On both the way to and from Guadeloupe we had overnight layovers in Florida. We also had layovers in San Juan, Puerto Rico. When we got to San Juan on the way there we had been traveling for I don't remember how many hours but we were so tired of being in air ports and so excited about being on a beuatiful island and had a 2 hour layover so we had a taxi take us to the nearest beach. It cost us about $20 and we only got to be there for about 30 minutes, but it was totally worth it. It was gorgeous. The beach went on forever in both directions, the sand was perfect, and the water was the incredible torqouise color that you imagine it would be. We could only get in up to our ankles, but it was so nice.
So we made it to our hotel, with everyone speaking French. Our room was awesome, two stories. Upstairs there was a kitchen, bathroom, and living room. Down stairs was the big bedroom. This was the view outside our upstairs balcony. Their are so many flowers in Guadeloupe, it is gorgeous everywhere.
This is a cemetery we visited on Sunday, it was enormous and rather interesting with all the checkerboard patterns.
This is a cemetery we visited on Sunday, it was enormous and rather interesting with all the checkerboard patterns.
Check out that water, can you believe that coloring. We walked along these cliffs for a while.
There were so many cows in Guadeloupe, we would see them tied up in the most random places, just along the side of the road, usually only one or two at time. We liked how these two were right on the side of a cliff.
After we'd done 2 scuba dives (thus my greasy hair - I always used conditioner to brush my hair out but had no way to rinse it out) we went to a cacoa farm were they make chocolate. They have a bunch of different types of cacoa trees. You can see one of the pods the beans grow in growing to the upper left of my head.
Just a representation of one of the native flowers.
A different type of cacoa pods mixed in with birds of paradise.
A closer up pic of birds of paradiese.
A third type of pod.
Okay, so here is what a pod looks like when it is broken open.
And these are a bunch of roasted beans.
And here is Ryan right after he has tasted just some cacoa paste that has not been sweetened, it is not very good.
After the chocolate farm we came to this beach and went snorkeling. It was one of the longest beaches we found (most of the beaches in Guadeloupe are quite short) and we had it all to our selves. The sand was great and the snorkeling was fantastic. As soon as you put your head in the water you would start seeing things, there were a ton of fish, it was awesome.
This is a lady making coconut sorbet, it was yummy!
Ryan eating the cocunut sorbet, with some cool rock formations behind him.
There were crabs all over the islands and they were all different types and all different colors, they were quite entertaining.
Behind Ryan Islet de Gosier. We swam out there (the islands about ½ mile from the coast.) The swim was a bit of a workout, but nice. We found that neither of us are very good at swimming in a straight line. Once we reached the island we walked to the light house and rested for awhile. Then we tried snorkeling in two different places. The whole reason we went there was because it was supposed to be one of the best snorkel places in Guadeloupe. We did see some schools of yellow fish that we hadn’t seen before, which was pretty cool, but I wouldn’t say it was our favorite snorkel spot, though we did like it a lot. Once we had our fill of that we swam back. We had felt we’d made pretty good time until this old (and topless) lady got there soon after we did even though I think she left after us. In our defense she did have a kick board so she could make sure she was swimming in a straight line the whole time.
One of the ladies staying at our hotel was also American and on the trip on her own. She wanted to go hiking but not by her self so she came with us this day. We are on our way to the waterfall but liked this overlook.
This is one of the 3 water falls that make up the Chutes de Carbet. It was gorgeous, and the hike wasn't much of a hike as the trail was paved the whole way and very well maintained.
Just some of the area surrounding the waterfall.
One of the interesting crabs near the waterfall.
After the waterfall we wanted to hike to the top of the volcano, La Soufriere. To get there you have to drive up this fairly steep road for quite awhile which was a little scary because it was raining the whole time. When we got to the parking lot we were about to pull into a parking space when this guy started honking and motioning for Ryan to back up. We assumed he wanted the space we were going to take. We started to back up, but because the road was steep and it was raining we started slipping. Ryan tried to stop this from happening but we continued to slip until we were hanging off the road. One tire was completely off the road, and there was about a 3 or 4 foot drop off, if I remember right. So since the car was hanging off at that end (the right back), the opposite tire (left front) was lifted off the road and we couldn’t get the car to move forward at all, the tires just spun. It was really scary. These really nice French young men (in their late teens or early 20s I would guess) were headed down the volcano, but pulled over to help us out. One of them spoke a little English and tried to communicate with us. People continually came over and tried to help us. Even the guy who caused it to happen by making us back up (he wasn’t going for the parking space, he just wanted more space to backup, though he had plenty of room) stopped to help for about 15 minutes, then left. (He was the only one who stopped to help who didn’t stay until we were unstuck, interesting since I feel it was largely his fault.) At one point I’d say we had about 20 guys trying to help us. They were so nice. Eventually someone decided we wouldn’t be able to get it out with human strength, so he called this girl from down the volcano who had a 4-wheel drive, and these four coast-guard type guys to come help, and they were able to pull the car out. It took about 30-45 minutes, the whole thing, which was frustrating to loose all that time and I felt bad taking so much time from these kind people. But before we went on the trip we had read that the people were kind of rude and fairly anti-American. We hadn’t seen that attitude any way, but that experience of so much kindness showed us for sure that the people there were great and very friendly. Once our car was unstuck we parked and went on our way up the mountain.
We were very lucky, it was a perfect day for it. The weather was great. Apparently it is very rare that you can get close to the top of the volcano because the sulfur in the air is so strong that you can’t breath, but we didn’t have that problem. There is a great view of the island from up there, it was really beautiful. And the hike is interesting because the life changes as you get closer to the top and the temperature and sulfur levels change. It was awesome. Shelly was in really good shaping for being in her forties, but she wasn’t in as good of shape as we were so she slowed us down significantly. We did eventually go on ahead of her a bit, but as a result for going slower with her for a while and having gotten our car stuck, we ran out of time and were not able to make it to the top of the volcano before we had to start heading back in order to make it in time for our night dive. But the hike was great none the less.
This is where we did all our dives, we would take boats out by those little islands. It was amazing. It was just us with our dive instructor on our first dive and our night dive, and then our other dive there was one other guy with us. We would just follow our instructor around and as soon as we were in the water we could see things all around us, it was like being in a gigantic aquarium. The instructor would point cool things out to us, and then when the dive was over we were suddenly out of the water and right at the boat again. It was incredible, we loved it.
The night dive did prove to be a little more problamatic then the day dives. While I was waiting for Ryan to jump in off the boat something touched my arm and all of a sudden there was an intense burning, stinging pain - it was awful. It went all the way down my forearm and rapped around my thumb. I wiped it off but the damage was done. the pain wouldn't stop. Because of that it through off my whole dive, I breathed way too much which made me go through air too fast and made me too light, so I had a hard time staying down and I ended up having to buddy breath with my instructor. Ryan also had a run in, unable to see he landed on a poisonous spiny sea urchin and had several spines stick in his thigh. He worked on pulling them out throughout the dive. But we despite our insidents, we did enjoy the night dive. We got to see this bright orange octopus, it was awesome. And we all turned off our flashlights and moved around our arms and the plankton in the water started glowing - bioflourescing - it was really cool. Anyway, you can see the mark on my arm left by what I think must have been a jelly fish - it looked even worse before the picture was taken.
This is La Cascade aux Ecrevisses (waterfall of the crayfish). It took just a short walk to get to it (about 2 minutes one way). It was pretty, but not spectacular. The waterfall is only about 20 feet I would guess, but it was nice and had a pretty little pool around it.
What the roads look like in Guadeloupe. We were on our way to Saut de la Lezarde, another waterfall. Finding it was not easy because it is not well marked and doesn’t have as big a parking lot as most of the places we had been. We passed by the turn off for it probably three or four times before finding it. But it was worth it.
It was our most adventurous hike. It wasn’t necessarily difficult, but most of the trails are super well maintained and generally paved in some way.
This must not be one of the more popular destinations because none of the trail was paved, and it was quite steep, down the side of the mountain, and it had been raining before we got there, so it was very muddy.
It was funny because you would think you were standing in a safe place, and then before you could even react you would be on your butt. I fell two or three times I think. It didn’t hurt, I just had a lot of red mud on me by the time we got to the waterfall.
Ryan fell once, but luckily for him he was next to some vines or trees and was able to catch himself inches before hitting the ground.
It was funny because you would think you were standing in a safe place, and then before you could even react you would be on your butt. I fell two or three times I think. It didn’t hurt, I just had a lot of red mud on me by the time we got to the waterfall.
Ryan fell once, but luckily for him he was next to some vines or trees and was able to catch himself inches before hitting the ground.
But the waterfall was gorgeous, about 50 feet, and emptied into a really pretty half-moon pool that we played in for a little while. Unlike the ocean, that water is quite cold, but it was a hot hike so in a way it was kind of refreshing. It was nice because we essentially had it all to our selves. When we got there another couple was just leaving, and then another couple got there as we were preparing to leave (we had them take some pictures for us before we headed back up). 
A bug sized frog we found on the way out.
A lizard on a banana tree.
The hike up was a lot easier because we didn’t have to stick to the trail, we just climbed up the mountain so it wasn’t as slippery. We enjoyed our little adventure though.
The inside of a banana tree.
I just liked these flowers, although you can't see all of them in this picture.
Our trip unfortunately had to end, so we took some pictures of our hotel. This was the beach at our hotel.
Our pool.
We liked the fan shaped palms.
Some more cool trees and a cool guy.
And we just liked all the color they used in their houses. These condos were right by our hotel.
And that was the end of our trip. It was very sad to leave, but we had a great time and would recommend it to anyone.
