We were in the petite town of St Pierre, Martinique, the other day. That's the city which had a volcano eruption for a hundred years ago or so where all population of 30.000 except two people died from the dangerous ashes, within minutes of the eruption. This Mount Pelée volcano is still active, though it is not considered to be a big threat at the moment. Anyway, this town has a great anchorage for us sailors just next to the center of the village and we always make a stop here before heading North up towards Dominica, Les Saintes or Guadeloupe, it makes the passage shorter and it is always a nice place to stretch your sea legs for a day or two. Usually we hang around in town, checking out the offerings at the market, walking by the beach or visiting the artisans on the small streets of the village. This time we decided to get out hiking in one of the high volcanic mountains surrounding town. A trek that we knew would take around 3-4 hours.
Finally half way up.. luckily we brought enough of water. It is deadly hot to walk like this on steep hills in the middle of the day in 35°C/95°F.
Beautiful views over the town and the famous Mount Pelée in the background. Our boat is just under the leaves in the left of the picture.
We continued to walk our way up the hills. Pretty soon up at the top. Unfortunately we hadn't thought of how hungry one could get while walking like this. Hadn't brought any food. Maybe a bit of chili peppers straight from the bushes, anyone?
We thought it could be a good thing to walk through a grassy field. That's until we realized that the field belonged to someone... This guy didn't look too friendly and he studied us with this particular face all the way until we had left his ground.
Another one. Thought I'd shit my pants when I heard noises in the grass and saw this huge head popping up like one meter away from where we were walking.
We continued our walk and now I was dying for food. We found this dude laying on one road like a watchdog. "Why don't we have some goat for lunch?", I suggested. Alex didn't quite agree. "I didn't bring my rifle baby, besides he got a yellow necklace, it seems to me like he belongs to someone". Alright then, we continued our walk. God, was I hungry.. and so disgustingly sweaty..
We walked and we walked and finally we saw something, was that only an imagination or was that really a broken hose laying on the ground, spraying out fresh cold water? Yes it was. We refreshed ourselves for a while. So incredibly good and energizing in the oppressive heat. All refreshed and happy we continued our hike up the hill. When we finally found .....
A banana tree!!! Oh my god. The joy! Finally food! We jumped up and down like children (ok, I did) and life couldn't felt better in this particular moment.
Alex got up quickly and pull down a good cluster of fruit.... only to find out they were rock hard and completely non-edible at this time. I cried for a while and then we decided to call it a day and walk back home to eat. The camera battery died in the minute of picking down the bananas so I can't show my tears, sorry. Luckily we got a hitch back home and what had taken us about three hours to walk up took around 9 minutes to get down.
Just a regular day and walk of our lives..
