Chasing Summer –

November 22- 23rd

Dawn arrived as we slipped into port at Pointe a Pitre in Guadeloupe. I was back to euros and French as Guadeloupe is under France’s domain.

At 8 a.m., the Odyssey received the all-clear to head into town, but Angela had done some research and figured out that we should leave town today for the beach and explore the city on Saturday.

By 8:45, Angela, Steve, Scott, and I were making our way off the boat with the hopes of getting to Sainte Anne, a town about a 20-minute drive away with gorgeous beaches.

There is a bus, the S01, that will take you there for 3 euros, but it takes over an hour to ride. We decided to ask the taxis how much it would cost to take us. For 10 euros each we decided to take the taxi and get there earlier, so off we went with John- Pierre.

Sainte Anne is a smaller tourist town that has private and public beaches. We asked to go to the public beach to save a few dollars. When we arrived John-Pierre drove us through a little bit of the town so that Steve could get some cash out of the ATM, and then he dropped us off at the beach asking what time we needed to get picked up.

Of course, we had no idea, and he informed us that there were no taxis there, and if you didn’t call, then there would be no ride. We only half believed him but took down his phone number in case we needed to call him.

It was a bit drizzly, but we headed down the beach to check it out and decided that the farthest lagoons were the best, but Angela wanted to go visit the shops first.

We headed off, and I decided to try on a few bathing suit tops, so they went on ahead. Only Scott and I had phones that worked, so he messaged me where they were, but I misunderstood and ended up going down a different road.

Luckily, it’s a small place, and eventually, we meet up again at a market. I did pick up some swim shorts but no tops. I need a new top since all the delicious food is making what I came with too snug. I found the prices much too high for a beach area.

The water was great, and an iguana came to visit when I was on the beach. The beach is popular with families because the water is quite shallow for a while, and the lagoon is protected, so there are no large waves.

After a lunch of Croque Monsieur and a local beer, I asked the server where to get a taxi back to the Pointe e Pitre and was told our taxi guy was not lying, there are no taxis in Sainte Anne and we would need to call for one.

Angela wanted to make one sweep of the beach and main street to see if we’d get lucky and find a taxi returning to town after dropping someone off at the beach. No taxis could be seen, so I phoned John Pierre to see if he could come and get us.

Of course, we needed to wait 30 minutes since he needed to drive out to us, but we made it back to port.

The next morning, when I got up, there was another cruise ship pulling into port behind us. I was actually happy about this because that meant all of the stores would be open. Often, when it is just us, only one or two open because we are small and not worth it, I guess.

After breakfast, I headed out and into town, heading towards the spice market and stopping to take pictures of all the street art along the way.

Most of the shops and vendors were selling the same items, and many were vibrant colors with a lot of orange and yellow.

My goal was to find a magnet that was cheaper than 4 euros.

After a walk through the market, we walked down a few of the streets with vendors lining them and ended up at the pier where the pelicans came in to feast on the fish guts that a boat was tossing to them. It had also started to rain a little, which was the theme of the day.

Here, I got separated from my crew because I stopped to take some pictures and chat with fellow residents. We were only about 5 minutes from the pier area, so I wasn’t too worried about finding them and wandered off to see what else I could find close by.

There were a lot of murals and graffiti on the buildings, and I managed to stumble upon the cathedral and courthouse. They were directly across from each other, which seems oddly appropriate.

On these wanderings, I also found some more pink hair dye on sale, which I bought, and a cheaper magnet for 2.50 euros.

It had only been a couple of hours, but between the humidity and the rain spitting, I was damp and ready to head back in. I was also falling behind in my blogs and wanted to get caught up before we hit another port tomorrow, and I forgot what I wanted to say.

Antigua is tomorrow, and several people have told me the prices are better there, so one of the days I’ll hit the bathing suit shops for that elusive top.