St Martin, Caribbean

St Martin (Caribbean) We arrive from Miami on an American Airlines flight from Miami; the landing is epic - you come down 10 metres above the heads of the tourists sunbathing on the beach, but then, since the runway is short, the braking the moment the wheels touch is powerful. Here Mauro and I sleep for a couple of nights in a small hotel right at the end of the runway, with air conditioning that always rattles. We spend our days watching the big birds land from very close up, and roaming around the island. At the little harbour there are big sailing yachts belonging to wealthy characters, one even from Italy. This is a paradise half French and half Dutch, though across the whole island the predominant language is French. From afar we see 4 cruise ships, which fill the island with thousands of tourists for a single day.

That's why hundreds of identical little shops have sprung up like mushrooms. Our hotel pool is very beautiful and I use it; we even have a slightly smaller one right in front of our room. Here I set something of a record too: coming as we did from New Zealand, having slept little on the plane and with our body clocks thrown off, we slept more than 15 consecutive hours. And then the day comes when our Air France A340 takes us back to Europe. Bye.