Today we went to the National Park from the east side to find a famous waterfall. This is the one that Christopher Columbus saw from his ship in 1493, which caused him to land on Guadeloupe to find fresh water. Les Chutes du Carbet are three waterfalls; we hiked to the middle fall which is over 400 feet high!
The walk to the waterfall is about 1.5 miles, nicely paved with volcanic rock and with a lot of stairs and wooden walkways with wire grids to prevent slipping.
But today we learned what a tropical rainforest is all about – rain!
Large snails are rare but happy here.
The forest has a huge variety of vegetation, ranging from tiny leafed ferns to giant leafed vines.
See the 2 Euro coin in the middle of the green leaf? For scale.
Part of the stream below the waterfall. Steep valley!
An incredible morning. I’ve never hiked with an umbrella and a pole before. It takes talent!
For lunch, Clare ordered crayfish, and Brian wondered who would be eating whom?
Bananaquit visiting an adjacent table. We saw these a lot on little birds on Antigua, but never when we had a camera.
It is a bit of a lazy afternoon, because both of us are sore from yesterday’s sailing. I never knew it was possible to get a core workout from a sailboat ride. What we did not mention yesterday is that on the way to the other island, the passengers were used as ballast for the sailboat, which was tilted at 30 degrees (Brian said) but Clare swore it was at least 45 degrees (believe Brian). We needed to lean this way and that, front, back and sides, to compensate for the wind and the waves. We all sat on the same side of the boat with our feet dangling down the side. Waves splashed us at inconsistent intervals, which was fun because the water was a blazing 26°C, but the ride lasted an hour and a half. Both of us are bruised and have sore muscles from that part of the day yesterday.
So this afternoon, we might watch some Pirates of the Caribbean in French with French subtitles, then go to sleep early for tomorrow is a ferry boat ride to our next island – Dominica!
Bunch of Geeks go Traveling 