A 20 foot climb to Paradise

I’d been living in Guadeloupe for two months before my neighbor first brought me to the hot springs along the D7, a busy island road that I crossed several times a week. In the Caribbean, you can be sure to pass incredible sites every few miles without realizing it, thanks to the lush banana trees and tropical flowers that cover the island. My neighbor, born and raised in Basse Terre, the political capital of the French island 250 miles north of South America, would ultimately help me discover dozens of hidden gems, but this one would become my favorite.
Le Bassin Public de Dolé, or Dolé Public Pool, is an open air bath that collects spring water naturally heated by La Soufrière volcano. Higher up on the mountain there is a water filtration factory, and in order to direct the water the French government built several stone reservoirs connected by a series of streams. Despite being right along a major road, you’ll find very few tourists enjoying the warm water.
One day, just weeks before a plane would take me from my new home in the Caribbean, a friend and I decided to find the source of the hot spring. We left our towels and sandals in the car and started climbing up the side of the mountain, knee-deep in the clear warm water. I felt like Alice discovering the rabbit hole, as the vegetation was so dense we could only see a few feet in front of us, despite the blazing tropical sun. A few minutes later we stumbled upon another pool, this one untouched. It formed a perfect circle, with a single banana plant hanging over the middle like an unlit chandelier. In the distance we could see perfectly the small islands of Les Saintes, the colors so brilliant it could have been a painting in any other context.
As the sun fell behind the trees to our right and the air chilled, we settled deeper into the warm waters. Sometimes to truly discover the beauty of wherever we are, be it our childhood home or just a stopover, we have to open eyes and climb.