An Autumn Under the Sun: Adjusting to Life in Martinique

Martinique – an island characterised by consistent tropical weather – makes me miss the steady transition from summer to the cooler months that I so look forward to each year in the UK. In the place of coffees in Hyde Park and pub lunches by an open fire, I stand here on my balcony looking at the rainforest as it creeps down the valley towards the open sea. This is autumn as I haven’t experienced it before.

It’s an adjustment on many levels, but particularly that of background noise. Palm trees are louder than I had anticipated; the jostling leaves of the one that stands 20 feet from my third-floor room keep me up at night. The tree crickets erupt into their nightly chorus a few minutes before the sun goes down each day. I have been able to tune out the sound of my fan and at least it brings me some relief from the heat that sticks to me even after I’ve showered.

What I do enjoy is the song of the birds that circle my balcony and perch on the paint-chipped railing to peer into my room, sometimes daring to hop inside and across the tiled floor. Their inquisitive heads turn quickly and at an impossible angle but before I can truly observe them, they disappear into a darting muddle of black and red feathers. In place of robins, this autumn I am enjoying the company of their more moody Caribbean counterparts. I have yet to look up what they’re called.

Short but torrential downpours give us some respite from the standard 30+ degrees, although they take us by surprise – we were exploring Les Anses D’Arlet last week and got rained out. When it rains in England, we seem to just grin and bear it – with or without an umbrella – but the Martiniquais shelter under tattered awnings, vying palm leaves or narrow storefronts until the coast is clear. 

I have taken to wearing sandals most of the time so that my sneakers don’t get ruined in a spontaneous storm. The shutter-like windows in my room don’t quite close and raindrops spatter my desk when the heavens open; some of the pages of my diary are slightly ink stained and the postcards I have yet to address are smudged too.

Thunder here is louder than ever; it sounds like a whip cracking just next to my ear and always catches me by surprise whether I see the preceding lightning or not. Just as the rain stops, without fail steamy clouds float up from the undergrowth of the valley, pushed along the canopy by some imperceptible breeze barrelling towards the coast. The first time this happened, I thought it might have been a fire.

I don’t have curtains in my bedroom and so am woken up by the sunrise each day, usually at around 0530. At night I can see the stars from my pillow – and often Jupiter as my constellation app tells me – but the morning brings vibrant pinks and oranges that emerge from behind the palms that pepper the horizon. Forest covers the landscape pretty much as far as the eye can see, but the terracotta roofs of small houses poke out from the greenery.

Although I am looking forward to returning to the cooler climate of the UK, this is certainly an autumn to remember.