Guadeloupe

Pointe a Pitre is the capital of Guadeloupe. The airport is large and modern, however, there is nowhere to drink a cup of cafe. The weather is beautiful, with the first breath of air incredible humidity is felt, cigarettes bought in Moscow are not pleasant to smoke, they do not stretch. And by the way, they don’t smoke at the airport, they don’t smoke in taxis, and they don’t smoke in restaurants, but we smoke and we have to remember how the English or French will be the ashtray and if you ask, they will bring it. The roads on the whole island are beautiful, not a single hole, clear markings, it is a pleasure to ride. All drivers are very polite, but accustomed to the Moscow movement, it is difficult to restrain emotions when one crawls at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour, his tail is three kilometers behind him and no one is ahead of anyone. There are practically no police officers, but they were seen a couple of times when they helped schoolchildren cross the road. You can safely ride while drinking beer, and no one will stop if you don’t break the rules. I highly recommend renting a car. We took the brand new Ford Fiesta for 32 euros. We stayed at the La Toubana hotels. The hotel is not bad, has 32 bungalows, not a large pool, a good restaurant, which is famous for lobsters. The bungalows are spacious, clean, with large outdoor terraces on which to sit peacefully in the evening. We had a gorgeous view of the ocean, in a circle a lot of greenery, palm trees and hummingbirds fluttered. The furniture is all wicker, but due to humidity it smells of damp, although after a couple of days you no longer notice. Prices at the hotel are European, for example, lobster, bought in a restaurant, weighing under 2 kg., Cost 150 euros. Breakfasts are boring, every day the same thing, fruits practically do not offer. The situation with fruits on the island was very surprising. In contrast to Vietnam, where this exotic was piled up, in Guadeloupe there are only mashed bananas, not ripe mangoes and not tasty oranges. All fruits have the appearance that they were not removed from the branch, but collected from the ground. There are no restaurants on the island! More precisely, they are, there are few of them, and the language does not turn to call them restaurants. Rather, these are beach cafes where you can eat a couple of salads, a couple of pieces of meat, drink a couple of glasses of beer and pay 100 euros for it. Moreover, salads can be expected within 30 minutes, in short, service and variety are missing. It’s cheaper and tastier to buy food in supermarkets or in the local counterpart of “culinary”, which offers delicious and varied food. But we found a place where there are a couple of restaurants of European level – Italian and Japanese in the city of Gossier. I am a big fan of sushi, and I assure you that I have never eaten such goodies! The fish is all freshest, melts in your mouth, rice is cooked perfectly, Chinese dishes in this restaurant are also not bad. The beaches on the island are beyond words! If you are sunbathing on the beaches in Turkey or Egypt, where crowds of people, children scream, annoy the conversations of tipsy compatriots, then you are here! A lot of wild beaches. You go out, look around to the right, to the left, and wonder – no one is people! The beaches stretch for kilometers, white sand, mirror water. There are also regular beaches at hotels where people hang out. But which one? Here, gentlemen, an ambush! Do not believe the movie, where it shows beautiful slender beauties who idly roam the beach, they are specially brought there to shoot. I also expected to see slender creoles, and here! 80% are pensioners, mostly French, their weight starts at 80 kilograms, topless sunbathe, and run down the beach to dressing from 3 breast sizes, dive, frolic, in short, like children! What can I say, their pensioners can afford such a vacation! I think you will not like it. It is better to go to wild beaches, local people sunbathe there, there are very few people and a decent audience. The nature is magnificent. There are two parks that are located directly on the mountain. It is curious that they were not built, but paved paths there, the feeling that you were walking through the jungle. There we met our compatriots for the first time! In general, Russian in Guadeloupe did not see! As we were told in our travel agency, five pairs a year go to Guadeloupe. So you won’t find Russian friends there. Surprisingly, on the island there are absolutely no midges, mosquitoes and other insects. You can see the active volcano, but we did not reach it. There you have to go uphill and go down 40 minutes, to be honest, to go there was absolutely lazy. You can go to Bas-Ter, a neighboring island. There nature is even richer, stunning views open up, very similar to Miami. Entertainment is only water. Since there are not many young people here, as a rule, young people are people aged 30-35, it’s hard to entertain yourself. It gets dark at 6 pm, then there is absolutely nothing to do. The only way to buy wine in a store, a network on the veranda, turn on a laptop with Russian films and watch. Shops and cafes close quite early. But have time to buy wine at the supermarket, they work on a free schedule. To our question, the only cashier in the Spar supermarket, until which your establishment works for an hour, received a wonderful answer: “I don’t know, I think it’s not late.” Somehow we stocked up with wine and with full bags began to catch a taxi.