About
Les Saintes are dependency islands of Guadeloupe, which in turn is an Overseas Department and Region of France. A mayor and town council oversee the day-to-day operations of the island.
There are about 3,000 inhabitants in the islands. About half of them live on Terre-de-Haut where only a few dozen four-wheeled vehicles travel its roads. There is just one doctor, and his home, designed to resemble a ship's bow, is something of a local landmark.
Terre-de-Haut is only three miles long and about two miles wide. The five-minute walk from the airstrip to Bourg, the island's only village, takes you down a bougainvillea-shaded lane lined with tiny brightly-painted houses and past a centuries-old cemetery. The names engraved upon the weathered headstones reflect the island's Breton and Norman ancestry; the conch shells decorating the graveyard honor its sailors lost at sea.
The men of Les Saintes are fishermen, reputedly the best in the West Indies, and watching them haul in their filets bleus (blue nets dotted with burnt-orange buoys) can fill an entire morning.
LANGUAGE: French
CURRENCY: Euros
