Guadeloupe-Hidden Gem 2
- Tara Larkai
- Jan 31, 2016
- 4 min read
Sundays in Guadeloupe--Hmm...if you can help it, plan to fly out on a Sunday because this place is like Ghosttown on Sundays. Yes, I know Sunday is a rest day for many but people still have to eat, right? Well apparrently they don't care because everything completely shutS down on Sundays. Finding breakfast that morning was a hustle. Luckily, a local caterer was set up right in front of the grocery store in the marina selling homemade rice, lamb, sausage etc. Had it not been for her, we would have been starved because none of the restaurants were opened in the entire Marina. The food was pretty good. She told us she is only there on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
If you decide to visit Guadeloupe a month leading to Ash Wednesday, you are in for a treat because this is their carnival season. Of course it would not be a Caribbean country without having their own carnival. Carnival is a hugely important part of Caribbean culture. We attended one of their parades on this fine Sunday but it wasn’t until after a little beach session at Hotel Fleur’s public beach.
Getting to the carnival from the hotel was the true test of us not renting a car. One of the hotel attendants who spoke a few words of English basically told us that there was a free shuttle taking people to carnival but we had to walk all the way down to the main street which was a 30 minute walk but with our pace it probably took longer. We got there only to find out that there was no bus after waiting damn near 30 minutes. We even snobbed some local boys who wanted to give us a ride all in the name of this invisible bus. We looked like peasants standing by the roadside begging for anyone to stop and give us a ride or at least show us the direction of the carnival so we could start walking.
After an hour of hopelessness, a good Samaritan in what looked like a tour van stopped and drove us a little closer to the carnival for FREE. Because of traffic he didn't want to take us all the way. We were so thankful! God is soo good! We walked the rest of the way to Le Gosier for the parade. The parade was fun not as wild as we imagined it but either way it was enjoyable. Of course we went through the same hardship trying to find a taxi back to the house.
Dinner was at pirates' restaurant in the marina. The food was delicious and the serving sizes were huge. In comparison to Zen, Zen wins on taste although the food at Pirates was also good. Pirates delivers on taste, serving size and customer service because not only was their menu in English but our waiter spoke English which made our experience even better. Since everything shuts down in Gwada on Sundays there was no La Boca or any clubs that night.
Mondays in Gwada aren't any better either. Most museums and attractions are closed on Mondays too. We wanted to visit their slavery museum but it was closed. Just our luck! So we spent our last day in Le Gosier. Lunch was at a nice creole restaurant that our taxi driver recommended as the best Creole spot. We were actually looking for breakfast but apparently the restaurants in Gwada close between meal times so although we got there at 11am, we had to wait until noon to order because they were closed. The food was nothing but delicious. As a matter of fact, every food we had there was good.
The food coma so very real after this meal. We parked ourselves on the beach right next to Casa Datcha juice bar. There were a lot of people on the beach laying down and another common thing here is topless women. They let it all hang out. We even saw some topless women at the public beach that we went to the day before. We made some friends at the beach too... One French man and a Martiniquan man. They were so fun and bought us drinks at Casa Datcha.
We had plans to meet our new friends for dinner at the restaurant they work at but with the struggle of finding a taxi, we decided it would be a good idea to just get food from a creole restaurant in Le Gosier to take back to the apartment. Oh and the restaurant was able to call us a taxi to go back home which we were super thankful for although we waited quite a while for it to arrive. Our friends offered to take us to a bar in the marina that night but we didn't make it. We were knocked out by 10pm.
Overall, Guade was fun. It is a hidden gem because it has not been discovered by a lot of tourists yet. What you see is exactly how the locals live. There aren't many resorts that cater to tourists and tourism is not that big there. Oh money exchange places are very hard to find...actually the only place you can exchange money is at the airport. They do however take credit and debit cards at most places though. I do predict that this place will be completely different in 5 years since more airlines are starting to go there. I would recommend that you rent a car if you can drive a manual car. Their driving is not too crazy but they don't have any traffic lights. The closest thing we saw to a traffic light was a flashing yellow light at one of their roundabouts. It seems the way they regulate traffic is by using roundabouts because they have quite a few. If you ever end up here, be adventurous with the food. I promise you can't go wrong with any choice. These Creoles can throw down in the kitchen. lol You must also try their signature drinks Ti-punch and Planteur. They are both very good but my favorite is Planteur. The ti-punch is too strong for my liking. I'm sure you will appreciate this beautiful island as much as we did so HURRY! This is the time to go explore Guade before many people discover it. Afterall, you can say you went to Guadeloupe before it became "popular". Stay tuned for my next adventure!
Happy travels!
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