Travelling Hopefully - Round and Round

I met Steve in the cold and dark for my tour of the island.  He brought croissants which turned out to be a godsend for reasons which will become obvious later.  There are six thousand people living on St Pierre and I think we went by each one of their houses.  The island isn’t that large and most of the population lives in the town or in a couple of what I would call suburbs if the term didn’t seem a little ridiculous when applied to a town of six thousand.

Once out of town I was in territory familiar to me from Quirpon and St Anthony, pond riddled peat with occasional hills breaking through.  We passed by the cemetery on the way out of town and from the looks of the occupancy level it might be good if the population of St Pierre stopped dying quite soon.

Seals!  I saw seals!  We were driving along the coast as the sun was rising and there were seal heads (presumably with seal bodies attached) bobbing about just offshore.  I scrambled out into the freezing cold to get a closer look and they obliged me by coming closer to get a look at me.  I guess they realised they weren’t in any danger as long as they stayed in the water so we stared at each other until the cold drove one of us back to the car.  Steve was very surprised to be driving a seal around for the rest of the trip.

After that we drank some celebratory liqueur (it was at least eight in the morning so it isn’t like I have a problem or anything) and we continued on our trip around the island.  Along the way Steve provided me with interesting facts about the island such as school kids are taught how to handle a small boat as part of the curriculum and virtually everyone on the island smokes weed.  The gendarmes tend to turn a blind eye.  The marijuana is imported from Canada thus allowing the Canadians to partially offset their bootleg alcohol created imbalance of trade with the islands.  Now if we can only get the regular economy working that efficiently.

Back in St Pierre with our tour completed Steve asked me if there was anything else I was interested in.  I asked for a cup of coffee and for the first time I saw a look of uncertainty in his eyes.  We cruised around looking for open cafes without success.  Steve eventually popped into the St Pierre tourist office and begged me a coffee in a styrofoam cup.  And this was my problem.  On a Monday outside the regular tourist season St Pierre was essentially closed.  I roamed the streets taking random photos, along the way I bought an apple, a baguette and a wedge of cheese, that’s all I ate for the remainder of the day.

I actually liked St Pierre quite a lot but I have a fondness for small, out of the way places.  After all I’m going to be leaving soon back to my home in Australia’s largest city.  I’ll let Steve have the last word on St Pierre.  He likened it to an open air prison.  The island lacks for nothing in modern amenities but there is nowhere you can go without, after quite a short period of time, winding up back where you started from.