After the success of yesterday’s excursions, we decided to visit Le Marin, a town just to the North of St Anne’s. We got out at the Port and wandered around, amazed by the number of yachts moored up. There were a couple of cool looking restaurants, but otherwise the area seemed run down with a slightly dodgy feel. There weren’t many people about, apart from four tourists toasting themselves on an uninspiring beach and a large woman sitting on a stool outside a cemetery selling something mysterious wrapped in brown paper – incense, perhaps?

We drove on from Le Marin and on impulse took a small road heading away from the sea, into the interior. We found ourselves climbing a very steep hill, through a residential area with great views of the sea. Gradually the houses dropped away as the road began to narrow and twist and turn, becoming dense with green trees and foliage. We were in the rain forest!  A sign appeared for a view point, so we decided to risk the possibility of break failure/head on collision and continue on up. After a (mercifully incident free) few minutes we finally reached the top and pulled into a bijou car park. A sign informed us that we were on ‘Le Morne Gommier’ (Morne is an old French word for ‘small mountain’.)  There was another sign informing us that if we wanted to walk up to the 360 degree viewpoint, the price would be four euros. Ah well, why not?

A small path lead us through a gate and into an attractive garden. Near the top was a hut, in which an elderly couple and a younger woman sat waiting to take our fee. A couple of minutes later, another party of tourists arrive eager to go to the viewpoint. The young woman lead us up there and started to talk us through what we were seeing. I struggled to concentrate on what she was saying, partly because it was in French, but mainly because the view was amazing. In one direction was the coast we had just driven from, with Le Marin in the foreground and our beach beyond that. If the weather had been clearer, we might have been able to see all the way to the island of Saint Lucia.  In the other direction, the gorgeous dip and rise of the rainforest and beyond it the rest of the island, rising up to Montagne Pelee, the volcano which erupted in 1902, destroying the capital St-Pierre entirely and killing 30,000 people. It is the worst volcanic disaster of the 20^th century.  The range runs along the skyline and is known as ‘la femme couche’ because it looks like the silhouette of a woman lying down.

Having seen the view, we were preparing to leave when the older woman offered to show us round her garden.  We accepted, and were treated to a not always comprehensible but very enjoyable tour (in French, of course!) taking in the myriad of native fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers which she was growing. Amongst them were vanilla pods, coffee beans, cocoa, tamarind, oranges, and a mysterious green fruit which she gifted to us. We had it for breakfast the next day and it was delicious, rather like a sweet grapefruit. Pity I can’t recall the name! She also gave us some leaves to make herb tea with and let us try a flower which was peppery like a radish. Some of the plants were for healing stomach conditions or treating cuts. She was a lovely lady, bursting with pride in her garden and eager to conserve the wonderful variety of plants native to Martinique. Thanks to her, I’m keen to spend more time in the hills.