Deshaies Botanic Garden and Grande Anse

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Tuesday July 31 - I slept very well. Such a nice change. My bedroom borders the busy road, but it is not busy at night and did not wake me up in the morning, either. There seem to be far fewer frogs in the area where I'm staying now than anywhere else I've stayed in the Caribbean. I can hear them, but only individuals rather than as a loud chorus. Perhaps it's because I am near the sea?

I had a quick skype with Jeroen and then ate breakfast around 8:45am. Murielle served me yogurt, fruits, baguette, croissant, butter, jams, tea, and cake. Quite the feast. The leftovers came out with me later in the day. She also washed and dried my dirty clothes. Such a treat.

I finally got around to leaving around 11:15am and decided to go to the botanic garden, which is only a 10-minute uphill walk from here. I could have driven, but it seemed unnecessary, and getting the car down the steep driveway onto the main road was intimidating. I spent two hours there and took about 400 photos. They had beautiful plants and flowers as well as parrots. It was cloudy most of the time, which meant it felt cooler. I welcome that here.

After the gardens I came back, ate leftover bread and cheese from last night and headed out to the beach after a quick stop at an ATM so I could pay Murielle. Jem at 3 Rivers is the only hotel I've seen that takes credit cards in the Caribbean. I drove to Grande Anse, a beach just a few minutes north of Deshaies. I drove down the road to the parking and was worried it was full, but I found a place to put my car in amongst all of the random places people were parking. It was busy when you first stepped onto the beach, but I walked to the end and then back just a bit before finding a place to sit. I got in the water and enjoyed floating around for a while, and then sat and read my book. Despite it being late afternoon, when the clouds were gone and the sun would peek out I was quite worried about getting burned. I've avoided it all summer, but that was not so hard at 3 Rivers, since it is so cloudy and/or raining much of the time. At 5pm I decided to head back to the car. When I got to the main stretch, I looked over some food options on the beach, food carts and such, and found a guy making coconut sorbet by hand. Well, he had a simple machine doing it. I got the small but it was perfect, and only $2. It started to rain a little while I was eating it, so I hid under an umbrella and then went to the car, but it had just about stopped by then.

I drove through the village and stopped at both of the small supermarkets looking for the ravioli I had seen yesterday at the big supermarket. I was going to buy them for dinner, but I wasn't sure I could cook them. But Murielle said she would cook any pasta for me. I didn't have any luck and didn't want regular pasta, so tonight I just had the rest of the leftover bread and cheese and some chips and yogurt. Murielle's husband also told me that she booked me for a half day tour tomorrow afternoon, since the morning was full. I'll be driving to Saint Rose, to go on a boat to see mangroves and go snorkeling, if I understood her correctly. Her English is ok, but we use google translate as well. Saint Rose is also where the supermarket is, so I'll be getting some raviolis for dinner tomorrow night.

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