Magical Martinique...

Our next Caribbean island was Martinique, only a short hop from Castries in St. Lucia on a LIAT Airways Dash-8. It's a short hop to a different world!

Martinique is sooo French! It is legally a department of France (since 1946). Every day we see big jets bringing French people in from Paris - the flight time is about 10hr - and they obviously feel very at home here. The currency is the Euro. The main difference is the weather - Martinique is a Caribbean island, and so far we have found them to be hot, humid and prone to brief tropical showers. We're not sure if that is typical for February, but that's what we are getting every day! Whereas St. Lucia's tourists were predominantly Americans, we haven't seen a single American here. The tourists are 95% French with a smattering of Brits, Germans and Spanish. We did bump into an English sailor, cruising the Caribbean on his 30ft cat, in a bar while his wife had her hair done.

Arrival here could not have been more different either. Immigration, baggage collection and customs were slow and bureaucratic at St. Lucia, but from landing at La Lementin airport to getting into the taxi our hotel had organised for us took less than 10 minutes, no kidding! One quick look at our passports, and the customs guy asked us where we were coming from and waved us through.

We are staying at Hotel de la Pagerie in Pointe du Bout which is in les Trois Ilets part of the island. This was a great choice, including the location, by our Caribbean advisor, Laura. It's well out of Fort-De-France, the capital, but is at the centre of an area very popular with tourists, so we have lots of shops to look at and dining choices to make. The hotel is pretty large and is ultra-modern. Like many, it is built around a central swimming pool, and has its own restaurant, bar and poolside cafe.

The entrance to the little harbour at Pointe du Bout.

One of the most pleasant surprises about La Pagerie is the live music we have been able to enjoy in the lobby area on Friday & Saturday evenings. This is very popular amongst the guests and certainly adds to their bar takings! The lobby is quite open to the street, and many people also watched and listened to the acts from outside. Clearly popular across town! One of the acts was a fascinating and very enjoyable cultural Creole dance and music performance by a large company of about a dozen or more.

Accordian player and MC of the great Creole performance at the Hotel de la Pagerie.

In the lobby of the Hotel de la Pagerie, this Creole performer participated in a stunning cultural exhbition. The entire population of the hotel, and more, enjoyed a wonderful performance.

Pointe du Bout has a spectacular view of the nation's capital Fort-De-France across the Baie, and you can make the journey by ferry in only about 10 minutes. We knew from our taxi ride in from the airport that this would be a lot faster and more convenient than driving. The ferry ride should not make you think of Sydney Harbour. We went over on the "Mona" and it was rough and wet! Our ride back was on a larger ferry and was much more comfortable and dry, although we were worried - we realised that we didn't know where we had come from, and there were three destinations to choose from. Hurried, fractured language conversations with people on the wharf made us feel a bit better, and in the end, we did arrive at the right place. We also noted that the ferries did not run to their signposted timetables, and for some reason they run a reduced schedule on Saturday and not at all on Sunday!

The ferry between Pointe du Bout and Fort-De-France lets a lot of water in on the paying customers.

In the capital, we tried to visit Fort St.Louis, easily the most dominant feature on the harbour skyline. It turned out to be a working naval base, and doesn't open for tours. This fort dates back to 1640, when the French were using the local Carib population as slave labour in sugar plantations. The British occupied Martinique for 20 years around 1800, conveniently saving the island from the horrors of the French Revolution. The French took power again, and there is no sign of any Britishness here. The capital used to be St. Pierre on the north-west coast but it was entirely destroyed and everyone killed by a volcanic eruption of Montagne Pelee in 1902.

A remnant of Fort St. Louis at Fort-De-France.

The colourful historical centre of Fort-De-Paris as seen from the harbour. The steeple of Cathedrale St-Louis is the tallest building.

We spent a couple of hours in the narrow CBD streets of Fort-De-France, found a nice deli for lunch, and looked at the shops, before we retreated to Pointe du Bout. The large Cathedrale St.Louis which dominates the CBD skyline seems surprisingly run down, and we wondered why.

Getting a rental car was a drama in itself. Our earely advice was that there were numerous agencies near our hotel, but a day or so before we arrived in Martinique our agent told us that they had no availability. Accordingly, she reserved one for us at the airport. We really didn't want to catch a taxi back to the airport, so from Pointe du Bout, we confirmed what the agent said - we tried Budget, Hertz, Europcar and Jumbo and got the same response, "nothing for a week or more". So, on the third day, we went back to the airport to pick up a Budget car - the agent there asked us didn't we know there was a Budget office opposite our hotel. Obviously, they don't communicate with each other, and they certainly don't deliver cars to each others' locations.

Our car was a tiny Opel Corsa. They don't waste cute little Renaults or Peugeots on tourists in Martinique! It was a two door manual, but it did the trick, and handled Martinique's roads with aplomb. Our first outing in it was to head north and follow the Route de la Trace desrcibed by Lonely Planet as the country's 'must-do' drive. The road was originally cut by the Jesuits in the 17thC and is a particularly scenic inland mountainous road, now the N3. The hardest part was finding it, even after taking the N3 exit of Martinique's only freeway in the middle of Fort-De-France. Massive roadworks destroyed all signage, but we eventually found the right way, in the midst of very heavy traffic.

Our bright white rental Opel Corsa.

The N3 climbs steeply out of the capital, and passes a wonderful small-sized replica of Paris' Sacre-Coeur. We parked here to take a photo, and were lucky enough to stumble across a wedding taking place. We watched it for a moment, but scarpered quickly to beat everyone's cars back onto the road.

Sacre-Coeur de Balata, where we discovered a wedding in progress.

Continuing north, from here on the city retreats and the road twists its way through mountains and lush countryside. We passed the cloud-shrouded twin peaks of the Pitons du Carbet and made it to Le Morne Rouge, apparently Martinique's highest town (450m). Also, apparently, this town was partly destroyed by a separated volcanic eruption to the one mentioned above. We negotiated a baguette sandwich in this town and enjoyed a pleasant lunch. There is a lookout in Le Morne Rouge with a fine view of the Caribbean Sea to the west, and only a few km further along the N3, there are spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

Clouds clinging to the tops of les Pitons du Carbet, as seen from the Botanic Garden near Balata.

At the Site de l'Alma, a river passes under a bridge on the N3.

Restaurant, sculpture and church at the high town of Le Morne-Rouge.

From up there, we finished the N3 and returned to sea level and headed back south down the N1 through a number of coastal towns, like Le Lorrain, Marigot, Sainte Marie and Le Robert. These all have black-sanded beaches, and being exposed to the Atlantic, have rough surfs making them unsuitable for the calm water loving French tourists and their resorts. These towns were pretty but seemed to be more associated with fishing than tourism. The traffic on the N1 was also much heavier than we found it on the mountainous N3.

Real surf pounds black beaches on the North Atlantic coast of Martinique, this scene near the town of Le Lorrain.

On this trip, we bypassed the town of La Trinite from which there is a narrow peninsula poking into the Atlantic. It looks interesting, but would have taken us hours to go into and retreat from. Returning to Pointe du Bout, we picked up another hitch-hiker, but this time we actually knew him! He was the barman from Le Bistro d'en Face on the way to work, and we recognised him from a night or two previously when we had a few rum cocktails there. This young fellow, about 20, surprisingly spoke no English, and what's worse, he missed calling us to take the hardest to find intersection on the way back. We cheerily told him that navigation was why we picked him up, but he didn't understand a word of either our English or our French.

Our local bar at Le Bistrot d'En Face as seen at sunset from our hotel room.

Speaking of rum, we went out of our way to sample the signature cocktails of Martinique, including at the d'en Face bar. A ti punch is pretty simple - it's straight rum with some palm sugar thrown in, but not dissolved, and a slice of lime. It comes with a spoon so you can squeeze the lime and stir the sugar. It is a revolting drink of fire-water! Clare only had one during the week here, Mike managed two, but has sworn off rum forever! A more pallatable cocktail is the Planteur which has fruit juice added to disguise the rum.

Two ti-punches, now consumed, are absolute fire-water, maybe lighter fluid?

The "best" beaches and hence the most tourist resorts are on the southern half of Martinique, which includes our part, les Trois Ilets. There we tried Anse Mitan as well as coming across private beach restrictions again. The best part of the beach at Point du Bout is owned by the plush Hotel Bakoua, and they charge E10 to use it. Next door though, is a highly developed couple of bays and groynes that look as though they were sculpted by a huge, now defunct, hotel (we called it the Club Med). Because it's defunct (and populated by squatters) the beach is now "public" and there's also some parking to be had. These beaches were quite pleasant and popular. If that site gets redeveloped, we image the beach there will be privatised.

This public beach at Pointe du Bout looks as though it was originally landscaped by a now defunct resort.

Relaxing on the beach at Anse Mitan.

Crowded beach near the end of the day and Anse Mitan at Pointe du Bout.

We did a day trip in our little Opel to see the rest of the south. We called in at l'Anse a l'Ane and Grand Anse. By then we surmised that Martinique beaches are mediocre at best - they are pretty clean (but the water tastes of things other than salt) but the water is not the colour we expect of the Caribbean. What's more, parking is nigh impossible - we spent way too much time looking for a spot at several Anses, only to find the beach fairly unappealing. There is no surf, we understand that the French seem to like standing around in calm waters, but the sand is grey and coarse (lots of broken coral), and the water is barely blue. There is also the attraction that at many beaches you can easily rent a bed and an umbrella, as well as a kayak and a jet ski. Most importantly, you can get a meal and a drink right on the beach. The French give up a lot to be amongst there own, and to be in a familiar environment.

Scene on many of the beaches at Les Anses-d'Arlet on Martinique's south western peninsula.

As we wound further round the coast, we passed Le Diamant but there were real waves here, and thus the beach was not so popular, and parking was easier. Then through Ste-Luce (but we had given up on the beaches by now), and through the big and crowded town of Marin with a huge marina, on the way to a very cute and touristy town of Ste-Anne. This is where we decided to call it quits and head for home after having a delicious fresh fruit cocktail from a roadside stand.

The town and marina at Le Marin, and unfortunately crowded town that you have to drive through to get to Ste-Anne.

Martinique does not seem to be a destination for the young and beautiful of France, or at least not the parts of it we saw. Most tourists are quite "senior" to say the least - the youngsters are locals. There's a lot of wrinkly flesh exposed on the beaches, and we're not talking about ours! While having a coffee one morning at a Baguette Shop, we met an old lady who told us her son was a teacher in Melbourne. She wanted to chat, although our combined language skills were poor, and she managed to hurry up croissant production inside for us, when we told her they had none!

Of course, this is the biggest advanatge to living in a part of France, the availability of good bread, baguettes and croissants! It seems to us that the French are very ritualised in many ways, so that different food and drinks are able to be bought and consumed at particular times of day, and then not at all available at others. When we felt like something, it was a disappointment to find that particular shop closed. But when you fall into sync with the French habits, the rewards are very nice!

Fresh-squeezed juice stall at Ste-Anne. A delicious and healthy reviver on a hot day.

We had to return our car to the airport to fly out to Antigua. We already knew that Martinique traffic was abominable near Fort-De-France and this early morning (weekday) trip proved it. It took us about 90 minutes to drive the last 10km into Le Lamentin on a four lane highway, so heavy was the traffic, aggravated by entering traffic at every roundabout. Luckily we had anticipated this schemozzle, and left in plenty of time.

Into the Caribbean - St Lucia

Our American Airlines flight to St. Lucia was crowded but uneventful. Rather luckily, we appear to have the status of "TSA Pre-chk" which gives us a smoother passage through security. We don't have to take our shoes off, or remove our computers from their bags, and you even get into a priority queue. On being asked, a friendly official told us that we must have had a background check done somewhere, which we obviously passed. If this is what the US ESTA process achieves, then we are all for it!

St. Lucia (we now know it is pronounced SayntLoosha, all pretty well one word) is a mountainous land of steep narrow roads, stunning views of towns from on high as you approach them, crowded towns populated by largely friendly people.

Spectacular view of Canaries township and the Caribbean Sea, as seen from the road into town from the south.

Our Caribbean travel specialist put us up in Stonefield Estate, a boutique collection of 11 villas clinging to the side of a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea just south of Soufriere. Almost everything on St. Lucia is clinging to the side of a cliff, especially in the southern half of the island. Our Stonefield villa was a delight, a studio with a private plunge-pool, outdoor shower and a hammock on the huge balcony. Our view was over Malgretoute Beach and of the Petit Piton, immediately next door. The pitons (Gros et Petit) are the defining features of the St. Lucia south coast and are the remnants of a volcanic cone, just like Balls Pyramid near Lord Howe Island, and just as spectacular.

Soufriere from north of the town overlooked by the Petit Piton and the Gros Piton (further).

The Petit Piton looks over our private plunge-pool at Stonefield Estate

For all but two days of our stay on St. Lucia, we had an Avis rental car. Avis delivered it to Stonefield, which was very convenient, and having it allowed us to explore the parts of the island we wanted to see without the inevitable crowds and bustle of a guided tour. Avis delivered the car to Stonefield, which was good service, but in all respects it was a totally unsuited vehicle to St. Lucian roads. It was a low slung, sporty, Mitsubishi Lancer complete with the most absurd accessories, spoilers, mudguards etc, which only lowered the car and made it more vulnerable to damage over the country's hidueous dips and bumps. Rental bureaucracy was also excessive and insisted on showing us how to drive the car! We were told we had to buy international driving permits, and were surprised when we actually had them! We were then told we had to get it "stamped" at the post office. The post office turned us away when we attempted this.

A tropical rainfall in a tropical rainforest in St Lucia.

Soufriere seems to exemplify the best and worst of all St. Lucian towns. Driving in on the main road from the south, the thoroughfare is a steep narrow street, only one and a half lanes wide, where cars travelling in opposite direction can only pass if one of them pulls into a side street or braves impossibly deep storm drains. The houses fronting the street at the drains with a footpath less than a metre wide. These footpaths are packed with people just hanging out. Midweek, the crowds dissipated somewhat as many people obviously went to work or school. The route through town requires several right angle turns, but these are totally unsignposted and unintuitive. (After a while, you get to know the way.)

The town centre abuts the waterfront and a busy spectacular harbour, crowded with small fishing boats and numerous pleasure vessels, often catamarans, which tout for tourists and take them to various swimming, snorkelling and diving destinations. The dichotomy between the crowded poverty of the town, and the tourist industry, which bustles along every day, is pretty stark.

A plaque explains that the cathedral in Soufriere was the site of multiple executions by guillotine around 1795. It was also where escaped slaves were punished.

Soufriere has a major parking problem. The town was never designed for vehicular traffic (well, neither was Sydney), and finding a safe spot to stop is pretty difficult. When you do find one, some youngster will immediately offer to watch over your car, show you around town, and show you the route out, all for modest compensation of course! Walking around town, brings all manner of touts to the fore, selling beads, offering guided tours. They are persistent, but if you keep saying "no" they don't seem to mind. You see the same guys day after day, and they wave in a friendly fashion at you, and you still give a small pile of $US1 notes away during the course of a day.

We pondered why there are so many cars in town. There are many rattletraps of course (lots of wrecks too) but most are in pretty good condition, sedans, small four wheel drives and pick-up trucks. They are mostly parked, not driving around much - 10 cars on the street simultneously in Soufriere constitutes a traffic jam. The people who own these vehicles must have good incomes - maybe they are the same people who own or crew the tourism boats.

Our Mitsubishi Lancer happy to have found a rare parking spot in Soufriere.

Traffic in Soufriere (an other towns) is orderly and cautious. You have to avoid the pedestrians wandering everywhere, but when attempting a right-angled corner, a driver in the adjacent street will pull backwards to give you room. One driver warned us of a huge pothole ahead - it was in the town of Canaries, and just as well, it was a world record pothole!

Ramshackle houses such as this crowd the streets of Soufriere and other towns on the west coast of St Lucia.

Informal recognition of the Queen's visit in 1966.

Castries is the capital of St. Lucia, and it's 37km north of Soufriere. Doesn't seem far, but it's an epic car drive, and we effectively did it 4 times during our week on the island. It is the steepest, twistiest, narrowest road imaginable, and our best time for this short distance was 75mins. There is little traffic. There are potholes, washouts, landslides, one lane bridges, hundreds of hairpin bends, pedestrians, and two small towns on the way. A local advised us that "Saint Lucians toot the horn at blind corners". We thought most corners were blind! Luckily, not much traffic. The towns are just like smaller scale versions of Soufrier - located on the coast in a tiny valley, approached and departed via a narrow, twisty road with occasional spectacular views. The towns (Canaries and Anse La Ray) both have temporary one-lane bridges which, apparently, replace previous bridges washed away during storms.

The capital of St. Lucia, Castries, with 3 cruise ships in port. Cruise ships are a daily arrival here. We only hope the business benefits both the community and the citizens.

When shopping, credit cards are only occasionally acceptable. US$ can always be used - tills automatically calculate the exchange rate - but we found that the US notes have to be in perfect condition before they will be acepted in stores. Of course, our US currency was "well used" and to avoid rejection, we learned to pay in Eastern Caribbean Dollars (XCD). With that decision, the challenge was to find an ATM which was not "temporarily out of service"!

Cruise ships passed by Soufriere on a daily basis, together with many private yachts, some very large.

Against all normal advice and better judgement, we actually gave rides to two hitch-hikers in St. Lucia, both locals. One was when we were coming into Castries, a fellow "assisted us" by telling us to ignore a police sign forbidding entry to a particular road. He said this was for buses only. He then asked for a ride the last few km into town. His advice was good, and his route gave us a fabulous view over Castries Harbour, complete with three cruise ships. This guy said he was coming to town on his bead-making and selling business. The other was a real shyster, and he stopped us on a one-lane bridge in Soufriere, but we took him almost to Castries. He said his name was Isaac and spun a line about being a night-shift security guard at Stonefield. On discovering we were Australian, he spouted much about cricket and said he was on his way to buy balls for children's teams. He actually had a cricket ball with him. Anyway, he scammed XCD20 out of us to "help the children" and a further $US2 which would get him to his intended destination. This fellow was also a good guide, and pointed out lots of things of interest on the way. He also told us about St. Lucia's two Nobel Prize laureates.

Sunset over the Caribbean Sea at Soufriere.

Our biggest trip was to Rodney Bay, north of Castries. We had heard there were lots of resorts and good places to have lunch there. It was a Sunday, and despite three cruise ships being in town, even the touristy places were mostly closed. Thanks to some good ad placements, we did find Jacques open. Jacques, who we met, runs a jazz brunch on Sundays, and at 3pm, we were still in time for that meal! The jazz was cool (a three piece brass band) but the buffet food was pretty ordinary. We think Jacques has lowered his standards since he left France. But the ambience was nice, as was the location, by the side of the bay itself. Whilst sitting there, we saw numerous tenders from the cruise ships going by, and lots of yachts and smaller craft, jetskis etc, going by.

We made a couple of visits to a resort near to Stonefield. The 3km between Stonefield and Sugar Beach is literally the steepest road we have ever been on, terrifying driving on a concrete surface which has been deliberately roughened to minimise skidding. Sugar Beach Resort is jammed tight between the two pitons. One of our visits was for a swim (the other for a meal) - here we encounter that nasty situation that Australians can never accept - the concept of a private beach. Non resident guests at Sugar Beach are confined to a stretch of the beach about 20m wide! Residents have about 100m of beach. Frankly, the whole 120m of beach is not worth the trouble of getting into the water. We suspect that the worst Australian sandy beach is better than any St. Lucian beach. We pretended that we didn't know of the rule (well, actually, we didn't) and made use of the whole beach, but we were soon scooted off. Despite all this, the beach is visited by wave after wave of small boats from Soufriere, each with up to a dozen tourists equipped with flippers and snorkels. The rules are clearly explained to these tourists before they arrive, because they don't stray. We discovered that it is possible to widen your horizons at Sugar Beach, by buying a meal or a drink. Anyway, the tourists provided us with entertainment, because most of them have obviously never snorkelled before, and watching them get ready was pretty hilarious. Clare stood at the edge and gave them instructions!

A boatload of tourists arrive for a swim and a snorkel at Sugar Beach.

Poor non-resident guests at Sugar Beach are confined to this tiny part of the beach, but they can use any hand-me-down furniture they can find! The steep wall of the Petit Piton plunges into the water immediately on the right of this beach.

Wanting a "good local" meal outside of any resort, we asked staff at Stonefield for their recommendation. Several told us about Martha's Tables, so we tried it. The restaurant was a lean-to attached to a house, and the creole food was delicious (in fact, better than anything we had anywhere), but the whole thing was run like a hobby, not a business. As we received the menus, we were told that about half the items were not available, and "no cocktails and no bread". The local beer, Piton, was luckily available. Knowing you can buy bread easily in town, we asked why no bread? The answer was "Mama didn't buy any today"!

This Pink Torch Ginger in the Botanic Garden near Soufriere reminded us of a NSW Waratah.

Maybe our saddest visit was to Marigot Bay. This tiny inlet was said by James Michener to be "the most beautiful bay in the Caribbean". It has a nice palm lined beach, but poor Marigot Bay has been devastated by overdevelopment without regard to aesthetics of the environment. It is surrounded by some beautiful houses but is serviced by hideous roads. It is crowded with luxury yachts but the mangroves around the bay stink of rot, grot and sewerage. Litter is everywhere, and the waterside infrastructure is rotting. Locals are trying to maintain businesses - we saw restaurants well set up and preparing for an evening rush, but we didn't hang around.

This pleasant beach is on a spit which protrudes into Marigot Bay. The best access to it is via ferry.

Our whole Caribbean itinerary was targeted at avoiding cruises ships, but one day they found us and provided great entertainment. We had walked about 100m from Stonefield to look over Soufriere Harbour at dusk from a lookout which, by day, is full of trinket-sellers (who we grew friendly with, without ever buying anything). Lo, there were two cruise ships anchored. A huge queue of passengers were lined up on the Soufriere pier waiting for tenders to ferry them "home". We were only at the lookout a minute, enjoying the solitude, when a succession of about 10 minibuses came by, offloaded their cargo to take photos of the ships. These harried passengers were given only 30 seconds to take their pic until they were bustled back on the bus, to be taken down to join the long queue. The passengers pushed us aside, and managed to leave litter behind! This little country is in enough trouble without rich cruise ship passengers adding to the mess here. We asked a guide, who told us that Holland America are the only company to run bus tours from Castries and finishing here in Soufriere. Once back on board, the ships are positioned so that the passengers can see the Pitons at sunset, a spectacular sight.

This unidentified 5 masted tall ship sailed right past our room at Stonefield with the sun directly behind it!

In summary, we fear for St. Lucia. It seems to be a country being devoured by the 21st Century. Its proud citizens are equipped with iPhones and internet connections, but they are suffering appalling roads and, apparently, nothing is being recycled. Tourism is obviously a major source of wealth, but we wonder how well the income is distributed. We hope those cruise ships are paying a lot for the privilege of pulling up here.