees started to hurt a lot and the descent was anything but pleasant. Our original plan was to hike to two waterfalls on the same day in the afternoon. I carefully asked Lena if it was OK if we dropped out. Luckily, she was already about to ask me the same thing. So we went back to our bungalow and enjoyed the afternoon on our terrace, just like the day after.
That evening we had a great dinner at La Touna: There was fresh fish and a langoust. Lena called her Carlo, she had to choose him alive, too. I was glad she took over. First we were a bit frightened when we got a pair of pliers put on the table for dinner, but I have to say that we did well.
The next day we wanted to get active again, so we booked a snorkel tour. Unfortunately, it was raining the whole day. So we went out and snorkeled with some others through a bay, in which the view was not so amazing, but nevertheless there were quite nice fish to see. According to the fish image overview we there saw our dinner from the night before... The other tourists were so excited about pretty it was and Lena and I whispered to each other: yes and they taste good too. After our snorkeling tours on the BVI we were spoiled as far as crystal clear water is concerned.... But as a last stop we were at a point where many turtles are and that was really great to see - even if the water was very hazy here too.
And there he was: Our last evening. We went to a restaurant where there was a concert and enjoyed great fish dishes and the typical cocktail "Planteur". The waiter spoke German very well and explained to us that he works for 6 months and then travels again for 6 months. And he was able to give me a lot of great tips for Colombia. We went home satisfied and let the evening end on our terrace.
The next day we drove across the island to the airport to drop off our car. When I drove fast, it did tak-tak-tak. But we thought nothing was going to happen... When we arrived at the gas station, the man who just refuelled told us that our car was making a lot of noise and something was hanging down. At the check below the car it was clear what it was: Half the underbody was hanging on the floor - UPS! When we returned the car we told it to the man and he just said that it was no problem at all. I think I still need to monitor my credit card charges well in the near future.
Afterwards we went to the airport and it was time to say goodbye to Lena, my last fellow traveller. It was also very difficult to say goodbye. From now on I would travel on my own and I was very curious how it would be.
All in all, Guadeloupe is a Caribbean France. There are baguettes, the roads are very good, there are the supermarkets e.g. Carrefoure and Super U, you pay with Euro and the license plates also have an F for France.
For me the journey then went on to the ferry to Dominica and again I came into the situation that there were problems without an onward travel ticket. So I quickly booked an open onward ticket with the ferry to Martinique, even though I decided not to travel to Martinique at all. But since Martinique is halfway to St. Lucia, I thought that this could work out. At the ferry I was queuing up at three lines for 45 minutes each and got a little nervous in between, because the departure was actually at 3 pm. But since everyone was still standing in line and people around me had to go to Dominica, I thought it would fit. So it was: with one hour delay we started to Dominica.
