Gwadloup Carnets (Adventures from the "butterfly" archipelago): A touchdown!

 (Lucky Daniel M will spent the next month in Guadeloupe)

The charming “butterfly” archipelago of Guadeloupe is part of the French Antilles located into the Caribbean sea. Alongside with its richer sister island of Martinique, Guadeloupe is a refuge in many ways for its habitants human or not. Seen by many short or long-term visitors as a paradise, it is fair to say that Guadeloupe has also its own challenges with poverty and ecological issues and still depend on outsiders contributions.

During this monthly stay in Guadeloupe, I will challenge myself to document visually and to write short impressions about the islands and its society. Tourism have become an essential "industry" for many south destinations such as Gwadloup (native creole name). It transform the society that is facing basically two kinds of visitors: the short term one (as myself) and the long term one (mainly French people coming from, as they call, the metropole France). So even for the touristic activities and especially lodging and restauration, a large part of it is controlled by mostly French natives or mid-time habitants.

Two distinctives islands (or lands) are forming the Guadeloupe achipèl (archipelago in creole): Basse Terre and Grande Terre. They are geographically different and reunited by the Pointe-à-Pitre area which is not by the way the official Guadeloupe capital city (Basse-Terre).  The two islands have a very distinctive geography. Basse-Terre is a volcanic formation dominated by the Soufrière. The mountainous interior offer you spectacular sites such as the Carbet falls. many small and narrow beaches are secluded and naturally preserved. Grande Terre is a more flat land that has been mainly used in the past for the sugar plantation purposes have beaches that are larger with a lot of marine attracted activities like scuba diving, surfing, fishing..

Outside those two main islands, there are beautiful smaller islands (Desired,  Saint, etc) that are accessible via boat rides or even small charter planes. The entire Gwadloup archipelago may ask an extended stay (or multiples short ones) to properly embrace its diversity. 

Photos Daniel M: OM-D EM10 Mark III