Day 13 -- Point-a-Pitre and Ilet de Gosier
Thursday 3/4/2004
Our plan today was to first visit Point-a-Pitre and do some shopping and then head over to Ilet de Gosier. Today must have been a big market day. There was plenty of stands near the port and lots of traffic in town. We could barely find a parking spot; we had to make many laps around until we found two. Weather was nice. We walked around the area between the fish market and the port, which is also where the Carnival train went by last week. We looked for T-shirts, but most are way too thin for our taste. And, along with that comes a steep price (relatively speaking). Better T-shirts were marked 20€-25€ ($25-$30).
I walked by the spice market and got some vanilla beans. The price was outrageous, I thought. They had two types of beans, a slightly shorter one and a slightly longer one. The shorter ones were 1/2 dozen for 5€. The longer ones were 5 for 8€. I ended up getting 20 long ones for 20€ plus a bundle of cinnamon bark, which I still considered a rip-off. By the ladies would not relent on their prices. The story one of the ladies told me, which I am not sure is completely to blame, is that there is virtually no vanilla bean production in Guadeloupe anymore. Most of the crop was damaged with hurricane Hugo in 1989. Since then, most of the old people who used to grow them have retired without any young ones taking their places. Instead, beans are imported from Madagascar. And there is basically one or two guys in Guadeloupe who do this and supply all the ladies in the market. She claimed they pay 2000€/kilo and then mark it up for resale in the stands. While the story sounds credible, the pricing sounds a bit too high even for that. I also bought some coco-bread from local ladies, which tasted very good.
|
| Posters for music bands on a wall in Point-a-Pitre |
After Point-a-Pitre we headed towards Gosier, where we wanted to take a boat out to Ilet de Gosier. The weather was windy. The fishermen, who take people out, appear to have increased the prices again. In fact, we found that a lot of prices have gone up in pure currency terms, since they switched over from French Francs to Euro. I recall we paid 10FF/person (1.52 €) three years ago. Now they wanted 2€ for kids and 3€ for adults. This is a two-way fare. Once we got over, it looked like a few more stands had come up since the last time. I guess there is a 10-15 year build cycle, where things are reset back to square 1 again after a major hurricane. We found a small table where we ate lunch.
 |
| Free roaming chickens on Ilet de Gosier |
 |
| Looking out from the picnic table |
After that the kids played in the sand. Isabella snorkeled around and chased fish and other things. The wind blew from the east and right into where we were, which made it a bit cold (it is all relative). The kids also dug in the sand. The water is rather shallow around the island, much which has a grass like vegetation on the bottom. The stranded fishing boat was still out there, stuck on its side.
 |
| Bengt helping the kids dig in the sand |
 |
| The kids wanted to go to the bathroom... |
We stopped at Carrefour in the way home and got, among other things, Merguez sausages. We prepared those on the grill when we got home. It tasked really good. Some of the other kids got regular hot-dogs. Lilli also BBQ:d meat, but it did not turn out that great. She suspected the meat was not meant to be grilled beyond rare.