Saturday, February 22, 2014

Soufriére (take 2)

This past weekend I hiked the Soufriére again. This time it was much nicer weather, a bit better for pictures.
The top
Along the trail
If you can't understand the French there, it says toxic gas 
My hiking pals

View of the sunset from my friends apartment

Roots

Coffee from the Musée de café

A few students from one of my classes

Also, because I have my new camera, I don't take as many pictures on my phone, so in case you want yet another link to check out another thing, you can find the best of the best photos I've taken since coming back from break:










Thursday, February 20, 2014

Moby Dick (mosquito version)

So my friend Jackson so graciously gave me one of the greatest birthday gifts I've ever recieved,
a bug zapper.  Maybe it's a bad gift though, because I now spend far too much time 'skeeter hunting. (By 'skeeter hunting I mean walking intently concentrated around my room searching for Mosquitos and flailing the racket around like a crazy person everytime I see movement out of the corner of my eye) One mosquito in particular, Moby Mosquito Dick. It's a big mosquito, that has not only been taking my blood to nourish and grow, but this morning, I caught the monster spitting out my blood. I'm not kidding, it was on the white "wall" shown in the picture above and when it flew away it left a spot of blood, my blood. Wasting my blood. It taunts me now and then but quickly disappears far too fast for me to get my weapon.

Carnival+

Caenival in Le Moule last Sunday
Whistles, monkeys and whips; apparently the history behind this is that they do all these things to mock their former slave owners
A nice looking group
Lots of feathers and bright colors
Backside of the blue feathers
The drummers of a group

My morning commute behind a bull in a truck
Plage de Bois Jolan
Palm trees at Bois Jolan.

So this weekend was full of Basse-Terre activities, including hiking the Soufriére again, and snorkeling with a sea turtle at a beautiful black sand beach in Bouillante.  I will upload more pictures after classes today.







Sunday, February 9, 2014

Scolopendre

So, if you refer back to the "uninvited guests" post, you remember I talked about that nasty monster I thought was a centipede, well actually it's the infamous scolopendre of Guadeloupe. I've heard about these beasts since the first day I got here but assumed it was something else. Come to find out last night, on the contrary, that is what was in my room. Apparently, the only way to kill them is chop there head off with a machete (it has to be the head. If you chop it in half, it rejuvinates. I'm not kidding you, it rejuvinates). So, you can remember I said it crawled under my fridge and died, well, that was before I knew all the intricacies of the beast, and upon inspection under my fridge this morning, it's gone. Gone. Gone. I have no idea where to, most likely lurking in the shadows, plotting against me. Needless to say, I'm scared.

On a lighter note, I went to Dominica. It's the "nature" island. Formerly a British colony, but now independent. It was a two hour ferry ride from here, and apart from being refused back to guadeloupe on our original departure time, it was quite nice. We went on the Boiling Lake hike. By far, the most intense, craziest hikes I've ever been (and probably ever will go) on. It took us about 6 or 7 hours, 14 miles.
Our tour guide, Michael, leading us out of the Valley of Desolation
The Valley of Desolation, a huge area full of boiling sulphur and baren land.
The boiling lake
The sulphur baths we swam in and climbed to the top of.
One of the delicious meals we had at "Le petite paradis", the little place we stayed at, run by momma Joan and her husband. So sweet.
Remnants of a bus crushed by a tree in 1979 when hurricane David hit, and destroyed most of Dominica.
Champagne beach, had some really nice snorkeling. They call it champagne beach because when your under the water you can see the bubbles coming up from under the sand and coral, really cool.
Beautiful view of Les Saintes on our way home.

Goats in the yard

Little froggie hanging out in my bathroom