Tombolo of Sainte Marie, Anse du Sinai and a Rhumery

That day, I wanted to hitchhike around the Island some more and visit a few beautiful places along the North East coast. Hitchhiking away from my hostel worked well, and I found people who took me to Tombolo, of which I had seen pictures. It's a small island just a couple hundred meters off the coast but connected by a small sand bank to the main island of Martinique. It is a wild place because waves are coming in from two sides, and during the high tide, the sand bridge disappears completely underneath the water and fills in. But I was there during lower tide and could see this spectacle, and the amount of seagrass washed up on this shore was incredible. I've never seen anything quite like it, and it's a natural spectacle.

Walking barefoot through mountains of seagrass felt so good. Waves and salty water at my feet, the sound of the sand and seagrass, and the soft late morning sun on my skin all brought a big, bright smile to my face. Listening to the sounds of the ocean with one ear and some music on my headphones on the other, I took pictures and explored the island. There is a beautiful viewpoint from which one can see the small but beautiful Caribbean town of Sainte Marie.

Up there on the little mountain, I played a little bit with a hermit crab I found as well. These little critters are so cute–hurling around their tiny little homes, the protective shells they collected once they grew out of their old ones. There is something deeply profound about this, about needing to be vulnerable and shedding your protective layers once you have outgrown them to find new and better ones.

On my way back, I found a bunch of Maracuja on the shore and a cute little crab walking through the mountains of seagrass. Walking through the sand barefoot always feels so good that I am sad that in Berlin, we don't have any sea nearby. I think I want to live in a place where there is an ocean nearby, where I can surf and dive and snorkel... maybe somewhere in Indonesia or Sri Lanka?

Hitchhiking out of the town was easy, but the further North I got, the harder it got to find a ride, because only tourists are going that way and not that many either because it's a bit remote. But I had seen pictures of this one place named Anse du Sinai that I wanted to see, so I waited in the full blazing midday sun on the side of the road, clinging to a house wall for the little bit of shade that it offered. Eventually, I was rewarded, and a tourist car showed up with a young couple traveling around the island towards Anse du Sinai as well.

Anse du Sinai is a very pretty beach, with yellow-white sands, enclosing hills with palm trees and coconuts; it's the typical Carribean picture, but beautifully empty. The only thing I didn't like about it was the big pipe with a constant stream of sewage water released into the sea at the end of the beach, walking there and saw a bunch of grey-black goo streaming out. Seeing hundreds of liters polluting the sea like that made me sad, angry, and regret having swum in the water further down the beach earlier. How can somebody build such a horrible sewage pipeline in a place like this? Why would you do this?

I left the two alone at the beach and went on exploring a little further and returned by going up and around the mountain into the jungle. Walking there barefoot, I was struck by the amount of big hermit crabs crawling around the jungle floor. There were literally hundreds of them, coconut thieves they are called, and they can grow up to a freaking half meter in size, some of the biggest land crabs on Earth. These were smaller but still the good size of my hand and with fierce-looking pinchers, so I took good care not to accidentally step onto one and get pinched in my toes. I was also afraid of snakes because in this area of the island lives the very rare Fer-de-lance, also known as a pit viper, which has a deadly venom and is well camouflaged against the leaves on the jungle floor. You surely don't want to step on one of those in the middle of the jungle when you are out alone without a signal.

But everything went fine, I came back to the others, we opened a bunch of coconuts with the knife that they had, and we enjoyed the beautiful coconut flesh and water together. Coconuts are a fruit that I adore because we don't have them in Germany, and there is something about the fresh yet fatty and sweet flavor that I enjoy tremendously. Also, it is immensely satisfying to open them, even though it is a lot of work, but this work adds to the taste somehow. Just like cooking your own meals!

Eventually, we left the beautiful beach and made our way to a local rhumery, where they produce lots of Rhum and have free tasting even if you don't buy anything. Seeing the giant metal cylinders with the brewing bubbling smelly sugar cane juice pulp in them was fascinating, and even more so, the halls of barrels where they store the Rhum for it to age and absorb the color and aromas of the wood and spice mixes. Trying different Rhum was also tremendous fun; they had an orange-flavored liquor I liked, especially dangerously sweet for its high alcohol content. We didn't drink too much, though, because somebody still had to drive the car ^^

Finally, I had to say goodbye to my new friends again as well, hitchhiking to my hostel, but I did not find the hostel because the location was not where Google Maps indicated. I eventually asked my way around the neighborhood and found the place, but the hotel didn't have water or electricity that day, so I got shuttled to another place by the owner with her car. At least the way to the hotel was super beautiful, with passionfruit growing in the gardens and a great view of the nearby volcano.

It was a bit of a mess, but in the end, I had a nice stay near the coast in Sainte Pierre, a beautiful starting point for the next day–the local church and clouds in the evening were especially beautiful. I changed my plans because of this unforeseen circumstance, instead of hiking up and seeing the volcano, as was the plan originally, I wanted to go up to the North. Maybe this idea was even better because of the time constraint of needing to catch an expensive flight back to Europe the next day.