This turns out to be a pretty amazing day.

We’re headed to a very popular waterfall in the Guadeloupe National Park and so are up at 5 am to get a head start on the crowds. Couple coffees for the road and we are driving away at 6:05 am. Pretty good. Roads are starting to get a bit busy with morning traffic but very soon we are out of the town and headed for the south-east coast of Basse Terre towards the Chutes des Cabret.

Doesn’t take long, maybe 40 minutes to get to the turnoff and take the secondary road into the mountains. At the top there is a huge parking area and we are perhaps the 3rd car but you can see it’s going to get busy. There is one woman in front of us and that’s about it. We pay our EUR$6 each entry fee and start the hike after a bit of an intro by the greeter that we almost understand.

It’s about 20 minutes over a very civilized trail – pretty much stone pathway the whole way, though quite a drop down to what they call the 2nd waterfall. The 3rd waterfall which is further down is closed apparently, as is a swimming area just off the trail near the 2nd waterfall. There is a fork in the trail that leads to a viewing area of the 2nd chute – the main attraction for the many tourists that come here. You can’t get too close to it – unless there are other trails we don’t know about but the viewing area is very good and the view is fantastic.

Although we started early, we don’t have too much time today to do a bunch of hikes so we’ve decided to make the 3 hour round trip hike to chute #1 our hike of the day. It starts out pretty steep and there are some difficult sections but in general it is a very good trail, highly maintained with many wooden stairs, ropes and railings in difficult sections.

We pass a young family of four, two boys, one of whom can’t be more than six or seven. We’re impressed they’re coming up here. We get passed by a young couple and pass the girl that was in front of us at the same river crossing, about 15 minutes from the end. It is basically the 5 of us on the trail this early. The family will take about 40 minutes longer to get here.

There is a viewing platform just before the last steep and challenging descent to the waterfall but the area is completely shrouded in clouds so nothing to see. On the way back we’re stunned by the view as the sun came out a bit.

We hear the waterfall before we see it and then all of a sudden there it is. It’s absolutely spectacular – I don’t remember ever seeing anything like it though it turns out it’s only 5m higher than chute #2. The pictures and videos below don’t do it justice. Right out of Jurassic Park. Turns out you can see these falls from the ocean and they inspired Christopher Columbus to stop here for fresh water.

There is a place to swim and we’re hot and sweaty a bit but it’s overcast and rainy and cool so none of the 5 of us venture in the pool. The water is, um, fresh. Now if it was hot … there are hot springs around but not here.

We take many pictures and eventually head back. Here comes the family of four, pretty impressive they got here and we cheer them on. Those boys are gonna be fast asleep in the car, but that’s at least another 2 hours away for them.

On the way back we pass MANY people going in, the closer we get to the beginning of the trail, the more people there are. Some we’re pretty sure aren’t going to make it all the way.

Soon enough we’re back at the bottom of chute #2, we make the significant climb back up to the parking lot. Holy Mackinaw Joe, can’t believe how many cars are here. We’ve got the first available parking spot in the whole place and as we descend, we pass 100s of cars and people parked at least 1 km away who have to hike up. That’s before they even hike in! We’re sure glad we came early.

Back at the highway, we’ve decided to drive around the bottom end of the island, up the west coast to Pigeon Island, have lunch and then take the cross-island road back to Pointe-a-Pitre, should be no problem to get back there for 4:30 pm but we won’t be able to do any more stops/hikes/etc. That’s OK, we’re scoping the place out for next time.

It’s a nice drive. Basse-Terre looks like a nice town and there is even a coffee museum! We stop but don’t go in, not enough time for that.

We’re up around Pigeon Island for 1 pm and man, is it busy. We were hoping to just stop and have a leisurely lunch at one of the recommended restaurants but no way to get near it. We figure the schools are all closed this week for carnival as at the chutes and here, there are millions of families. We drive all the way through the area once without finding a single parking spot, turn around, retrace our route and just happen to get lucky as one guy is leaving and we take his spot, right off the beach.

It’s a beautiful beach and we’ll enjoy anchoring off here in a week or so where we can visit the area casually. Today it’s so busy we can hardly find a place to eat. We sit down at one spot and they tell us the table is reserved for a tour. I order a street meat pizza pocket and Christy goes for a swim. The pizza pocket takes about 15 minutes but is home made and quite good. Christy tried to get an ice cream but it is too busy. Time to go, it’s very hot and very crowded.

As we’re getting in the car to leave, 2 different guys come up and ask how we paid for parking. “I don’t know” I said, “I didn’t pay” in my best French. They smile and laugh and move on.

Back on the road, it’s a lovely drive and it takes you back through the national park. There are tons of hikes and sites here in the park and we look forward to coming back to Guadeloupe to see more of the area. We haven’t even touched the other side of the island!

We head back to Pointe-a-Pitre and go to the Leclerc super store near the marina that I found a week ago on my walk to find Digicel. Christy is still shopping for an air fryer but all the ones we have found in the past few days have teflon coatings and we don’t want that. She wants to continue shopping so I go to the Digicel there as I was told they have very good plans – it might be worthwhile to get a plan instead of top ups. I get the brochures and go to find Christy. She’s still shopping and wants to continue to shop until 4:29 pm as we have to have the car back at 4:30 pm. Well that doesn’t give us enough time to get gas and de-car so I convince her to leave before 4 pm.

We get gas and by the time we’ve dropped off the car and checked out it is after 4:30 pm. We’re both gassed and getting a little testy with each other but managing OK. Christy tries one more time to find eggs – NONE of these superstores have any, the shelves are completely bare of eggs – and finds 6 at the Carre Four Express for EU$1 each.

We were going to have dinner at a restaurant here but it’s 5 pm and they don’t open until 7 pm! We’re both too tired to wait so head back to Milu.