Martinique the beautiful

Yesterday I got back from my "vacation", techinically it was a vacation from my vacation; but wow oh wow, it was so amazing.  

I went to Martinique, another French department about a 45 minute plane ride from here.  When I told my landlord I was going there, he said "c'est parielle" meaning, it's the same [as Guadeloupe], which I had also heard from a few others, nonetheless, I went, with two other assistants.  

Flying over Dominica on the way there

One of the assistants, Alex, babysits for a family in Guadeloupe and the mom's parents live in Martinique, so we stayed with them in one of the most amazing houses I've ever been to.  They lived right on the ocean.  

Martinique was not at all like Guadeloupe, in my opinion. It was absolutely beautiful, not that gwada isn't by any means, but this place was something else.  We hiked Mt. Pellé, the volcano there, that in 1902 destroyed the entire town of St. Pierre, with only one survivor.  

We visited the Presqu'ile (which literally means, almost island) which had the old plantation of Chateau Dubuc, after we got a nice/strange/weird/interesting inpromptu tour by a worker that sang to us as we drove up to the lighthouse, then to a crazy path along the cliffs.  

Chateau Dubuc

Slave dungeon

View from the lighthouse

One night we went to Habitation Clément, which was so beautiful.  We got there right as it was closing, just in time for one gouter (taste) of rhum, then we walked around a really nice sculpture garden, so beautiful. (I'm really running out of adjectives, everything in Martinique was just so magnificent).  Saturday we went out on the boat witht the family we stayed with.  It was so cool, first we stopped at a deserted island, literally just deserted out in the middle of the Carribean sea.  

Then we went to a little island, docked, and ate a delicious picinic on the boat.  The mom was such an amazing cook, we ate dinner with them everynight, one night she made fried plantain gratin, wowzuhs.  Then Sunday, our last day, we went down to the beaches and natural reserve in the south of the island, again, so so beautiful, so so majestic.

Tuna Colombo

Blan à manger

Anse d'Arlet