Day 4 -- Excursions to Point-a-Pitre
Tuesday 2/24/2004
As before, we got up around 7 o'clock. Karl's sunburn still hurt a bit. Isabella reported that she was now feeling much better. Louise was a bit cranky this morning, in part because Lucas deliberately scratched her sub-burnt back. We ate breakfast and talked a bit. Today we wanted to make an excursion down to Point-a-Pitre, the capitol of the island. We packed a pic-nic to take with us. To avoid whining from the kids, we made sure each sandwich was marked with a felt pen. We did not leave the house until about 10AM.
It does not take more than 15 minutes to get into town from the bungalows. As we approached town it started to rain. No big deal as the weather changes from one minute to another. At least it was nice and warm. The town looked closed up. We parked along Quai Lefevre, not far from the market and the main part of town. It was easy to find a spot. There was a huge cruise ship parked in town. And we encountered many German speaking tourists. Some of the locals tried to peddle us a guided tour, thinking we just stepped of the ship. We continued to walk under small overhangs by the stores to avoid getting wet from the rain. We walked by the market and headed straight up into the tourist information office, where I asked about the program for this week. Fortunately, I speak French so it was not hard to collect the information we needed. Today is a great carnival day. The parade starts at 4PM and goes in into the evening. By 9PM prizes are handed out for floats, etc. My brother-in-law does not speak any French. While we wrapped up, I asked about some of the local fish I might be able to buy down by the harbor. They told me that the fishermen start selling their goods around 5:30AM, and that some stay as late as 2PM, depending on how quickly their catch sells. Fortunately for me, the lady working in the shop started to explain a recipe for making a local fish. She even wrote down some notes in French. We bought some tomatoes, bananas and vegetables at the market as we walked by.
When we got out the rain had stopped and the sun had started to come out. We decided we should probably get back to the bungalows, rest and then come back into town in the afternoon. We did not think the kids could make it for that many hours. Since we had packed a pic-nic we wondered a bit where we should eat it. Proposed we should go back into the mountains and stop by a pic-nic area along the traverse that cuts through their national forest. We took a small side road to a small pic-nic area to the left, before you reach "maison de la foret". On our way along the narrow road that leads there a passing car slapped into my side mirror, causing our mutual front-left mirrors to break. The other driver and I hooked up afterwards and decided it was only material damage. At this point the damage was below any deductible. I definitely want to repair this before I hand the car back to the rental agency, as this can cost a small fortune.
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| A French Kiss |
The pic-nic area as very nice and was not crowded. We sat down by a covered pic-nic table and ate our packed lunch. After that the kids walked down to the river and swam. They all enjoyed this. This place came across as a bit cleaner this time when compared to previous times we've visited this place. After a while we decided to head back to the bungalows and relax some before this afternoon. On our way out of the pic-nic area I slowed down my car and looked for the plastic cover for the front of the mirror. We were able to find it and it did not look too bad. We can probably clean it up and re-attach it. But the mirror itself is definitely gone. When we got back to the bungalows the kids wanted to get into the pool, as if they had not been in the water a few moments ago! The sun came and went, but it was still very pleasant outside. After some time in the water, the kids got dressed and came back to the bungalow and played around a little bit.
We then headed back into town for the parades. The first task was to find a spot to park the car. I had asked earlier in the Tourist Office about this. We found some great spots along Quai Foulon. We walked not far from where we parked and waited near an area that had been fenced off. There were plenty of other people out on the streets, too, including a ton of Germans from the cruise ship. The parade got off to a late start due to the rain. So before the parade even walked by us, the Germans headed back to the boat. By the time the parade started their cruise ship had already left the harbor. The parade was very nice. Lots of loud music and many different "teams", each with about 50 people, came by.
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| A woman and her child dressed in typical Guadeloupe plaid |
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| Part of the Carnival parade |
Lucas, Adam and Louise got tired by the time the interesting bands came by. So we decided to leave. This turned out to be a real pain in the ass. We had basically parked in the wrong spot. The street we were parked on was a one-way street. Following along this street took us along a set of barricaded streets along the darn parade path. So we ended up driving in the parade, surrounded by thousands of people! And then we got stuck in a mass of people at the start of Rue Dubouchage (other side of harbor). One angry man slammed his hands against my windshield as I tried to inch my way up against the flow. We had to inch by more than one parade team that walked towards us. When we finally got through most of the mess, we asked for directions to get out of this, and ended up in a labyrinth of barricaded streets with exceptionally slow moving traffic. After a very long time and many wrong turns we finally made it out. What an experience. For dinner we ate grilled Merguez sausages.
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| Bengt prepares Merguez sausages on the grill |