We got off to a late start today and after breakfast at the bakery we took the long drive to the Chutes Carbet which is at the southern portion of Basse Terre. The drive up the steep and narrow road (parts of it in rain) was a fun experience as we saw lots of new types of flora and the vines hanging down over the road gave the whole trip up a bit of a sombre tone. The road is quite narrow in parts and I was glad that we didn’t encounter a tour bus on the way up or down.
We had good timing in that once we left the car and had paid our park entrance fee we had no more rain for the most part and the sun even made an occasional appearance. The trail up to the main falls had had a rock slide and was closed, but we decided to take a more difficult hike up the hill but after about 40 minutes of climbing we realized that making it to the 1st falls would be too much work and we turned around and returned. In retrospect that was a good choice as we were a bit tired upon our return to the car plus it was already 15:00 and we needed to return our rental car at 17:00 and still had shopping to do.
We went to Carrefour for our provisioning and filled one shopping cart to overflow with our purchases, which also managed to fill the fridge but hardly made a dent in the storage bins below the galley. The car was returned on time (but I got ripped off with a €20 “Cleaning Fee” even though the car wasn’t dirty at all) and we hung around the cockpit as the sun dropped below the horizon and night set in. After a shower we checked out the local restaurants and opted for an Italian whose menu didn’t look promising but the meals were excellent.
