Day Four - Major Activity in Martinique

6.1.11 : 152/365

Day four was an incredibly busy one. We took off early in the morning and went for a scenic drive around the island. Basically, the way that the highway works in Martinique is that it hugs the water for most of the trip around. Plans today were a very easy; Climb the volcano and visit a distillery... no biggie, right?

Here we are coming up on Saint Pierre near the north Caribbean sea area of the island, home of black beaches and the original capital of the island that was destroyed by lava in the 1902 eruption of the Mont Pelée.

Here you can see the Mont Pelée in the background as we start to approach it;

This was just a nice church that we found along the route;

Here is the first picture of our trek, taken from the parking lot situated at 824 metres above sea level;

You can see the aforementioned parking lot in the background here;

There's the parking lot again;

And again;

A sign!

Saint-Pierre (remember that place?)

Another sign! (This is as far as we made it... even with two large bottles of water, we ran out!)

There is that parking lot again... we had to start heading down again to be able to see it;

Here are some signs that will help explain the 'route';

After the volcano, came ice cream, but after the ice cream came the distillery!

I remembered Saint James from being there 15 years ago, so I was looking forward to bring some back!

Here are some pictures of the rum museum;

(that's all the residual sugar cane from making the rum)

So the day was a scorcher and we probably lost A LOT of weight via 'sweat out' on the volcano itself but it was amazing... truly fulfilling!!