Our first day of the cruise was spent at sea and it wasn't like a mill pond. It was actually quite choppy, thankfully I had packed some travel sickness pills, herbal ones which I took throughout the day. One of the tour reps had also told me that eating green apples was good to stem of sea sickness, so throughout the day I was surreptitiously taken them from the buffet restaurant, stashing them like a secret squirrel in my bag and pockets. I can tell you I had more than my five a day, that day.
We did explore the ship a bit but as it turned out I found the best place to be was our cabin so we spent most of the first day in there. No sunning ourselves on the deck.
The first night is also the night for the Captains dinner, so a lot of people were dressed in their finery. People who know me, will know I don't really do, or suit finery and anyway you can't stash apples in a ball gown but it was nice to see others all dolled up to the nines. Although, we didn't really see much as we were mainly hidden away in the cabin. While there watching a film on the telly a message suddenly came over the intercom, unfortunately one of the passengers had become ill and needed to be airlifted by helicopter. This caused a hiccup naturally to the Captain's dinner as he was now needed on the deck to manage the situation and also caused a short diversion to our journey. We found out the day after that the passenger was in hospital, awaiting an operation but should be alright.
On the second day we did one of the organised tours which saw us do a tour around Guadaloupe. Guadaloupe is the island on which Death in Paradise is filmed and there was an option to do a tour of some of the settings of the show but we didn't do that one.
Our trip first of all took us to Crayfish Waterfall, where we were supposed to walk through the
rainforest to get to it and I suppose in theory we did, but it was basically a very short walk along a
Tarmac path, so you didn't really get the feel that you were walking through a forest. It was a nice enough waterfall, as waterfalls go, but there were bus loads of tourists all confined in a very small space which spoilt it a bit.
Once we were back on the bus we headed to a very interesting cemetery. This may seem a strange place to take a bus load of tourists, but it was worth seeing and helped us to get a better understanding of the locals. The tour guide we had was actually very good and gave us a lot of information on the island. This included telling us different uses for the fruit that grows locally, not only as food, but how it can be used for health and beauty.
The locals believe that where you are buried is the final house that you live in, so many of the graves looked like houses with stairways and balconies.
In days gone by locals were given land free to bury family members but now they are charged rent every year for the space. Sadly, if they can no longer afford the rent they have to give back the land .
As you can see a lot of the tombs are tiled in black and
white like a chess board.
We then took a drive through Saint-Francois which took us along white sand beaches which were very picturesque, we kept going to the most easterly part of the island to Castle Point. On the hillside was a big cross which was erected to bless the ships that went past.
It was very windy but we braved it and took a wander around, it was actually warm enough for me to take off my cardi!
On the way back to the ship we stopped off at Sainte-Anne craft village which had lots of interesting little bits for sale. There was also a lovely walk along the seafront which we did.
It was a very interesting tour. On the way back to the ship the tour guide told us a bit about their Christmas celebrations. Apparently in December friends will organise regular visits to each other's houses. At these get togethers the women take food while the men take drink. Everybody meets in the house and sing Christmas songs for two to three bourse and then they eat food and have a drink. Sounds good to me!
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