LUNCH AT THE BEACH

On our way back from Le Marin, Al suggested getting off the taxico early on the way, to check out the place where we had reserved a car from Jumbocar earlier. The car is for meeting our friends Oguz and Simone at the airport on December 6th, who are coming from France (Oguz from Switzerland). Although we are big on buying things through the web, we would like to make sure face to face. Al had looked up the adress of the rental office, and found out that it was close to the Club Med resort, not in St Anne. So we set out to get there with the help of the GPS in his Samsung smart phone. It was around noon, and quite hot, we walked about fifteen minutesy in a small village of some sort, comprised of some vacation villas and a hotel, almost deserted at this time of the year. I presume that their high season is summer, when the French people have their month and a half of yearly vacation. We shall see if Christmas is going to make a difference in the population around here.

After finding the place, we talked to the nice young man at the Jumbocar office, but did not need to sign any papers, show a driver's licence or a credit card. We only got a promise from him to bring the car to our church front (mother of all rendez-vous places) at 11:30 or 12:00 am (We could not remember later which was decided, since he had said no to something). We started walking back. Did I mention that it was hot? I put my foot down to bend Al's rubber arm, to find a nice place to have a beer and some lunch, in that order. We had accomplished so much in one morning, we deserved some treat!

All the advertized places on that street were closed. We had to  walk a long way  back and some more, to reach the beach, that streched along a small peninsula, at the tip of which was Club-Med.

We had lost all hope of finding a place, but made a last ditch effort through a huge parking lot to get to the beach, where a deserted looking beach bar was located. Appereances can be deceiving, since the bar was open, without any customers or servers, but open. However, the place was somehow not appealing, whereas the one next door was. First of all it was more modest looking , and had tables on sand on the beach, under some trees and umbrellas; our kind of a place. The beach appeared to be a popular hang out for the people, there were quite a few, swimming or walking about.

We ate the best coal barbecued fish (snapper) in the Carribbean at this small snack stop, called La Ronde des Yoles. We made a mental note to bring our guests there for an outing.

The next morning we went ashore around 7:15, but saw that Yvonne was already there, waiting for us in her car. We surmised that she lived in St Anne, and it was convenient  for her to pick up the dirty clothes on her way to her shop. She promised to give us a call as soon as she started from Le Marin, around 5:00 pm. No problem, we'll be here.

Dealing with the laundry was a success, provisioning not so much, because the markets sell no local (Caribbean) fruits or vegetables. They have grapefruits from Israel. Are they crazy or what, the best grapefruits grow in Dominica, Grenada or even Cuba. Martinique does not seem to be trading with her neighbours, everything comes from Europe, hence expensive (We had not been able to check out the produce that the Dominicans are selling at the covered market yet). I wonder what the islanders are doing to fill their time. A Frenchman had told us last year, that the people here were living off social assisstance, and having lots of children to increase their pay. I started to beleive him.