15 December Island road trip

A car for a couple of days has meant a visit to the Lekouz brewery to pick up a couple of cases of bottles of IPA for ships stores, a day driving around the western half of Guadeloupe island with a fun trip to the zoo and shopping, lots of Christmas shopping.

Yesterday was fun driving and sightseeing. Guadeloupe is shaped like a butterfly; the eastern half is flat with some nice beaches and sugar cane, the western half is rugged, volcanic rain forest with sandy beaches and more things to do, more exhilarating roads for my petrol head husband to enjoy.

Deshaies

We had a short stop in Deshaies, well known to viewers of the BBC series Death in Paradise, and where I couldn't find a public toilet, a long drive down the coast to the high altitude cross island highway and, on a whim and the hope of a loo, stopped at the zoo. What an unexpected delight! I asked David if he fancied a visit? He asked what animals do they have? I said red pandas and he said 'yes, let's go'. Red pandas are so cute.

I know that opinions on zoos are divided; I too have conflicting attitudes between keeping wild animals in captivity vs. keeping a species alive. In a perfect world all animals would be able to live in their natural habitat. I don't know the answer, but this seems a good, small collection of animals I might never have seen or watched and contemplated and their enclosures were thoughtfully laid out. What I particularly liked is that this zoo is set on a hill in a rainforest with views across the ocean. And we thoroughly enjoyed the tree top walk despite being more than 10 years old.

The lemur enclosure was very large. The jaguars were awaiting completion of a new, larger space but looked sad and frustrated.  The red pandas were sheltering from the rain inside their house and all we saw was the ear tip.