Car Jaune

The round-the-island public transportation system is called the Car Jaune and is a great system of yellow busses that run to and from most of the major towns and cities. To indicate the next stop, you must clap twice (loudly) to signal the driver. No fancy buttons or cords here; we do things the old-fashioned way. My only worry is that if I have never been there before, how do I know when to clap?

We take the Car to the beach and we took it to the volcano, which works out nicely. The only trick for the volcano was that the bus stop (arret de bus) is 27km (about 15 miles) from the gite. This meant we had to either hike the 27km in the rainy darkness to get to the gite (obviously not a popular option), or hire a taxi that charged 100€ each direction. After hours of trying to rent a car or find a ride, we called our landlord and she said that here uncle would come get us and drive us to the gite. "Uncle" came to our rescue, drove us up the volcano, and helped us check in. We are not sure what his name is, but we like to call him "Uncle." We had the same transportaiton dilemma descending the mountain, but we felt like calling Uncle again might be too much, so we sucked it up and got the cab. Ouch. We think the Car Jaune should extend its network.

Also, these are those huge travel busses. They can take hairpin turns like you would not believe.