Fruitful Paradise

 This is a piece of land that looks like a pancake from a distance. Marie Galante is considered flat but still has an elevation between 300-600 feet in various places. It is densely green and the trees and bushes seem taller than other places. During the couple of hikes we did, many sugar fields were observed. Our guest, Nico, cut down  some sugar cane sticks, peeled away the hard skin, to chew and suck on the fibers full of sweet water, just like the locals do. In addition, we saw many fruit trees that had fruits ripened and ready to be picked. Fruit trees are everywhere and before picking any fruits, we always make sure it’s not on someone’s property. Here in Marie Galante we were lucky to find random lemon, banana, papaya, mango, and coconut trees and we collected many of them. 

In Marie Galante, you also see tons of pigs. Almost every mango tree has a pig tied up underneath. Then there are oxes and cows! We have not witnessed so many pigs, oxes, and cows in one single island. The pigs seem friendly and some of them walked toward us like they needed petting! We saw big and small pigs, white, black and spotted. Some of the sugar cane transportation on the island is still on ox carriages. Watch out and make sure you are not in the way because these ox are so big that they could crush anything in their path. Moreover, I found my bamboo stick that was misplaced last year. We use to have a stick that was used as an extension for the outboard handle and dinghy depth finder. Now we have attained a new one made in Marie Galante!

                                                  As a cruiser and traveller, you see the most beautiful beaches on these Caribbean Islands. Some of the islands are surrounded by long white beaches and some have very few beaches. In Basse Terre, which is the mountainous part of Guadeloupe the very few beaches have dark sand. In Marie Galante beaches are more white and soft and long. Based on experience, low elevated islands have beautiful long white beaches and higher elevated islands don’t have as many and they are smaller.  

I mentioned that it’s difficult to connect with locals in the French Islands if you don’t speak French. We finally got to connect with some locals through Nico. Apparently, Guadeloupe has a large Lebanese community. In Point a Pitre, many store fronts are owned by Lebanese that have been settled here for over 50 years. Nico got to talk to some of them in Arabic and we were able to socialize. After all, we are all the same and different languages and cultures should not separate us! Our differences should be attracting us to one another and this is the beautiful part of Earthlings!

Right now we are in Dominica and going to explore this attractive land for the next couple of weeks.

Love from a fruitful paradise

Please check out the photo album of Guadeloupe on the fb page!