A Walk in the Woods

I, Roger, am pleased to report that Ilene has become quite a homebody (“boatbody” actually). On December 12, 17,  19 and 20, she did not go ashore. On the intervening days I estimate she was ashore an average of only three hours per day. True, she was feeling poorly, but what a joy that to me she feels so homey on the boat.

However, for me, to visit an island and not take a walk upon it – to claim at least some small part of it as territory observed – seems pointless. So on our lay day In St. Louis I decided to take a walk on Marie Gallante. The tourist map said the hike was 5.9 kilometers, but it was longer due to detours caused by poor marking, and it began 3.5 km from the beach via the Island’s main highway, 

adding another seven Km to the total.

The hike started on a one lane paved road, which became a dirt road, 

and finally a rocky downhill path. (Note the yellow blaze at right)

 The brochure called the path “Sentier de Sources,” which, according to my highly suspect French translation, means a trail in the neighborhood of the town of Sources. The sign at its beginning said it involved a walk through the “agricultural region” of Marie Galante. The trail marking, I came to learn, was the yellow dash painted occasionally upon rocks or tree trunks. Except that these marks did not appear at forks in the trail. So one guessed and either wound up in someone’s driveway and back tracked, or eventually  found some yellow blazes if you guessed correctly.

I took a lot of photos so I could tell Lene what I had seen. One thing a did not see was wild birds: I heard a lot of bird calls and occasionally heard the rapid beat of wings close by as I had noisily crashed by in the residents’ habitat. The other thing I did not see was any human being during my two hours on the trail.

I saw sugar cane:

Bananas:

Bamboo:

Breadfruit:

and Coconuts:

I saw myriad varieties of wild flowers and if I ever take this walk again I will attempt to photograph the flowers, but not this time.
In addition tochickens, hogs and goats:

which one finds on the other islands, this one had cows, 

lots of cows.

And each cow had a bird, perhaps a stilt, that accompanied it.

I just loved this tree:

And this view reminded me of the Catskills.

A bit of solitude can be good for the mind.  I took the loop in the counterclockwise direction for only one reason: someone was weed whacking out along the other way. And I’m glad I selected the way I did because the wildest part of the route was at the end, down hill on a barely marked one lane, overgrown path through the jungle; I may have given up if I had gone the other way.

I saw strange rock formations suggesting the possibility of prior quarrying, 

and strange natural rock formations making me wish I knew more about the geological history of this most unusual  non- coral but flat island.

Likewise a naturalist could have told me the names of the various trees and plants. I saw, but was unable to capture on film a totally jet black butterfly except for a cardinal red stripe on each wing.

The sign said not to litter and I was pleased to see how very well this rule had been observed.