15th January 2008 - Pointe-a- Pitre, Guadeloupe
Arrived early Tuesday to this French department in the Caribbean with a clear plan as to what to do, i.e. post blogs first, stock up on supplies and see what we could with the rest of the day, given we were leaving early evening.
The run in to Pa P was pleasant enough but we found one cruise ship already moored, but with sufficient area in the Cruise terminal to cause no bother. As in all the French territories, this was clean efficient and modern and gave straight out on to the compact central area. Found a cyber cafe quickly enough but although we knew there were different, additional letters on a French keyboard did not realise it was not 'qwerty', with 'a' on the top line and 'm' on the middle line plus a few more differences, including numerics and full stops in upper case. Slowed considerably the cyber work and we needed an hour but M managed to lock herself out of bank account!
After, went for an amble round town and thought about lunch out, but it was not cheap so we went back to the boat. On the way back discovered a joke shop (good for theme nights) and later a number of others. Tried to rent a car - they were remarkably cheap to rent - but there were none left. With another couple we took a cab for a tour - they all seem to be standard itineraries - which took us to a waterfall on Basses Terre and a beach on Grand Terre over a two and a half hour period, The waterfall was ok but nothing special, although the rain forest was. We went up a fairly high hill for good views of P a P and onwards along excellent dual carriageway roads we have probably paid for to a flash hotel complex - rooms over £100 per night - where we had a swim on a clean and pleasant beach before returning to town. More shopping at the joke shop and a couple of star buys for M - a linen dress for under a tenner and two black dresses for £2 apiece. Unfortunately, one will have to await some slimming before it can be worn. Finally, a quick shop at the supermarket for French wine at French prices and back to the boat.
The evening was spent at the regulation Caribbean Deck Party.
