Observations on a hike

Hit the ground running, right? Or, in our case, hiking. There are so many great trails leaving from or around Trois Rivières, we can't not go hiking on this first morning we've arrived in town. This trail leaves from one of the lower neighborhoods of town, closer to the coast, and runs right along the coastline. Littoral hikes are usually pretty flat, so it's a good one to start with this week. Of course, finding the start is always hard - this time, we had to walk along what looked like someone's driveway, and past a pile of discarded furniture to find the trail panel, on the ground, leaning against a tree, and generally hidden from view unless you were almost standing right on top of it. Typical Guadeloupe. 

Now on Basse-Terre, the vegetation is much more jungle and rain forest. Super-tall trees line the trail, covered in vines, giant "elephant ear" plants and oversized air plants, each one their own ecosystem for us to stare at and analyse. The shade is very welcome - this trail is not overly hot, but it is ridiculously humid. My body is covered in a sheen of sweat. I feel like I am swimming through the air. Everything feels heavy. The moments we break free of the jungle to find the sun and coastline are a welcome moment to dry off, but just as hot. 
 

Hiking is a wonderful opportunity not only to exercise, but also observe the environment you are traversing. I find I sometimes spend more time looking at everything around me than I do moving forward. This spider's web caught the sun in such a way, it looked like it was glowing. Compared to the trees that surround it, it was only about the size of my hand, and the spider absolutely miniscule, but look at the amount of circles in that web! So impressive.

This trail also had the most trails of manioc ants crossing our path that I've seen all vacation. Manioc ants are horrible if you are even remotely interested in gardening - they can decimate an entire plant in the space of an evening. They are big and easy to spot, walking along with their collected leaf bits, flower buds, insect parts, hoisted high in the air like little sails, walking in distinct lines to and from their chosen "prey". This particular line was scaling up and down a vine into a rather tall tree, chomping away at the leaves high overhead.

The more you look, the more you start to remark all the different qualities of the vegetation surrounding the trail. Through many visits to botanical gardens and zoos in Guadeloupe, I can identify a fair number of plants and trees, mostly edible, but there are still some that surprise me. This one is not the first I have seen covered in spikes, but it's always a surprise. It certainly makes you look twice before grabbing onto a tree as support when hiking!

Then come the amazing finds that transport you into another world. This is an Acomat Boucan, a large tree with great buttress root structures that spread across half the forest, branches reaching far and wide overhead. It evokes a certain mystique, like the tree is a great forest spirit, leading us in the right direction.

Add in some extra air roots, a whole bunch of vines and you get something straight out of a video game. I was full expecting this tree to grow a face and start telling me about a quest to go kill some golden spiders, or adventure through the forest temple, located just out of view. 

If you are a fan of archaeology, Trois Rivières is known for its ties to some of the earliest Amerindian peoples on Guadeloupe, the Arawak people, present in this area between 300 and 600 AD. There is a big park dedicated to the Roches Gravées, stone carvings that are found in large numbers here(the park has been closed since an earthquake in 2004, and though it is considered "under renovation", we've not seen much work done since we visited on a private tour in 2017). Along this trail, you can see some of the rock carvings in the wild, around a small pool. And not behind a protective fence, 20 feet away - this is right along the trail, with a boardwalk leading to the stones to offer a better look at the carvings! This portion, cartoonish in nature, is believed to portray a women giving birth in the the water, as below the surface, you can see evidence of another face between her legs. Across the pool, on another rock, is a carving of a male figure, among others.  

Our stopping point for this hike, as the heat and humidity is weighting down on us, is the only standing windmill left on all of Basse-Terre. There is a certain amount of restoration being dont to preserve it now, but the only way to access it is by this trail, so it makes the time spent here, eating our baguette sandwiches, that much more special. We run into another couple of Quebecers, on their first trip to Guadeloupe, and trade stories of travel and what to visit next on the island. They only have a week here, and I hope we convey to them how much they need to some back and stay longer next time. 

The route back along the same trail offers us some chances to get out of the jungle and enjoy the views of the coastline. Mario climbs up some cool volcanic formations, this time not as sharp and spiky, but more like popped bubbles. 

The views out to Les Saintes are spectacular, as usual. I don't think we'll be getting out there to visit this time around. 

The best way to finish any hike is to head to the nearest beach and soak the aching muscles in the salt water. Especially this hike, since for the first time we drank ALL of our water that we carried with us, only to immediately sweat it back out again. I think I soaked in the ocean just to regain all that sweat by osmosis! We were treated to a spectacular show : a heavy downpour in the distance, which seemed to cling to the cliff just below Trois Rivières, and the accompanying rainbow created by the slowly set sun behind the beach. The rain never reached us.

Better still, the rain never moved, hanging on to that same spot well past sunset - I spotted it just offshore as we were walking through town to pick up our poulet boucané for dinner.