Tag Archives: st. martin

How to Find the Guana Bay Hike

The Guana Bay hike is a popular hike on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, but it can be pretty hard to find if you’ve never done it before. To avoid driving endlessly around or scrambling up a frightening hillside of loose rocks, follow these directions and enjoy one of the most beautiful hikes of your life! Here’s how to find the Guana Bay hike in Sint Maarten.

To Find the Guana Bay Hike: 

To get the hike, drive north (counter-clockwise) from Philipsburg. If you’re on Pondfill Road, drive toward the east coast of the island and go north (left) at the freed slave roundabout. Keep driving until you see the sign that says “Guana Bay” on your right. It’s kind of small, so keep your eye out. You’ll turn right at the next right after you spot the sign. The road will take you up a hill, then down and to the coast. You’ll see the beach on your left and the parking lot on your right.

Now, it’s probably good to know that the name “Guana Bay Hike” is a misnomer. The beach on your left is Guana Bay, and the hike does NOT start here. We thought it did the first time we went, because getting lost is apparently just part of hiking for us. It was still fun, but it’s not the trail.

If you’re here, you’re in the wrong place

When you see the beach and the parking lot (aka dirt patch), keep going. You’ll get to the end of the road at a while abandoned house. The trail starts here, going directly toward the coast.


Full-Day Jet Ski Tour in St Martin

The Trail Head: 

Like I said, the trail begins at the end of the road. It goes directly down toward the water, dipping down and passing this weird old garden thing before heading up. This is the path, and you can keep going until the end.

 

This is actually the very first Saint Martin activity that Ben and I did when we first moved here, over a year and a half ago! Our friends Austin and Stephanie took us here to give us a taste of the island life. Here’s a picture of Ben and I way back before we got our Caribbean tans. It’s hard to believe that this island adventure is almost over.

The Path

The Guana Bay path isn’t the kind of thing you want to do in flip-flops or even Chocos, really, although I have done it in Chacos. I also wouldn’t recommend taking little kids past the first couple bays, unless they’re seasoned hikers. I have taken kids to the rocky area and the first bay you reach. That part isn’t too bad.

After the first part, though, you get some narrow trails, steep drops, and straight-up hillsides. The end result, however, is worth it. It takes about an hour to get to the end.

By the way, “X” does not mark the spot when it comes to the Guana Bay Hike in Sint Maarten. Stay away from the old, disintegrated paths marked with a red “X.”

Very steep!


Fly Zone Extreme Adventure at Loterie Farm

Along the Way

Don’t forget to enjoy the treasures you find along the trail! One of my favorite stops is at the boulders. This is fairly early on in the hike. You’ll see all the big, black rocks. Climb down there and explore the tide pools and rocks. This is a great pace for viewing the cays and islands off the coast. The biggest one is St. Barth’s, and the closet cay is Guana Cay.

Another cool place is Geneve Bay, where you can often find pelicans swooping to the waves in search of fish. This is also a great place to hunt for conch shells.

There are also a whole bunch of goats on the path! When I take my dog, Kito, on this hike, she loves to chase them. There’s nothing I can do about it, so I just keep going and she eventually comes back. The first time she went racing after the goats, she was covered in cactus spikes from head to toe when she came limping back. Now she knows about the cactus and stays away.


St-Martin and St Maarten: Sightseeing Tour of the French and Dutch Sides of the Island

The End

The end of the Guana Bay Hike is the very best part! Here, you’ll find a deep natural pool that is protected from the waves. You can swim here, but beware of the urchins! My friend Jay was stung by one pretty badly. Just stay away from the walls and you’ll be fine. This is also a great place for sunbathing.

Beyond the Tide Pool

The Guana Bay Hike is already a pretty long hike if you go all the way to the pools, but if you’re up for more, the path continues. I’ve never been myself, but I believe the trail comes out at Point Blanche.

If you want to find more hikes in Saint Martin, check out my SXM Activities Page or read these posts on the Lovers Beach Hike, the Wilderness Hike, and the Pic Paradis Hike. Subscribe or like the 3rd Culture Wife Facebook Page for more posts on Saint Martin hikes!

Photo creds: Alyssa F. and Austin W

 

A Walk Through Wilderness (And the Dump)

What ended with flames, dogs, and old tires began with an innocent little walk in the hills. Ever since Ben and I got married, our hikes always seem to end up with us accidentally walking on private property, and then trying desperately to get out unseen as fast as possible.  Naturally, our latest hike ended up the same way, although it started out very nice.

Ben and I are trying to save money, so we decided to skip the fancy stuff for my birthday this year and go hiking in a new place. To give you some context, “hiking” for us usually ends up being bushwhacking through some marginally dangerous area, and one of usually gets stung by a wasp or poisoned by a manchineel tree or something along those lines. Don’t ask us why we keep doing it. Maybe it’s an addiction.

Trails are great (and slightly less painful), but there’s something about going where no man has gone before (at least in the last year or so). We always end up finding the most exhilarating views and loneliest places, which makes it all more than worth it.

On this particular hike, we began at the Grandes Cayes area in French Saint Martin. There is a nice though somewhat rugged trail that goes around the hill to a hidden beach called Petit Cayes, but we decided to go straight up. We tried once before, but we got rained out and had to go home. This time, it was a perfect day! This area of the island is so nice. When the grass is new, it ripples in the wind like an ocean of green. Simply mesmerizing.

By February, though, the grass is less flexible. We discovered why they’re called “blades” of grass. By the time we were done, we were criss-crossed with cuts and bleeding slightly. I felt like I had been in a sword flight with a bazillion Lego-sized Musketeers.

Once we got to the top of the hill, we could see absolutely everything! It was such a clear day that we could see Anguilla and its keys, Tintamarre, Pinel Island, and St. Barth’s in detail. We looked down and saw a helicopter and a someone parasailing below us.

Amazingly, we could also see the ocean floor through the water. It was so clear that we could pick out the reef, the drop-off, the sandy areas, and the sea grass. At this point, I was really wishing we had brought our snorkel stuff. If you’re looking for a good place to snorkel or dive on Saint Martin, this is (in my opinion) the best spot of all. Also, check out Tintamarre— can you believe people used to live there? Today, it’s uninhabited and pretty expensive to get to, even though it’s close. Heck, you can go to St. Barth’s for cheaper and actually get to do stuff. Still, the allure of Tinatamarre is calling me. I’m jealous of the people on those sail boats.

After I published this, someone sent me this link for a cheaper fare to Tintamarre. I’m adding it here, just in case you want to go!

We followed what looked like a trail for a while, but eventually it turned into a meandering path that disappeared altogether. We found a 200-yer-old property line, and walked on top of it for a while. Back in the day, landowners had their slaves haul rocks to build short walls all along their property. I can’t imagine having to carry those big rocks up the hills! It is brutal enough just to climb up there. Eventually, the rock wall disappeared into a thicket of thorn bushes, so it was back to wading through the six-foot-tall grass and looking for random cow paths.

Once we got to the summit, we felt like we were on top of the world! We did a bit of bouldering for the fun of it.

At this point, we were just about directly above Petit Cayes Beach, and we know that there’s a path somewhere in the hills that goes directly to the beach. I’ve seen it from the other side. So we started looking.

That’s where we went wrong. 

At this point, we began to wade aimlessly through the grass, looking for some sign of the trail. There was no sign of it anywhere. Eventually, we decided to throw in the towel and go back down. Unfortunately, we had lost the path!

We needed a vantage point, so we ended up walking up this super steep path to a high mountain. We discovered more great views, and the less-than-great news that our original “path” was ridiculously far away by now. Like three peaks over.

Also, Ben almost ate this spider:

You know what they say: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Obviously, this was coined by a mathematician and not an explorer. We decided to go for it, and went straight down the slopes. It was about a 30 degree angle and we couldn’t see where we were walking, but every time we tripped over a rock or fell into a hole, the long grass caught us softly.

To give you an idea of what we walked down, here’s a picture of the hill. We started from where I took the picture and ended up on the left edge of the dump. That’s wasn’t the goal, though, obviously. From the top, it looked like we could get close to the dump and walk around the edge. Oh, sure. That worked out great.

By this time, I was wishing I could pull out a parachute and just jump down. Ben went hunting for a trail, and I walked/ tripped/ fell down the hill and met up with him at the bottom.

Once we got down there, we discovered, much to my dismay, that the only way out was through the dump. I could walk up and around or attempt to shred my legs further in a thicket of thorn bushes, but if I wanted to be done with our everlasting wandering in the endless grass, the dump was it.

Of course, I wasn’t thrilled by this idea. It wasn’t as bad as the time we got lost on the Camel’s Head in Phoenix, jumped down into what we thought was a piece of undeveloped desert, and found ourselves in a minimally-landscaped, highly-secure, multi-million dollar estate’s backyard with a dog, but it was still pretty bad. Some employees at the dump saw us considering our options, and they started whistling and motioning at us. At the time, I was sure they were going to call the Gendarmes on us. Looking back, they were probably warning us of the unpleasant landscape we were headed for. In either case, we were kind of stuck.

So down we went, into the dump, walking briskly around the edge and hoping not to run into anybody who would yell at us. By the way, I by am no means advocating this. Hopefully you can use our mishap as a way to avoid your own.  We were definitely not enjoying it, especially when we took a wrong turn and ended up right in the middle. Yuck! Now, I’m not hating on the dump, because it looked well run, but it is a dump, after all. It didn’t smell too nice. We were seriously regretting our decision not to go up and around at this point.

Now, if you know me at all, you’ll know that I am a RULE FOLLOWER. No, I’m not going to have another piece of pizza. One per person– didn’t you hear the announcement? Of course I’m not going to return your text during class. The teacher said no phones. No! I can’t share my password with you. The terms and conditions said I can’t. And yes, I read them before clicking the box.

Needless to say, I was really freaking out at this point.

We suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a swarm of flies, and took off running. Flashes of the dump passed me as I ran: a stack of tires, some shreds of clothing, little tongues of flame licking at paper and cardboard. There was a pack of dogs rooting around at the edge, and they looked at us like we were crazy as we flew past. We came to the edge, where there was a steep but short drop and enough room to slide through the fence. Down and through we went, fast as we could go, and came out panting on the other side. Wow, I don’t want to do that again!

We walked, exhausted, to the water’s edge, balancing carefully on the piles of bleached coral that had washed up on the shore. Our hundreds of tiny cuts stung as we washed them in the ocean water. We sat down, exhausted and happy that we made it. “I guess we’ll laugh about this later,” Ben said.

What’s a hike without a little adventure? 

Tell me in the comments: what is your most memorable hiking experience?

 

What’s It Like to Bring a Dog to Sint Maarten?

Wondering what it’s like to travel overseas with a dog? Turns out, harder than you’d expect but more than worth it! Here’s my friend Jon, the husband of a med school student at American University of the Caribbean and proud owner of a boarder collie, on how to bring a dog overseas and help him adjust. To read more of Jon’s pet advice, head over to The Healthy Pup. 

Once we realized that we would be moving to St. Maarten for two years, there was no question that Forte, our Border Collie, was coming with us! As we prepared for our move, we realized we didn’t like the idea of Forte stuck in a cage in the cargo hold, so we decided to make him an emotional support dog so that he could sit with us on our flight. We had our vet fill out the paperwork necessary for Forte to travel to St Maarten.

We knew that Forte’s high energy would be hard to manage throughout two flights and a layover, so the vet gave us a tranquilizer that we had Forte take after we got to the airport, which made him drowsy but able to walk along with us. We had quite a day – we woke up at 2 in the morning, flew from Chicago to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta to St Maarten. We landed in St. Maarten at about 3 in the afternoon, and Forte was great the whole time. He mostly slept on the flights (and lay on my wife’s lap a lot), and he waited patiently during the short layover we had. He’s weird about going to the bathroom in new places, so we didn’t have to worry about any accidents (but we did bring a few pads just in case).

 

Forte had no problem adjusting to his new home! We brought the blanket he always had in his cage as well as several of his favorite toys. Forte loves to play, so the minute we started throwing his ball around the apartment, he relaxed. We had to buy a new cage and retrain him to like his cage, and that was a process, but he likes his cage now, too! We also packed a few pounds of the kibble he was eating back home.

When we got to the island, we bought food and slowly increased the proportion of new food in his meals, which allowed him to transition to the food we will continue to buy on the island without getting an upset tummy. The dog park near the school is a great place to take Forte and throw the Frisbee for him, which is his favorite (my wife and I like it too, because it tires him out so much)!

We wondered if Forte would become depressed or homesick, but so far he has been his playful, affectionate self! We have done everything we can to make him feel at home, and it looks like we have been successful.


EarthDog Eco-Friendly Hemp Dog Bed – $84.00

from: The Ultimate Green Store

Air Show in Sint Maarten

Things that go fast never lose their appeal for us. Sure, we may outgrow the toy trucks and die-cast tractors, but real planes? Forever awesome. Every year (starting in 2015), Sint Maarten holds an air show above Great Bay. This year, I took R to the Boardwalk to enjoy the show!

Of course, that was way back in November, but who cares? Better late than never. I couldn’t resist sharing the photos.

The first thing we did was explore the festival on the Boardwalk. Unfortunately, most of the activities were either for adults or younger kids, so R found it kind of boring until the show started. Still, there were some pretty sweet motorcycles because of the biker event that was also happening on the island, and he thought those were cool. So did I, if only for the sheer number of them, even though I seriously could not care less about motorcycles.

The air show started (after much waiting under some palm trees) with parachuters jumping from the planes. They landed not too far from us on the beach, one at a time.

Soon, the planes began to show their stuff. They seemed to fly dangerously close to each other! I think that might have been an illusion of distance and depth, but it’s hard to tell.

 

 

The planes did corkscrews in the air, falling through the air at heart-stopping speeds before leveling out above the bay and flying upward once again.

 

You know, I never thought I was much of an airplane person, but I’m learning how awesome they are! Between Princess Juliana Airport down the street and the airshow in Philipsburg, I just may be addicted to flight.

Salines d’Orient: Come Explore the French Salt Pond

Visit a pond on Saint Martin and find out how beautiful they are! There are plenty of beaches in Saint Martin, but many people forget to appreciate the ponds. The ponds are just as significant to the well-being of the island; while they don’t draw in tourists to sustain the island financially, they do sustain much of the island’s wildlife. The Salt Pond on the French side– better known as Salines d’Orient– is a wonderful place to visit. Here’s how to get there and why you should go.

Why go to Salines d’Orient: 

Unlike the Dutch side’s Great Salt Pond, the smaller French version has not been polluted beyond recognition. This makes it a wonderful place to explore and enjoy. You may never have known it, but there are lots of walking and jogging paths criss-crossing the area behind Le Galion Bay and Orient Bay. In fact, the Le Galion Bay area is completely filled with paths! They have recently received the excellent addition of  an obstacle course, too, but that it a post for another time.

The second reason to enjoy the Salines d’Orient is that it will give you an appreciation for nature and the ecosystems within the pond. Here, all humanity seems to melt away. There’s nothing to see but the gentle ripples of the water, nothing to hear but the crashing of the waves on the tide pools behind you and the occasional call of a marine bird. Behind the pond, mist rises off the mountains, creating the perfect backdrop. You’re nearly convinced that you’ve traveled backwards in time four hundred years, and that you may meet an Arawak gatherer at any moment. This is a beautifully untouched place.


St Martin Canoe Surfing at Le Galion Beach – $69.99

from: Viator

It’s no secret that the ponds on Saint Martin are in big trouble– just look at the Great Salt Pond and other ponds that are threatened by development. Perhaps one of the reasons that these ponds have been polluted is that not enough people recognized their value. Go and see the Salines d’Orient for yourself, and take your children so they can love it and protect it tomorrow. Maybe someday, it will be a protected wetlands area like Mullet Pond. 

I was recently informed by Seagrape Tours that this pond is already a protected wetlands area! Hive five, French side. By the way, after hearing from Seagrape tours, I checked out their website and they give bird watching tours in this area of the island. Pretty cool.

How to get to the Salines d’Orient:

It’s really easy to find the Salines d’Orient. Here’s how to get there:

  • Drive to Le Galion Beach on the French side, just south of Orient Bay Beach.

  • Park. Make sure you park within the gate, not in the sandy lot before the gate. That’s for surfers or boaters generally and it’s further away.
  • Instead of going to the beach, walk to the far end of the parking lot. You’ll see a trail going into the trees.

  • Take the trail. You should pass a sit-up bench.

 


St Martin Supsquatch Surfing at Le Galion Beach – $59.00

from: Viator

  • Turn left.
  • Follow the trail to the pond, which is just to the north of the beach. There’s a path that goes right past it. It’s so lonely and deserted!

Walk around, look for wildlife, and skip stones. Revel in the natural beauty!

Don’t forget to check out the tide pools and the waves crashing against the rocks at the coast while you’re there. It’s not exactly a beach, but it’s a wonderful way to witness the power of the sea.


St. Maarten Combo Tour: Butterfly Farm and Orient Bay – $55.99

from: Viator

As always, pack out your trash and be respectful. The ponds are the island’s heritage, and we need them for our grand children to enjoy one day.

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Stargazing

Island-wide power outages, folks. That’s the way we do life here on Sint Maarten. The power to serve, GEBE? How about “the power to not serve.” “The power to darken an entire island all at once.”

eyes in the dark

It’s become trendy to complain about GEBE and the power problems here on the island, but I actually don’t mind them too much. I guess it’s easy for me to say that since I live in Maho, where we don’t get most of the outages. We’re on the airport grid, and they can’t shut the airport down too often. On Saturday, though, the whole island was down. Black. darkness. No light, except for the occasional building with a generator and one random man rolling down the street on his hooverboard. Despite the darkness, I found a lot to be thankful for.

There wasn’t any point in hanging out inside, and I couldn’t go to bed early since had to go pick up R from his school dance in a couple hours, so I decided to take my dog,  Kito, outside and stargaze for a while. Dang, people, you can see a lot of stars out there when the lights are off! I put down a towel on the grass, lay down on it, and let Kito run around. For all her lack of social graces, Kito is the best fetcher I’ve ever seen. She just drops the ball in my lap, I throw it, and repeat until she drops from exhaustion.

stars in the night sky

Kito and I spent an hour like that. I have an app called SkyView on my phone, which is pretty cool. You hold it up to the sky and it shows you the names of all the celestial bodies and constellations. I really do need to brush up on my Greek mythology, so it was nice to finally take a break from all the usual distractions and just stare at the stars for a while. I could find Cassiopeia and Orion pretty quickly, but I had to re-learn Cygnus, Perseus, and Pisces.

cygnus

After a while, Kito flopped down in the grass beside me. It was so quiet and so dark, just like the rural neighborhood where I lived as a kid. We used to lay out on the trampoline at night, searching out the ancient stories in the sky above. The stars were so bright, just like they were those years ago. It struck me how so much in life changes in such  a few short years, but the stars never change. The sparkling patterns above me were the same ones that the ancient Greeks saw, and even Father Abraham himself tried to count the same glittering specks. Can you imagine how magnificent the stars must look when there is absolutely no artificial light anywhere around? That’s something most of us have never seen that the ancients took for granted. A fiery streak silently sparked through the velvety expanse above. I haven’t seen too many of those in my lifetime, and I felt a sense of being robbed by the ever-present electricity that drowns out the gleam of the night skies.

My musings were cut short by a sudden burst of light. Someone at GEBE had flipped the switch, and the lamp above me suddenly flooded the yard with a warm glow. The magic of the darkness gone, Kito and I packed up and headed upstairs. On the way, I saw TWO centipedes and swore to myself that I’d never lay on the grass at night again. I’m glad I didn’t see those until afterwards, or I would have been sitting on the roof of my car for the whole hour.

tarus

Power outages are no fun, but they really do help you reset your technologically-programmed brain. We’ve only had electric lights for a mere snippet of human history, and people did just fine without them before! I bet they spent a whole lot of time stargazing back then. Like I explained to R later, stargazing was basically antiquity’s version of Netflix. It was the way people used to tell stories, the way we do on a screen now. Sometimes, it’s nice to get back to that. Turn off the modern conveniences and experience entertainment the way our ancestors did.

Here’s a challenge for you: This week, choose a night and stargaze. Download the SkyView app (not a sponsored post, I just think it’s cool) or do your research ahead of time. Learn the stories in the stars, and let your imagination carry you to the top of Mount Olympus. There are so many interesting things to appreciate about the universe– things that even power outages can’t take away.

stargazing
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When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

Psalm 8:3-4