Our little tropical house full of house lizards

For our vacation in Guadeloupe, we rented a little bungalow on the west coast of the island, on the "Basse-Terre" island, which is the volcanic mountainous side of Guadeloupe. We rented nearby the Death in Paradise filming locations, but also close-by the coastal area's that are part of the Jacques Cousteau national reserve.  A win-win as part of the family's goal was to visit "Death in Paradise" but Beertje's main goal was to swim with turtles. 

It's not the mostly touristic developed area: the Club Med's and bigger hotel chains are on the other side of the island in Grande Terre. So there are no big hotels: we'd stay in a Caribbean type of house with a partial open lay-out. Only the bedrooms and bathroom are fully closed off by a door, the kitchen is under coverage but partial in open air with direct access to the outdoors. We had experienced that type of semi-open rentals before in Bonaire. In reality we actually could close off our kitchen area with a sort of garage gate that could be lowered if we left or also when we slept, to avoid wild animals to visit us too closely. 

Our resort was small with 3 rental bungalows, ours being the biggest on the domain, and the house of the owners, all grouped in a small tropical garden around a pool and some other shared services. 

We were waited for by our hosts upon our nightly arrival down in the village to ensure we made up the road ok in the dark for the first time (which turned out to be a good call from these nice hosts...indeed, the road was a bit tricky) and they had stuffed our fridge with some welcome fruits, some rum punch which we later enjoyed on our terrace and some bottles of water as there is no drinkable tap water. So we could comfortably settle & rest those few hours on a public holiday where the stores were still closed. 

We quickly settled in our bungalow and got into our beds covered with mosquito nets, listening for a moment to the wide variety of bird and frog noises outside in the jungle but drifting off quickly. The next days we could settle down, quickly do some grocery shopping while the stores were limited open on Easter Monday and start relaxing.

Right upon our arrival, we understood we were not the only inhabitants of the bungalow.  There's also vacationing lizards that come with the house.  We were delighted to meet "Harry" on vacation and his friends and family.  Well, Harry was off filming duty and his house is deconstructed in that period, so he stayed with us.  And he was all around with his friends on the terrace all the time.  Some were so daring that they raced by just along our feet...yet they were always too quick, so there didn't seem a risk that we accidentally stepped on them or swooped them along when taking our laundry from the rack. 

We shared the pool, which wasn't too big, with the 2 other bungalows but most days of our presence the other bungalows were empty and even if they had guests we never seemed to want to use the pool at the same time...so it felt like a private pool after all. We just had to teach our children a little that they were expected to keep a certain level of calmless. 

I also loved our garden where we could enjoy the surrounding jungle with all its sounds, but we could also enjoy some tropical trees and plants nearby that were visited regularly by colibris.  It's fun to have breakfast with a view on traveller's trees, mango trees, gourd trees, ...

Our hosts had a young dog. They avoided letting it run free too often in the garden, much to the regret of our children, who would have enjoyed her visits a lot more. 

All of this was to be found at a good 300m above sea level at a bit more than a kilometer from the little village at the beach.  Are you calculating with me...yep yep, our cool narrow access road through pending lianas boosted some nice hairpin bents to cover the about 30% increase percentage.  And not every part was as steep but that means some parts were euh....STEEP.

That was the reason that our hosts had insisted of meeting us down in the village. I already figured that the road might be a bit difficult to take and search for in the night.  But they also loaded our big suitcases in their truck to ensure our rental car was cool enough about climbing and after some more advice on when to shift to the lowest gear and how to take the bents, we went, and I had a pretty nervous feeling about it.  But Jan managed to do it, and additionally made it to the bakery down and back up ok in the next morning so we weren't stuck on our hill for the rest of the vacation. That thought did cross my mind for a moment upon arrival.  So no, we weren't. But the image we had back home that we'd walk in the evening to a restaurant in the village and enjoy the sunset there regularly, was immediately ditched.  Even if I had not had a rotten knee at the moment, I'd not be hiking up and down this hill.  But attempting even a small part of this road by foot, would kill my knee again for sure.

I must add: after a few days in Guadeloupe Basse Terre, you get used to these roads. They are all steep and windy. Even on the highways around and across the island, you sometimes need to shift down now and then.  It's part of getting around here.  Motion sickness pills were helpful some days.  What looked stressy and challenging in the first days became a habit quickly.  Jan managed ok (and I was glad to be the passenger), and so seem to do all other tourists with their rental cars.  I tried to take some pictures but to be honest, none of them manage to show how steep some stretches really were. 

lianas pending over our street

shift to gear 1...here we go climbing

Upon arrival we have a flat stretch again...nice to 

view at the neighbours across the street

leaving down towards town

The advantage of this little neighbourhood "Bellevue" up the hill is the surrounding jungle...and the undisturbed night skies without light pollution. Just impressive stars.