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Martinique - St Pierre & Botanical Gardens Tour
We did not dock at the pier down town. Instead we docked at the freight pier where they are attempting to set up a few facilities or 2 cruise ships. It is the Quaides Tourelles pier and we were told that at end of our tour we could shop at the Sea Explorer right by the ship -- it is 1 shop. You can not walk from town from here -- too far. It is approzimately 4 Euro's per person to go to town which is about 1 1/2 to 2 miles winding through the freight area and the streets. We had pre-booked the St Pierre and Botanical Gardens tour at $89 per person. In the 80's we had done a similar tour. The tour left at 8:45 and was suppose to be 4 hours long which meant that we should have been back at the pier by 12:45. Our first stop was at the Balata Church where we had 10 minutes to take pictures - no problem. Our second stop was at the Botanical Garden of Balata. According to the map and the oral directions that we were given we were to spend 20 minutes here. As we got off the bus, our guide decided that we had lots of time and could spend 40 minutes here. He also was our guide through the gardens but because there were 53 of us he had to keep running back and forth to describe all the flowers and plants to us. Far too many people in the group. When we finally golt to the end of the garden tour some people wanted to use the restrooms (understandable) and visit the gift shop. One and 1/2 hours later we were finally on the road. Our bus driver decided to step on the gas peddle to try and make up some time. About 10 minutes after we left the gardens we came upon a road construction area were they were resurfacing both sides at the same time. This is only a 2 lane road and once in a while they would open 1 lane and let some cars go through - we were told to pull off the side of the road. After sitting there for over 20 minutes, our bus driver started beeping his horn and pulled out right in front of some cars. It was a tight squeeze past the road grader and trucks delivering the asphalt. Now that we are behind on our time schedule we quickly went through Morne Rouge (Red Hill) which was destroyed on Aug 30, 1902 killing 1000 inhaitants. Today it is known for its spring water bottling factory, tropical flowers and market gardening productions.
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