January 13 Martinique
Another lovely day in the Caribbean. Had breakfast at "our" table (funny how quickly we fall into a habit of dining at the same place for a meal!) and then talked about what we would do that day.
My research indicated that we could have a nice walk from the ship into town. But we quickly changed plans when Dr Greg Wheeler, geologist extraordinaire and enrichment lecturer, asked David and I if we would like to share a cab with him and friend Lisa to go to Mt Pelee and of course, we said "yes."
We were among the first off the ship and after negotiating with Jean, a great cab driver, we took off. Poor Jean, he really wanted to show us the lovely sights of his island, but we weren't interested in rum making, or tropical gardens (Greg is from California and we've a place in south Florida so gardens weren't something unusual for us) so we kept saying "non" and directed him to St Pierre, the home of Mt Pelee!
Sacre Coeur de Balata
Black sand beaches
Two crabs fighting
Crab hiding
Everything in Martinique is French (duh) including the Euro so we could not purchase tickets for admission into a museum. We were directed to a bank with an ATM that would vend Euros but by that time we pretty much just wanted to walk around. A couple of people in our group wondered if tourism was so great that they could afford to only accept Euros but hey, their country, their rules.
St Pierre was known as the "Paris of the West Indies" and was a prosperous small, beautiful town. In 1902 the town was engulfed by the eruption of Mt Pelee and the entire population of 30,000 quickly died....except for one person.
We investigated the ruins of the original town and found the jail cell still standing which protected the sole survivor of 30,000 who were killed by Pelee's eruption in 1902. Greg had a picture in his presentation of the survivor who went on to work for Barnum & Bailey so naturally we had to take Greg's picture in the same pose.
Evidently the man was jailed originally for cutting a friend with a cutlass. Shortly before he completed his sentence, he left his cell, went into town and danced and drank and at sunrise the next day reported back to the jail where he was sentenced to a week of solitary confinement in the prison's dungeon. When the volcano erupted he was protected from most of the heat and ash by the stone walls, and his tiny cell window faced toward the sea and away from the mountain. He was seriously burned but by holding his breath he was able to avoid breathing in much of the gases . He was later pardoned for his crimes.
We walked black sand beaches, took pictures of crabs and boats, and tried to photograph the whole of Mt Pelee but the very top remained covered with clouds.
What a lovely day with terrific travel companions among great ruins...an awesome day for an old history teacher!
cynthia
Another lovely day in the Caribbean. Had breakfast at "our" table (funny how quickly we fall into a habit of dining at the same place for a meal!) and then talked about what we would do that day.
My research indicated that we could have a nice walk from the ship into town. But we quickly changed plans when Dr Greg Wheeler, geologist extraordinaire and enrichment lecturer, asked David and I if we would like to share a cab with him and friend Lisa to go to Mt Pelee and of course, we said "yes."
We were among the first off the ship and after negotiating with Jean, a great cab driver, we took off. Poor Jean, he really wanted to show us the lovely sights of his island, but we weren't interested in rum making, or tropical gardens (Greg is from California and we've a place in south Florida so gardens weren't something unusual for us) so we kept saying "non" and directed him to St Pierre, the home of Mt Pelee!
Sacre Coeur de Balata
Everything in Martinique is French (duh) including the Euro so we could not purchase tickets for admission into a museum. We were directed to a bank with an ATM that would vend Euros but by that time we pretty much just wanted to walk around. A couple of people in our group wondered if tourism was so great that they could afford to only accept Euros but hey, their country, their rules.
St Pierre was known as the "Paris of the West Indies" and was a prosperous small, beautiful town. In 1902 the town was engulfed by the eruption of Mt Pelee and the entire population of 30,000 quickly died....except for one person.
We investigated the ruins of the original town and found the jail cell still standing which protected the sole survivor of 30,000 who were killed by Pelee's eruption in 1902. Greg had a picture in his presentation of the survivor who went on to work for Barnum & Bailey so naturally we had to take Greg's picture in the same pose.
Evidently the man was jailed originally for cutting a friend with a cutlass. Shortly before he completed his sentence, he left his cell, went into town and danced and drank and at sunrise the next day reported back to the jail where he was sentenced to a week of solitary confinement in the prison's dungeon. When the volcano erupted he was protected from most of the heat and ash by the stone walls, and his tiny cell window faced toward the sea and away from the mountain. He was seriously burned but by holding his breath he was able to avoid breathing in much of the gases . He was later pardoned for his crimes.
We walked black sand beaches, took pictures of crabs and boats, and tried to photograph the whole of Mt Pelee but the very top remained covered with clouds.
What a lovely day with terrific travel companions among great ruins...an awesome day for an old history teacher!
cynthia
2 comments:
Love the photos!
That's a great story about the survivor; thanks for sharing.
Post a Comment