St. Barthélemy

Heading to St. Barthlémey for 5 days. More when I get back!

Le Sentier de Beautiran

Above, the trail crossing bucolic countryside.

The history of the Beauport plantation begins in 1813, when Guillaume Rullier-Beauport buys a sugar cane plantation north of Petit-Canal in Grand Terre from Simon Babin. The abolition of slavery at the end of the French Revolution prompts the seizure of numerous plantations, and in 1836, the plantation of Beauport is sold to Dr Armand Souques. Beginning in 1863, under competitive pressures from beet sugar, Souques begins to buy neighboring plantations to create economies of scale. To link the vast tracts of land, Souques constructs a rail system, thereby creating the first industrial structure on the island. Even a port is built - Beautiran - from which sugar cane is shipped out and coal and fertilizers are shipped in. The plantation falls into bankruptcy in 1901 after nearly seven decades of ownership by the Souques family. The plantation would change hands numerous times until its definitive closure in 1990. The factory is now the site of a historical museum (1).

Above, the trail begins on a dirt path.

The trail first follows a dirt road, passing a few houses, but quickly leaves inhabited areas behind.

Above, an enormous figuier maudit.

The trail crosses a giant figuier maudit - a cursed fig tree - which has completely swallowed the ruins of a stone windmill. Both the tree and the windmill are impressive for their size. The trail turns here, passing by a small marsh.

Above, the trail follows a dirt road cut out by the tires of farmer's trucks.

The trail begins to skirt plots of sugar cane, which in late June was uncharacteristically high. Normally, all sugar cane would have already been cut, but the harvest this year was postponed by la grève. Still, the sugar cane is not high enough to provide shade from the sun, which at 10:30 in the morning beat down with determination.

Above, a mango tree and its unripe fruit.

Above, cows loll and chew all along the trail.

Above, pastoral countryside.

The trail climbs and descends gently sloping hills. From the top of these hills it is possible to see for miles: the seemingly endless plots of sugar cane, an occasional windmill ruin, and towns beyond.

The trail eventually leaves behind the sugar cane and crosses uncultivated countryside. Old trees shade the raised trail - the steel rails of the railroad having been long torn out - with views of meadows of green grass and marshes as small as large puddles wherever the land dips too low.

Above, the close quarters of the mangrove.

The trail enters sparse forest with roots in wet marsh-like soil before finally meeting the mangrove. Even at mid-day the mosquitos buzz ravenously and hikers pause at their peril! The mangrove grows sparse and the trail arrives at the coast. Ruins of both stone structures and steel transport system remain. A small modern chapel keeps watch for fishermen who set out to sea from Beautiran.

Above, vestiges of the past.

The day we hiked Beautiran, there dozens of men standing knee deep in the water - often fully dressed - , searching. Suddenly, they plunged their one gloved hand into the water to pull out a large crab, quickly throwing it into a sack. It was, according to one, mating season for the crabs and consequently, hunting season.


















Above, left, flowers by the shore, right, the day's catch in crabs.



(1) Beauport le pays de la canne




Le Sentier de Beautiran
A one way trail running alongside fields of sugar cane, with picturesque views of meadows and marshes, then crossing dense mangrove to end at the disused port of Beautiran.
Location: Grand Terre, near Petit-Canal; Leaving Petit-Canal on the N6 by the north in direction of Port-Louis, trail head is a road on the left marked by a bus shelter on the right.
Duration: 2H40 hours
Difficulty: Easy.
Parking: There is no designated parking area. Park along the road before or after the bus shelter.

Passion Fruit

Above, left, a passion fruit (Passiflora edulis), right, a water lemon (Passiflora laurifolia).

I tasted my first passion fruit during my first trip to Guadeloupe. Before that, I had only known passion fruit as an artificial flavor, like the way most city kids - myself included - know the taste of blue and red before they've ever had real blueberries or cherries.

Passion fruit (fruit de la passion in French, but known locally as maracudja after the Spanish name) are quite common on the island, found in backyard plots, or its vines running along a roadside fence. For those who do not have their own passion fruit vine, or who do not benefit from friendly relations with neighbors who do, passion fruit are also sold in local markets and sometimes even in supermarkets. There are also a range of food products with passion fruit derivatives, such as passion fruit-flavored yogurt, passion fruit juice, or passion fruit mousse tortes at the patisseries.

Far less common is the water lemon (pomme liane in French), another variety of passion fruit from the genus passiflora. This water lemon was purchased at the market in Basse Terre from a woman from Dominica who specializes in selling native fruit.

Passion fruits and water lemons are quite similar. The passion fruit is round to oval in form with an airy foam-like rind and a very smooth light yellow skin. The water lemon is round to ovoid in form with three distinct sides with an airy foam-like rind and flocked goldenrod-colored skin.

Above, left to right, a passion fruit and a pomme liane, both cut in half.

Inside both fruits, a mass of small black seeds encased in thin sack of juice. At first glance, it is not convincingly appetizing, the insides resembling embryonic creatures - tadpoles, maybe - , something vaguely sinister.

Above, a close-up of, top, passion fruit seeds, and, bottom, water lemon seeds.

The difference in flavor is advertised by the difference in color. Passion fruits are tart, acidic. Water lemons - in opposition to its name - are sweet, floral like roses. Because I like my fruit to be sweet but sharp I prefer the taste of passion fruits. I dislike water lemons for the same reason I dislike Turkish delight - I don't eat soap. M. happens to love water lemons precisely for its less aggressive flavor and so keeps the woman at the market in a steady business.

To Begin Again

Write. Write poetry, - write in rhyme, - if it is only "One, two, Buckle my shoe, Three, four, Open the door." Form the habit. It is often convenient. It is a refuge from ennui. It may do good. Any one of you who refrains from writing for fear of ridicule, is a coward. Don't be a coward ... If your heart is stirred within you to write, write! (1)

I have been avoiding this blog since I came back to Guadeloupe after a summer in New York. I had come back with a new determination to succeed...

You see, I have no intrinsic need to write. I have not filled notebooks with first poems or scraps of a novel. It took me over a decade to fill half the pages of a journal. Instead, I write to satisfy a need. As I wrote some months ago, "Blogging is a way of saying, I exist! ... It is an outlet for my creative and intellectual energies, which otherwise would surely wither and die inside of me, making me very sick." In that same post, even as I was affirming my need to write, I foretold its end: a more complete and satisfying life would eventually supplant that need.

Not writing, then, became a proxy for that more complete and satisfying life. Eager to succeed in that goal, I got ahead of myself and choose not to pick up writing again. Its a distraction, I told myself. Truthfully, not to write was a blunt demonstration of will. But, who was I fooling? I would have gone on fooling myself if I had not come across Hamilton's words in Elaine Showalter's book "A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx" (2), a literary history of American women writers. It is difficult not to feel moved by womens' early struggles to express themselves through writing. I may enjoy privileges and rights that were only imaginable to Hamilton and her fellow women writers, but I find myself in a situation where I am bound by similar constraints and where 'emotional needs and frustrations drive me to the pen'.

I am still determined. Really, I have no choice. But there is a place for writing in my life and I do myself a disservice to hasten its obsolescence.

This is so serious for my simple posts on my tarts and my hikes. Dickensen and Brontë it is not. But such is the power of writing, where quality nor longevity determines the value to the author herself. And so, I begin again...


(1)
Hamilton, Gail. Country Living and Country Thinking. Montana: Kessinger Publishing Ticknor and Fields, 1863.





(2)
Showalter, Elaine. A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.