Sainte-Luce

Great weekend. This weekend I decided to go to Sainte-Luce because I read it was beautiful and yes it was! Its about a 50 kilometer drive on the same ol' crappy roads. Once I was off the national road, it got a little worse. I guess the recent rain had partially destroyed certain parts of the roads, so I had to drive around them. I bottomed out pretty hard in a few spots, just glad I didn't wreck my truck, but Sharky is tough.

So, after driving for about 2 hours I thought I'd be there already and I just driven through a little tiny village. Then all of a sudden the trees go away and you're at the beach. It's stunning.

White sand, tiny islands dot the baie de sainte-luce. There's a few pirogues on the beach and some local fisherman. Basically, its everything that Hawaii is and all the stuff you don't like about Hawaii (no tourists!).

It's a small, half-moon shaped bay with some rocks on the right-hand side. I decided to walk down to the rocks and see what's over there first. I climbed around on the rocks and I think I startled a family washing their clothes. The little kids here all LOVE to make noise, jump around and have their pictures taken.

I continued climbing on the rocks and discovered another idyllic bay. So, cool. Just me and more white sand.

I then ventured back to where I started and grabbed my sandwhich and bananas. Had lunch on the beach. There was a little rocky island close to shore, so I decided to see if I could reach it. Success! It was only about knee deep, so I climbed around on it for a minute. I saw a road that led further away, so I thought I'd take it with Sharky.

To get to the road you had to go through by this "hotel". I call it the Ritz of Sainte-Luce. It was a little, two story wood shack. It had a fence around it but no gate, so I just drove through. I drove for 5 mins or so and decided to turn around. I couldn't see that the road would take me anywhere interesting, so I turned around. Plus I didn't want to get stuck in sand.

When I came back, someone had placed a gate. So, I was going to get out of my truck, but instead a guy came to my window and said "50,000 ariary". I pretended to not understand what he wanted, even though I know he wanted money. So, he took off running towards the village. I have no idea what his plan was. So, I got out of my truck and moved and the gate while probably 10 locals just watched me and said nothing.

As Sharky and I were leaving we passed him running back towards the Ritz and I just waved and continued on back to Fort-Dauphin.

I love finding these little treasures all around!

I don't work Thursday so I'm hoping to visit the national park and take friday off too!