Bouillante

Hi everyone,

We spent five nights in Bouillante on the west coast of Guadeloupe.  The first couple of days were windy with rain showers.  The rest were quieter with a light sea breeze coming in each day.  Bouillante's a nice little town and a good base for touring the central west coast.

No Mask No Chocolate!

The anchorage in Bouillante has a sand over rock bottom.  We dragged a couple of times before finding a thicker area of sand.  The main dinghy dock is a substantial structure in aluminium (see below).  There's a second small dock on the southern side of the bay with a water tap.

We explored the hinterland using the local busses.  The main bus routes run north to Pointe Noire (= La Maison Du Cafe), north then east over the hills to Pointe a Pitre, and south to Basse Terre (stopping at the Musee de Cafe).  There is rumoured to be a bus from Pointe Noire to Dehaies but we didn't see one. The busses are minibusses as shown below or coaches - both air-conditioned.  Rates varied from E2.50 to E4.50 for our rides.

Busses go north and south from Bouillante

We first rode the bus south to the Musee de Cafe.  It's an interesting museum with placards and displays of the history of coffee generally and in Guadeloupe.  The local coffee plantations were destroyed by hurricanes in the 1920s and production halted in the 1970s.  Coffee is being re-introduced as a boutique industry.

Musee de Cafe - tres posh!

Musee de Cafe

Who knew coffee originated in Yemen!

Double-edged sword

Coffee grinder

Bagging and boxing

Chocolate shop in the Musee de Cafe

Later the same morning we bussed north to Pointe Noire.  The bus terminates 100m short of La Maison de Cacao.  English language presentations generally happen around mid-day, but check on the web site.

We spent half an hour exploring the gardens before the English language presentation.  Who knew chocolate production went back beyond the Mayans to 1500BC?  The presentation was very good, with tasting of raw, crushed and paste cacau, then mixtures of cacau with suger (= chocolate).  Yum!

Visit & Taste!

Cacao heritage in La Maison du Cacau gardens

Cacao & chocolate tasting

Back in Bouillante we visited the L'Eddy's Papillon (tripadvisor) restaurant.  Awesome place with great food and atmosphere.  There's also a good Patisserie.  Bouillante is best known for its geothermal energy power station, and the outfall into the bay where swimming is very popular.  Water in the bay was 30C during our stay.  Zen Again's hull is now nice & clean!

Our friends on sv Cerulean arrived during our stay.  Twas great to spend some time with them, including trying out a couple of the more local-style cafes and eateries as well as another treat at D'Eddy's.

Main dinghy dock

Desserted at D'Eddy's

Trust all's well where you are!