Okay, in fairness, this is less about Deshaies, than about the whole left wing of the Guadeloupe butterfly, Basse Terre.
Deshaies is not a very big town, and the shopping is limited to a small supermarket (oversized convenience store), and few small stores, and an excellent boulangerie. Ken and I were on a mission to get coffee beans of the brand that we have currently decided is our favourite, a Guadeloupan coffee by the name of Ermantin. We knew that they weren’t going to have it in town. The other thing is that there isn’t anywhere to do laundry here, unless you choose to do the bucket and hand thing… and our underwear stocks, as well as my running clothes, were getting severely depleted. Add in that we wanted to see more of the area, and busses are not necessarily inexpensive, and a car rental seemed in order. Bob and Gigi were interested as well, so we rented a car for two days. One for more touristy endeavours, one for the nitty gritty. I don’t mind driving in the French islands, and the rentals seem to all be manual shift!
Saturday morning we got our four door Ford Fiesta, threw our things in, including cooler bag to keep things cold, and struck off for the south east corner of the island. We were heading to the Maison de Cacao for our first stop, then the Musee de Café for our next stop. This seemed more prudent than starting at the Musee de Rhum.
By sea, which is almost as the crow flies, it is about 15 nautical miles. On the winding, hilly coastal road, it is more like 30 miles, and not at a fast pace (unless you are French). The views from the road were spectacular, and we observed that while our boats might have been rocking a bit in Deshaies, the boats in the other anchorages were rolling their guts out. Glad we weren’t there. Only Anse la Barque looked tenable for the time being.
We found the Maison de Cacao, but it wasn’t due to open for another 30 minutes, so we opted to keep heading south, and we could always come back to it when we were going to take the transverse road across the middle of the island. We found the Musee de Café with no difficulty (the French have excellent signage), and it was open.
The Museum of Coffee is a worthwhile little diversion. The admission price isn’t terrible, and it includes a cup of coffee at the end. It gives a good overview of coffee production in Guadeloupe, and discusses the “migration” of coffee to the Caribbean. Considering that it is the second biggest commodity in the world, behind oil and in front of wheat, it is a lucrative crop that will always have a market.
There is also a little bit of information about chocolate, as well as a boutique selling exceptional chocolate made from local source ingredients. After that, we decided we really didn’t have to go back to the Maison de Cacao. We struck off for the interior of the island.
On the map is a viewpoint that gives a spectacular view from the top of a mountain. At the entrance to the road is a sign, in French, saying “Construction, no entry”. No gates, fences, or signs of construction… and it IS on the map as a viewpoint… so of course we went up. At the top was a telecommunications antenna farm (Ken was happy with this) and the view really was nice, with a cool breeze as a welcome addition. Two young women asked us what the towers/antennas were for. Well, it ends up one of them was from New Brunswick, the other from the Ottawa (Gatineau) area. We had a very “Canadian” conversation, with one person speaking French, the other answering in English, and it turning into a mishmash of the official languages (Bob is very bilingual, and Gigi is quite strong in English, even if she doesn’t think so. I can understand reasonably well, and I can muddle through speaking French). To come all that way to talk to other Canadians!
Next stop was the Maison des Forets. This is a delightful picnic area beside an equally delightful river, where people come to spend the day swimming, relaxing and enjoying. There are a number of pavilions with picnic tables, and even barbecue pits available. This was an excellent place to enjoy our baguettes, cheese and sausage. Since this was the weekend, it was busy, but we scored a parking spot!
Les Cascades des Ecrivesses were only a little farther down the road. Again, this is a popular place to come a cool off, with a paved path to the waterfall.
The Museum of Rum, when we finally found it, was closed.
During the day, we had kept our eyes open for “poulet boucane”, the beautifully smoked chicken that can be found at the side of the road. We had hoped for that for lunch (nope) and were seeking it out for dinner. We also knew we wanted to just relax at a little side of the road rum shack for a cold drink and to chat with people. It wasn’t until we were about 3 km from the dock that I said “let’s go to Chez Samy”, as little rough and tumble beach bar on Grand Anse beach. I had seen it while running, and it looked like our kind of place.
Samy was the consummate host. We bought our beers, and he sat and chatted with us. He then brought out glasses and the makings for ti ponche, plus a little juice if someone wanted to turn it into a Planter’s Punch. Then he brought out some grilled bananas, which he then flambéed with the rum. Oh, would we like some chicken and bread? He brought out poulet boucane, comme Samy, that had a little hit of pepper in it, too. When we insisted on paying more than the 10 Euros he asked for (that was for 4 chicken legs, two more beers and the ti ponch), he then insisted that we take MORE chicken and bread, and sent Gigi home with a bottle of punch. This is the kind of place that we love. Not that we wanted freebies, but the honest generosity and desire to be a host, not just a business person, means so much.
So we had a great whirlwind tour of the Basse Terre side of Gwada. The most southerly part we had seen by bus last year. This is the very mountainous side of Guadeloupe, with high peaks, rain forests and impressive vistas.