We rented a car this morning and set off to explore Grande Terre. This half of Guadeloupe is low and mostly flat, a big contrast to the imposing mountains on Basse Terre. We followed the main highway east and somehow missed the exit that would take us into Gosier. According to Lonely Planet, Gosier is the main tourist area of Guadeloupe and quite built up with endless hotels. Since we had already seen a little bit of Gosier and it didn’t sound that great anyway, we decided not to backtrack.

Instead we pressed on to a town called St. Anne’s, about halfway down the southern shore. The scenery between Point a Pitre and St. Anne’s is farmland with a scattering of houses about. Most of the houses are the colorful bungalows with metal slanted roofs and gingerbread trim. These farms look more like the kind of crops that have to be planted annually, whereas on Basse Terre most of the farmland had trees/bushes that bloom year in and year out. From what we could see, St. Anne’s was tiny. Like Deshaies, it is only a few blocks big. But, it is a cute beach community nestled along a scenic bay. There were several boats anchored in the bay. The part of the bay on the outskirts of town looked to be super protected, and the boats closer in to town seemed to be rolling a lot in the swells.

We stopped to go into a craft market on the eastern edge of town. We expected it to be Continue reading →