GR-G1 - Day 5 - The Carbet Falls
We wake up early in the morning because we have a lot of hiking to do this day. First we walk up the small roads towards the end of the city of Capesterre de Bel Eau.
On the way we meet a friendly man with a machete. He's cutting down some of his banana trees. In broken English he explains that we have to be careful on our way because we need to cross some rivers. And those might swell to dangerously high levels when there is a lot of rain. There are dark clouds on the sky but we keep going. We can access the situation better when we are at the rivers.
Soon we reach the beginnings of the National Park of Guadeloupe again and the dense green of the jungle engulfs us once more. It's fascinating how this sea of green captures the imagination and even if you've seen it for the hundredth time, there is something so awe-inducing and majestic about it, that your mouth simply hangs open for a while, looking at the ancient trees, the ferns, all the plants, listening to the noises, of rain, of frogs, of birds, of insects.
You can feel how this ecosystem is alive, breathing, healthy, full of force, breaking it's way free into the world, persisting. The smell of rain, and dirt, and water is everywhere and it's beautiful to soak it in.
There are all sorts of plants here and looking at the ferns from below is interesting. You can see the veins of the leaves, the intricate structure and the fine details. I like this about the jungle. How you can take in the entire scene, or the little details, the small things, individual plants, leaves, insects. The way that light shines through a particular leaf.
The walk is easier this time because the path is visited much more frequently and therefore there are planks and steps and much less mud to climb over and slip on. We just trudge along, admiring the green, walking over ancient roots, past meter high bamboo plants, ferns the size of houses, trees even bigger than that.
There's always a slight fog in the air, a hazy mist, giving the jungle a mysterious atmosphere. You wonder: what is beyond? What sorts of animals and plants might there be around the next corner?
Soon we reach the first waterfall.
The idea of today's hike is to visit all three of the Trois Chutes du Carbet. In English you call them the Carbet Falls. They are a beautiful set of waterfalls in the Guadeloupean jungle, some of them very high, full of water falling down the steep cliffs. Where the jungle ends for a while to let the water flow past. The falls are named First, Second and Third Carbet fall, in the order of how close they are to the source of the river. For us this is a bit confusing because we are walking up the mountain and therefore the first waterfall we reach is actually the Third Carbet Fall.
Either way, there is a small wooden platform with a fence from where you can see the waterfall beautifully and a big sign in French that says that the path down to the waterfall is closed due to risk of landslides when it's raining.
Rebecca and I discuss if it's worth it to go down the path anyways... it's not exactly forbidden it's only on your own risk and how bad can it be compared to the paths that we have already trudged upon in the last few days?
We decide to go and to leave the bags on the platform to be more lightweight and nimble on our feet and we climb down the slopes along the tree roots covering the path.
There is nobody down at the waterfall except us there. The stones close to the waterfall, and the small puddle and the giant amounts of water that come down from the 15 meter or so cliff look absolutely mesmerising.
Both of us grin happy smiles, take picture after picture, and are happy about having come down here. The way was easy enough, there was no landslide dangerous terrain and there was no rain either so we felt quite safe.
But still we didn't want to stretch our luck so we didn't go swimming in the pool, though it was very inviting to do so, but there might be a ranger or some other person from the park walking around the paths with other people and we didn't want to meet some officials waiting at our bags on the way back.
It's funny how much adrenaline one releases, simply because one does something that is slightly forbidden. The way was easy, no risk involved at all, but the sign saying that it was dangerous was enough to make us afraid of the way, making our hearts beat much more and faster than they needed to. But in the end, the pictures we took of us in front of the waterfall were worth it, they are some of my favourite pictures of the entire hike.
After this short interlude, we continued on with our hike up towards the Second and First Carbet Falls. And we needed to cross a river, just as the guy with the machete had warned us about. Luckily the river was not very deep and crossing it was easy enough. We even went for a short swim after having crossed it. There was a pool where the water collected naturally and didn't have to much current and it felt so good to be swimming surrounded by the forest and during the hike. Just with the shoes and underwear on. Things were wet by now anyways because of the rain.
Both of us playing in the water, laughing, having fun sliding down the rocks, just enjoying life like this. It's these small moments that make traveling worthwhile and hiking through the jungle so much fun. One get's rewarded with beauty everywhere you walk. After our short bath the jungle engulfed us again.
After some more time hiking we started to meet some people on their way toward the Third Fall from where we had just come. It was a bit odd because we had walked in solitude so much in the last few days that seeing more and more people on the path felt a bit off. There was something sad about not being alone anymore. It felt like we had lost something of the magic of the jungle. Because tourism had conquered it enough so that there were literally hundreds of people stomping up and down these paths every single day. Still the way up there was extremely beautiful.
At the intersection to go to the First or Second Carbet Fall, we looked at the time and thought about where we would like to end up in that day. Both of us wanted to go up and see the volcano "La Soufriere". But that would be a long and arduous hike and it was already kind of late and we knew that we would have to get down the way we came to reach our hut safely while there was still sun out.
But we decided to move a bit quicker and see what the way is like and then decide again once there. So we picked up speed, overtaking a lot of the people on the way to the First Carbet Fall. When we reached it, our mouths dropped again, gaping open wide in awe. There was a column of water falling down over two steps from a little over hundred meters above. The water was falling perfectly straight from the tops of the mountain reaching the bottom with a thunderous roar.
There were some clouds obscuring the vision, some fog hiding the waterfalls, that lifted every once in a while, giving this sensation of awe again and we happily had our short lunch break there. Eating crackers and tomato sauce and some lemon cake.
After the lunch we went to the intersection where the way went up to the Soufriere Volcano. It was already quite late and there was a big sign that said "itineraire dangeroux".
We were not at all sure how dangerous this path would be but thought: "hmm, how bad can it be after what we had been through, let's just have a look and see." So we started on the path, that was literally marked as dangerous path. It went up, almost cliff like, climbing over rocks and tree roots. And with our backpacks it was hard work to go up, and we were under time pressure too because we would have to climb this route up and back down. So after around maybe fifteen minutes of detour we decided that this was never going to work out.
Neither of us wanted to walk down this path in the darkness of the night because we miscalculated how fast we could go up to the Soufriere. And so we decided to go up the volcano another day and today just take it chill and go down to the Second Carbet Fall and the mountain hut: Refuge de la Cisterne. I.e. the easy way.
On the way to the Second Carbet Fall we met a group of friends from France who commented on our hiking gear and backpacks and asked us a few questions about the long trail we did. One of them had heard about the GR-G1 and wanted to know if it's possible or not and so we told him about our experiences. It was a beautiful moment talking with these old people who had hiked a lot in their lives already even doing the G20 in Korsika, something that is on my bucket list of hikes to do. We took some selfies at the waterfall with them and continued back to the parking lot.
The Second Carpet Fall was also incredibly beautiful. Even if you could only view it from a metal platform and the amount of people really didn't allow to jump the barrier this time. But even from the platform the view was beautiful.
On our way back a big group of people with multiple officials from the National Park walked by. And we took the opportunity to ask them all sorts of questions about the path and where we wanted to walk. It turned out that it was a good idea not to follow the route up to Soufriere because later it would have been completely overgrown, with dead trees and boulders blocking the way, requiring serious time and dedication to walk past. Even the park officials don't go this way anymore and just recently somebody literally died attempting this path. So good decision making on our part. The guides from the park further said that the other way to the Cisterne was also officially forbidden but more accessible and "ok" to walk, with a difficult peace that ultimately ends in a small old road going up to the Cisterne volcano. They said, "you can walk it, but we have never talked about it alright, I don't know nothing". With a little wink in their eye. One of the two park rangers was a woman with red hair that I found really attractive and I still curse myself not to have asked for her number. But such is life.
We continued our walk, saying goodbye to our friends at the intersection of where the path leading to the mountain refuge and the path going back to the parking lot split. Saying a bittersweet goodbye because we really enjoyed their company.
The way up to the refuge was more wild and without people again but nothing compared to what we had walked the days before, but we took a small break anyways, eating some gummy bears and enjoying the view of the forest. There were a few small "windows" out of the forest and onto the Second Carbet Fall and sitting there and watching felt amazing.
A little while later we reached the hut. It was still bright outside and we both took showers with the water from the rainwater tank. Even though not as muddy and grimy as the days before it still felt amazing to be in somewhat dry and warm clothes and feeling fresh. The clothes in my bag had started to smell because of the constant dampness though. We prepared some kickass pasta for the evening meal and read a little bit. Rebecca put out her hammock this night, simply to try it out, because there were some metal hooks designed for hanging a hammock in the shelters.
We went to sleep early because there was not a lot of things to do besides that. But some time in the night we both woke up. There was some scurrying sound on the table where we had left the food and shining with our headlamps we could see two big fat rats, sitting there, running about our stuff. So we got up, took everything we had that might be of interest to them and locked it in the big metal box that was set into the floor of the shelter as a measure against rats eating the food. Luckily we heard the rats early and they hadn't started eating our food yet, because they can transmit some nasty diseases and you really have to throw away all the food that they touched. But the rest of the night we slept peacefully.