An early morning in July: I was running late for a plane, still scurrying around the house, when I stopped one last time to check e-mail before heading out the door. Most of the messages were of small account, but one among them was less easy to ignore. It came from my friend Anny Rey in Munich. It was not an airport kind of meeting, but a tarmac kind of meeting, and you were not supposed to be there, making das Wiedersehen all the more intense. The feeling of joy was so deep that I continued to doze off, feeding on this wonderful warmth.
On any other day I would have answered her immediately. We would have had a nice exchange, and that would have been the end of it. And it lingered through the rest of the week that followed. It was another 10 days before I was back to my desk and able to respond.
By then, an idea had taken root. At its heart is Soufriere, an active volcano that climbs 4, feet into the clouds, wringing out the rain that feeds a lush national forest and a series of spectacular waterfalls called the Chutes du Carbet-our goal for the day.
Guadeloupe is a full-fledged department of France, and by Caribbean standards, its roads are surprisingly good.
But once you leave the highway that rings Basse-Terre and you begin to climb toward the head of the trail that leads to the waterfalls, it becomes instantly clear that while plenty of public money has been spent on putting down the asphalt, comparatively little has gone toward leveling the grades.
