Cruise Day 2: Martinique
Anyway, on day 2, we arrived in Fort de France, Martinique.
The French Flag, over Fort de France.
Martinique, incidentally, is a French state, so is more akin to French Hawaii than French Puerto Rico. Although it is still very much a Caribbean nation, with its economy very much based on rum, sugar, and slavery. (Well...not slavery any more, although we're about to get to that...)
KP and I decided to do the "Rum and Flowers" tour, since it sounded like it would hit lots of cool things, including the very lovely Jardin de Balata, which is supposedly one of the greatest tropical gardens in the world. (It was on the "top things to do in Martinique" website.) So we got off the ship and onto a bus with a very grouchy looking, yet also VERY French tour guide.
Things started okay. We drove by a (modern yet pretty) church.
Pretty church is pretty?
It was raining, so not great for the garden, but hey...we were on a tour! So we went anyway.
While we waited for the rain to pass (it didn't) we sat inside an old Creole building and learned about the local wardrobe.
The local clothes.
Apparently there were a few things to take note of. The first is the fancy hats. The number of leaves denoted the status of the woman. One meant single. Two meant with someone (and unavailable). Three meant taken but...willing to consider. And four meant, pay me and I'm up for it, often augmented by bills shoved into the folds of the scarf.
The other was the chains. Apparently, um, the local women (well...local black women) liked to dress up fancy when ships came in as this meant more cool things to buy. They wore all their jewelry, which had some other meanings...
Back when slavery was legal (said with a bit of a sigh from my tour guide...you can see where this is going), the only slave allowed to wear jewelry was the favorite of the landowner. Who, um, got to wear a gold chain around her neck. Rather symbolic, no? But then it became part of Martique culture for all women who could afford it. Fashion can be rather dark, can't it?
But hey, no reason to think on Martinique's dark past when we had GORGEOUS FLOWERS, right? Right?
Sadly I didn't get many photos due to the rain. Oh well...
Anyway, the gardens were pretty, if very wet. And the botanical tour was well...we'll just say that the tour guide spent a startlingly long time pointing out the especially thorny bushes where her ancestors used to whip slaves (back when that was legal *sigh*) and noting how razor sharp the leaves of sugar canes were (the better to slice up runaway slaves). It was all a bit...unsettling. Even if the flowers were pretty.
But hey! Enough with the dark stuff! It was time to go to Habatation Clement, the rum distillery!
Along the way, we got some other interesting tidbits from our tour guide.
First we got a tour of the native wildlife. Apparently only 3 indigenous species had survived the Europeans. Our tour guide hated them all with a passion. They were the pit viper (which honestly sounds freaking terrifying, as it's a super poisonous snake), the pink tarantula (which was kind of cute, actually), and a raccoon like thing that she seemed to hate with a bizarre, indescribable fury. Quite clearly, she wished her ancestors had just nuked the whole island then come in with their slaves and planted sugar cane.
The next was her feelings on rum. At first, I'd thought, sure, she's taking us to a rum distillery. OF COURSE SHE'S GOING TO TALK ABOUT HOW GREAT THE RUM THERE IS. But no. It wasn't the rum at this particular distillery. It was all Martinique rum. Apparently, according to her, Martinique rum is distilled from crushed sugar cane. They take the PURE sugar cane juice and distill it, unlike the swill that they make in those ENGLISH colonies like BARBADOS where they use the dregs (molasses) to make rum. It's disgraceful. They wouldn't even feed that nonsense to Nubians.
Nubians...
Which brings us to her next lovely quote.
She was going on and on about the disasters that befell Martinique, each making it less lovely a place to live. Why, there was a volcanic eruption that destroyed a town. The price of sugar crashed. And then there was abolition, which made them bring in all these Indian workers and...
Let's just say that this wasn't my last encounter with how the Caribbean wasn't quite like the west coast, but it was definitely the most extreme.
Moving on. The lady loved her rum. They drink it all the time here. For breakfast, with fruit juice. For dinner, straight. Whenever. As long as it's not gross English rum (this honestly is the most French statement I can imagine, I must admit), it's great.
So we got to Habitation Clement. It was bought back around the turn of the century by a black man who'd done well enough to buy himself his own plantation. He kept most of the architecture intact, which was quite lovely, even if it did make you feel good to live now, when a modest income will buy you a house bigger than that of a fantastically wealthy plantation owner.
Barrels of rum at Clement.
The plantation house.
Anyway, after wandering around for a bit, we got to taste rum. As much rum as we wanted. Which seriously, was waaaaay too much rum for a tour that begin at 8 am.
I tried a couple, including the super fancy stuff. Ultimately, I liked the not-super-fancy-seven-year-old stuff best, along with a few mixed rums that were a cheap $10 each. I ran home with them. ^_^
I also picked up a few (for $1 each...yeah, crazy!) tasters as I couldn't stand drinking more. I found the white rum to be disgusting, but ended up feeling super sad that I didn't pick up the Creole Shrub (http://www.rhumclementusa.com/creole_shrubb.htm_) while I was there. (It's an orange, slightly spiced rum that is FREAKING AMAZING. I don't know what it is, or how they do it, but it's SO good! It's like a distilled orange! Apparently it's traditional in Martinique around Christmas, although also apparently people drink it all the time, because Martinique.)
Slightly buzzed, I returned to Fort de France.
I'd wanted to find food but, this being France, we had passed lunch so THAT WAS THAT.
Still, I wandered around town. Several buildings had been designed by a protogee of Eiffel and looked AMAZING, so I wanted to see them up close. (Also, I didn't want to be on the cruise ship longer than necessary.)
A busy intersection.
An amazing church! I only wish that the scaffolding hadn't been up and I'd been able to see the whole thing in its glory/go inside.
The library in this town is the best designed library ever. SRSLY.
The town at a distance.
It's a gorgeous place, though, seriously. Although the history is a bit squicky...then again...what history isn't?
The French Flag, over Fort de France.
Martinique, incidentally, is a French state, so is more akin to French Hawaii than French Puerto Rico. Although it is still very much a Caribbean nation, with its economy very much based on rum, sugar, and slavery. (Well...not slavery any more, although we're about to get to that...)
KP and I decided to do the "Rum and Flowers" tour, since it sounded like it would hit lots of cool things, including the very lovely Jardin de Balata, which is supposedly one of the greatest tropical gardens in the world. (It was on the "top things to do in Martinique" website.) So we got off the ship and onto a bus with a very grouchy looking, yet also VERY French tour guide.
Things started okay. We drove by a (modern yet pretty) church.
Pretty church is pretty?
It was raining, so not great for the garden, but hey...we were on a tour! So we went anyway.
While we waited for the rain to pass (it didn't) we sat inside an old Creole building and learned about the local wardrobe.
The local clothes.
Apparently there were a few things to take note of. The first is the fancy hats. The number of leaves denoted the status of the woman. One meant single. Two meant with someone (and unavailable). Three meant taken but...willing to consider. And four meant, pay me and I'm up for it, often augmented by bills shoved into the folds of the scarf.
The other was the chains. Apparently, um, the local women (well...local black women) liked to dress up fancy when ships came in as this meant more cool things to buy. They wore all their jewelry, which had some other meanings...
Back when slavery was legal (said with a bit of a sigh from my tour guide...you can see where this is going), the only slave allowed to wear jewelry was the favorite of the landowner. Who, um, got to wear a gold chain around her neck. Rather symbolic, no? But then it became part of Martique culture for all women who could afford it. Fashion can be rather dark, can't it?
But hey, no reason to think on Martinique's dark past when we had GORGEOUS FLOWERS, right? Right?
Sadly I didn't get many photos due to the rain. Oh well...
Anyway, the gardens were pretty, if very wet. And the botanical tour was well...we'll just say that the tour guide spent a startlingly long time pointing out the especially thorny bushes where her ancestors used to whip slaves (back when that was legal *sigh*) and noting how razor sharp the leaves of sugar canes were (the better to slice up runaway slaves). It was all a bit...unsettling. Even if the flowers were pretty.
But hey! Enough with the dark stuff! It was time to go to Habatation Clement, the rum distillery!
Along the way, we got some other interesting tidbits from our tour guide.
First we got a tour of the native wildlife. Apparently only 3 indigenous species had survived the Europeans. Our tour guide hated them all with a passion. They were the pit viper (which honestly sounds freaking terrifying, as it's a super poisonous snake), the pink tarantula (which was kind of cute, actually), and a raccoon like thing that she seemed to hate with a bizarre, indescribable fury. Quite clearly, she wished her ancestors had just nuked the whole island then come in with their slaves and planted sugar cane.
The next was her feelings on rum. At first, I'd thought, sure, she's taking us to a rum distillery. OF COURSE SHE'S GOING TO TALK ABOUT HOW GREAT THE RUM THERE IS. But no. It wasn't the rum at this particular distillery. It was all Martinique rum. Apparently, according to her, Martinique rum is distilled from crushed sugar cane. They take the PURE sugar cane juice and distill it, unlike the swill that they make in those ENGLISH colonies like BARBADOS where they use the dregs (molasses) to make rum. It's disgraceful. They wouldn't even feed that nonsense to Nubians.
Nubians...
Which brings us to her next lovely quote.
She was going on and on about the disasters that befell Martinique, each making it less lovely a place to live. Why, there was a volcanic eruption that destroyed a town. The price of sugar crashed. And then there was abolition, which made them bring in all these Indian workers and...
Let's just say that this wasn't my last encounter with how the Caribbean wasn't quite like the west coast, but it was definitely the most extreme.
Moving on. The lady loved her rum. They drink it all the time here. For breakfast, with fruit juice. For dinner, straight. Whenever. As long as it's not gross English rum (this honestly is the most French statement I can imagine, I must admit), it's great.
So we got to Habitation Clement. It was bought back around the turn of the century by a black man who'd done well enough to buy himself his own plantation. He kept most of the architecture intact, which was quite lovely, even if it did make you feel good to live now, when a modest income will buy you a house bigger than that of a fantastically wealthy plantation owner.
Barrels of rum at Clement.
The plantation house.
Anyway, after wandering around for a bit, we got to taste rum. As much rum as we wanted. Which seriously, was waaaaay too much rum for a tour that begin at 8 am.
I tried a couple, including the super fancy stuff. Ultimately, I liked the not-super-fancy-seven-year-old stuff best, along with a few mixed rums that were a cheap $10 each. I ran home with them. ^_^
I also picked up a few (for $1 each...yeah, crazy!) tasters as I couldn't stand drinking more. I found the white rum to be disgusting, but ended up feeling super sad that I didn't pick up the Creole Shrub (http://www.rhumclementusa.com/creole_shrubb.htm_) while I was there. (It's an orange, slightly spiced rum that is FREAKING AMAZING. I don't know what it is, or how they do it, but it's SO good! It's like a distilled orange! Apparently it's traditional in Martinique around Christmas, although also apparently people drink it all the time, because Martinique.)
Slightly buzzed, I returned to Fort de France.
I'd wanted to find food but, this being France, we had passed lunch so THAT WAS THAT.
Still, I wandered around town. Several buildings had been designed by a protogee of Eiffel and looked AMAZING, so I wanted to see them up close. (Also, I didn't want to be on the cruise ship longer than necessary.)
A busy intersection.
An amazing church! I only wish that the scaffolding hadn't been up and I'd been able to see the whole thing in its glory/go inside.
The library in this town is the best designed library ever. SRSLY.
The town at a distance.
It's a gorgeous place, though, seriously. Although the history is a bit squicky...then again...what history isn't?