The
largest French West Indian island, GUADELOUPE encompasses a massive
1704 square kilometres,
the majority of which
is taken up by its two adjoining mainland islands, Basse-Terre
and Grande-Terre, whose outline resembles a greenbacked butterfly
in
flight. Its two "wings" have entirely different personas
and equally misrepresentative names: the western Basse-Terre , or "low-land",
is anything but, given its central core is dominated by mountain
ranges, including the Lesser Antilles' highest peak, La Soufrière
. These surround the island's bountiful rainforest and descend
to meet twinkling black-sand beaches like Plage Malendure that
extend
to protected underwater dive sites abounding with aqualife.
The eastern "wing", the furled Grande-Terre , or "large-land",
is slightly smaller than Basse-Terre, utterly flat by contrast, and
predominantly rural. Most of the action happens along its southern
coast, where one white-sand beach after another seems to merge endlessly
along the coast, with the stunning Plage Caravelle forming the centrepiece.
Its outer reaches are pounded by the savage Atlantic Ocean to produce
jagged limestone outcroppings like the windswept Pointe-des-Châteaux
, and the exquisite Lagon de la Porte d'Enfer natural swimming
pool.
Guadeloupe's offshore islands are equally diverse. Marie-Galante
, with its rural landscape of sugarcane, hearkens back to a Guadeloupe
of thirty years ago, while La Désirade , the most desolate
of the lot, is quite possibly the Caribbean's least developed island.
The most visited-offshore isle, tiny Terre-de-Haut , is the prettiest
of all, with quaint architecture and fabulous bays and beaches. |
