Thursday, March 2 – Dominica

Nothing very exciting today. Sorry!

I did some laundry, prepped for my Guadeloupe trip, worked on a journal entry, and went for a swim. Lacking excitement, but a relaxing day!

Dominica Information

• Currency: Eastern Caribbean Dollar
• Language: English
• Vehicle Traffic: Drive on the left
• Weather: Highs in the low 80s, lows in the low 70s, moderate humidity (there’s a nice breeze on the Atlantic coast, where I stayed)
• Covid Entry Requirements: None
• Mask Wearing: Minimal
• Electrical Outlets: U.K. Style
• Drinkable Tap Water?: Yes
• Time Zone: One hour ahead of U.S. Eastern

Friday, March 3 – transit from Dominica to Guadeloupe

I’m taking the ferry this morning to Guadeloupe. That means another one hour, 80 USD taxi ride back south to the ferry terminal. Brother! I did not plan this well! The scheduled departure time is 11:30am, so I left around 8:30am. With traffic delays in Roseau (THREE cruise ships in port), I arrived at the terminal around 10am. Still plenty of time.

You may remember that my ferry trip from St. Lucia to Dominica arrived in the Dominica harbor on time, but then encountered a 90 minute delay while waiting for another ferry to depart from the dock. Well, I now know what caused the delay – the Dominica boarding process is an abomination! There is pushing and shoving, with people cutting in line. There were three stops along the queue: pay the departure tax (32 USD); immigration check; and security. The first two weren’t terrible, but security is a disaster. Passengers are only allowed into a room one at a time, where their bags are screened and they walk through the metal detector. This took forever! (And actually wasn’t very thorough) I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that because of this fiasco we were late in departing, coincidentally by 90 minutes. I’m surprised the ferry company puts up with this. It seems like a major disruption to their operations. On the other hand, it could just be the “island” mentality. (I am attempting to go with the flow!)

Travel Note: My ferry ticket is for a round trip back to Dominica, so there was no need for the ticket agent to ask me about onward or return travel. The round trip ticket cost 130 USD. And the non-stop ferry ride took 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Another Travel Note: The ferry was the same type that I traveled on from St. Lucia, and very crowded. I ended up sitting in the middle section of the upper level. Because of all of this, I didn’t take any pictures during the trip.

Meanwhile, my Airbnb host (Xavier) in Guadeloupe had offered to pick me up at the ferry terminal because he wasn’t sure what the taxi availability would be (also, his place is kind of tricky to find). However, with our delayed departure he was no longer available for the pickup. So he was scrambling to arrange a taxi. Because of this, I needed to be online and in contact with him during the ferry transit, so thus incurred my first AT&T roaming charge of the trip (10 USD for the day – oh no!!).

I should mention that Guadeloupe is a territory of France; therefore the language is French (duh!). And Xavier does not speak English. Fortunately the messaging function within the Airbnb website automatically does the translating. We were using this to communicate.

Xavier eventually found me a driver, sent me his phone number, and asked me to text him with my details. Great! Thanks! But wait, I’m guessing he doesn’t speak English, right? How’s this going to work? I ended up typing out my text in English and used Google Translate to convert it to French. I then copied the French text into the massaging app and hit send. Good to go! Not so fast. The driver never responded. Ugh!

I assumed he was no longer available and I would just need to figure things out upon arrival. And I must say that the arrival process in Guadeloupe was very efficient, both immigration and baggage claim. A refreshing improvement over Dominica. (And my St. Lucia departure was efficient too, as well as the stopover in Martinique.) I checked my phone as I cleared immigration and noticed that I had a message from Xavier: “Your taxi driver (Max) is waiting for you outside.” Wow! That’s a nice surprise. Thank you!

The ferry terminal is in Pointe-a-Pitre and I’m staying in nearby Le Gosier; the drive would normally take about 20 minutes, but Max spent time on the phone with Xavier trying to find the airbnb, which added about 10 minutes to the trip. The cost of the ride was 35 USD. Happy to pay it after today’s adventure!

I was pretty much drained after today’s activities. I spent the rest of the day in the apartment; didn’t even go out for food.

Saturday, March 4 – Guadeloupe

I’m feeling better this morning and ready to head out and explore the area!

After strolling around the area for a few hours I finished up with a grocery run and then back to the apartment.

Sunday, March 5 – Guadeloupe

I’m motivated to do some serious walking today. I’m going to head west towards Pointe-a-Pitre, with plans to check out the coastline and visit a fort and an aquarium. Let’s go!

Travel Note: This is probably going to sound pretentious (or stupid!), but I’m getting a little bored with the waterfalls, greenery (rain forests), and 100+ USD drive-arounds to touristy spots (that I typically avoid). What I did today was the kind of activity I enjoy – exploring an area on foot. And as opposed to the the islands I’ve recently visited, this part of Guadeloupe is favorable for walking – with a good pedestrian infrastructure, and most importantly, it’s relatively flat! Today reminds me of my time in Honolulu – investigating the nooks and crannies of that city.

Today was a good day! I ended putting in the most steps since my excursions on Barbados. More of the same is planned for the next few days (along with some swimming!).