Wayne Baumgarten and Debbie Baumgarten

A Travel Blog

Guadeloupe- Day One

Guadeloupe: We spent our first day just resting up from the frantic rush to get ready and the long trip. We got our first taste of the beaches and were pretty impressed. As expected we had the white sand and crystal clear water, but there were also many great ocean “swimming pools” where a sand bar or reef s a few hundred yards offshore allows the the waves to break and provides “warm bath” swimming areas. We were duly impressed. Our hotel is an interesting model. For $100 a night we rented a decent sized studio which has a balcony with full kitchen. There is no room service of any kind, and the restaurant and bar is open only periodically though the day. By 9:30pm, everything is closed. But it suits us nicely. Towards the end of the day we rent a car and prepare to start exploring the island.

The Road is Long

Well the road is certainly long to Gaudeloupe (gward-e-loop). This large caribbean island is a part of France, and a good way down the island chain. The flight took all day and it was dark when we landed. Even the taxi drive to the hotel took almost an hour, flying through the small windy streets with our French speaking cabbie. Opps, I thought you were going to learn French before we arrived?

Leaving San Antonio

San Antonio has been very good to Debbie and I and we both fell in love with the Texas State of Mind.

Speed limit of 80, signs that say “don’t slow Texas down”, you can feel the free-wheeling drive to get things done. It’s very refreshing. The Tex-Mex food is pretty good too. But it was time to move on, so move on we did. We sold our beloved burgandy BMW, rented out our house to a long term leaser, packed up our stuff and hit the road. I moved from my big old powerhouse workstation to my laptop and Debbie and I set up to keep as many customers as we could that we could properly look after by phone and email. We were heading out to see the world, something we have not done since the early 80’s and never done together.