Last night Natalie came by with a watermelon from Papi’s garden. It was delicious! She then went and got us a banana jam that Tony made for us all wrapped in bubble wrap for travel. I’ve felt more like a friend and house guest than someone renting their bungalow; they are a very special family.
The girls all kissed me au revoir this morning and the middle one, manna, gave me a hand drawn picture with au revoir and buy buy on it. I will miss them and hope that we manage to get back to Ti Colibri some day.
We took the long route to our next destination in Sainte Rose; all along the coast of Basse Terre. Extra interesting today as it is Carnaval and you are periodically stopped by masked men that want small coins to let you pass!
It is like a different country on Basse Terre. Very lush and jungle like and there is just no way that I can describe the hills. I have no idea how Tom managed to drive our little truck up these incredibly vertical grades on narrow twisty roads with moats on the side! Yes, moats! I assume to prevent the whole road from washing away there are super deep trenches frequently cut into the side of the road. There was also some getting lost which created additional climbing up the side of the volcano I assume as we tried to find some food. We made our way back to the main coast road and managed to see the musee du cafe in time to pull in. Nice little museum of coffee history and an espresso at the end. We also scored a manioc coconut cake and that got us to Sainte Rose.
Then it got real interesting. We had no directions, the owner does not speak English, Google would not nav and had the location completely wrong anyway. Oh yes, and the phone was low on battery. We finally pulled over and called Henri, the owner. Confusing call but Tom managed to give him a landmark that told him where we were. We thought he had then given us directions, the call dropped and we were trying to email/text to get directions that we could translate when he pulled up in his car and led us to the completely unmarked apartment on a bizarre side street!
It’s a block up from the water and crazy big, gorgeous and well equipped inside. He left us and enormous 3 course meal, fruit, and a small bottle of rum. Sitting here now drinking rum, banana, and pineapple dacquiris! Cheap bottle of wine that we picked up at local bodega queued up and tomorrow we will explore. Not sure if Pearl will get to ride in Basse Terre – we will explore and look for a flatish route tomorrow with decent road safety. Pretty much everything we saw today was terrifying.
