We Tarzan et Jane!

All night the rain is splashing down, drenching "Babette". At 8am we and "Fatuhiva" are to meet at the rental-car. Hmmm. And in the morning: more rain. Gallons of it, could've filed the whole water-tank during breakfast.

But at 8 we're off, window-wipers beating double time. Guadeloupe is a butterfly, the wings divided at the "Riviere Salee" channel. We take the "Grand Terre" wing first. That's the flat one. Cows and sugar cane. And a black-and-white checkered cemetery. It's mid-island at Morne-a-l'Eau. Diamonds and checkerboards in tile decorate the mini-houses and patios of this French Caribbean grave-city.
An amazing sight. By now the sun's out, bright on the shiny tiles.
After this first loop we cross the Riviere Saltee. Peering down from the bridge we see the four white moorings for the boats waiting for the bridge to open. That's where we'll be Saturday at 4:45am!

Now we're on "Terre Bas". If "Grand Terre" was pancake-flat, "Bas" has the Caribbean’s highest volcanic summit. I'm not sure how the French managed these misnomers.
We take the Route de la Traversee up into the rain forest and stop at a zoo-cum-botanical garden. All mixed up with lush rain forest. Enormous fans of bamboo, tall tree-trunks heavy with vines, air plants and wrapped in someone else's roots. In between there are flowering plants, their names in French printed on signs. There's a wood/stone pathway leading visitors through the labyrinth park. Dotting the path are cages, housing parrots, iguanas, monkeys, bats, all now native to the island.
Then we arrive at the park's main attraction: the path up in the canopy. First we get into climbing harnesses and carbine-hook ourselves onto a center guy-wire. Two wires for hand rails, two creaky planks to walk on. With two people at a time (allowed) the hanging bridges swing and roll with each step. From bridge to bridge we climb higher and higher into the leafy canopy. Any apes or parrots? I mean besides us. We, Tarzan-and-Jane!
We see a lot of sunny green leaves above, air plants and vines, and the shadowy dark forest floor far below.