Guadeloupe - Up the Rocky River in Deshaies
27 January 2008 | Jim and Daniel at a Water Pool
On our second day in Deshaies we decided to walk up a river bed recommended by a cruising guide. The guide said that after walking about 1-2 hours (depending on our speed) we will find a road that will take us back to town in 15 minutes. When we were getting ready to leave our boat we noticed a young curly-blond kid in a hand-made canoe rowing around our boat. It was the kid from a 60-foot 1904 wooden schooner (Lilly Maid) that had arrived a couple of hours earlier. We had noticed that there were kids on the boat and that they were looking at us for a while. Kids on board always present us with an opportunity for Daniel to socialize with peers his age. So when the kid approached us Maria asked his name and whether he would like to meet Daniel. He opened his blue eyes and nodded with a long up-and-down head movement. But since we were going for a walk we asked him if he were interested in doing that and he nodded again! So he quickly canoed back to his boat as we motored in our dingy to meet his parents. After a few minutes of meeting his parents they were happy about our invitation and so Jim (the 8-year-old boy) jumped in our dingy and went with us for the river walk. His parents have been sailing for 30 years and have raised 4 kids in their boat - an amazing family!
Our walk was an adventure as we never found the road and after 2 hours of walking among large rocks and pools of water we decided to climb up a high bank to find ourselves in a cow pasture with many cows and a few big bulls. We were getting ready for a run as we rushed toward the farm's portal so that we could climb it onto the road. As we approached the gate the bulls and cows rushed after us which made for an exciting time as Kim was the last to clear the gate. But the bulls and the cows just wanted to follow us! They were probably used to be taken outside the gate at around that time of the day (5:30 PM). They were actually friendly and we petted them across the gate. Anyway, this gave us a good excuse to laugh. The road back to town was a very steep downhill cement road with great views of the harbor through the houses on it.