The Guadeloupe Islands are a Land of Champions, and we proved it one more time during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where eight Guadeloupean athletes won a medal. The most famous being the judoka Teddy Rinner, holder of 2 Gold Medals.
The diversity of our natural attributes make the Guadeloupe archipelago a godsend for the outdoorsy types, whether your sport is hiking, running, riding, fishing, you name it! Furthermore Guadeloupeans like to stay in good shape and eat healthy. As soon as the sun goes down you will see people jogging all over the 5 islands!
Being active is pretty much cultural
Widdy Grego, best marathon runner of the archipelago, have been practicing for over 20 years. He won the Jungle Marathon in 2014, a 172 miles long race in the Amazon, elected “toughest endurance race in the world”. He also took part to numerous other races around the world, including the Marathon des Sables, a 156 miles long race in the desert
Among all the sports practiced in the Guadeloupe islands, running is the most popular. Several races take place in the archipelago, the most famous once are: the Volcano Trail, the Half Triathlon and the Gwadarun.
And two new races are coming up in december : the Bubble Day Guadeloupe, and the International Marathon of Guadeloupe.
The International Marathon of Guadeloupe will take place on December 18th 2016, starting from Le Moule in the Land of Sugar Cane, passing by Anse Bertrand, and finishing at the Souffleur Beach in Port Louis.
The Bubble Day Guadeloupe take place on December 3rd. It’s a 5km (3 miles) long race, where an activity is a waiting for you at each kilometer. After the race, the Bubble Festival will be held, featuring the best DJs of the Caribbean!
The Bubble Day Guadeloupe is:
-Your Bubble Day Guadeloupe Kit (official T-shirt, official sun glasses, official bag, official glass)
-A warm up with SoFit&Yoga and Trace F
-3 miles of fun (walking, Moonwalking, Pokemon hunting)
– The Bubble Festival starting from 6pm, with Rony Dankers (The French Soca Master) and a lot of other artists.
Tickets and more info.
During the dinner, many dishes are served. You can taste typical Guadeloupean cuisine such as pork and yam accompanied with the famous « Jambon de Noël » (Christmas ham_ you can find it only in the Lesser Antilles), the Boudin Créole (blood sausage), and the Accras de Morue (cold fish fritters). And a great Guadeloupean Christmas dinner is always celebrated with Schrubb, a rum liquor with an orange peel.
Christmas carol
Some of the tombs stand out with a light blue or pink color. And some of the vaults are sometimes real little houses, and some people hire an architect to build their final home. The most impressive one is a 2 story structure with its little staircase, its terrace and its window. But it wasn’t always like that, the town was founded in 1827 and back in those days, a lot of dead were buried on the plantations, and only rich people and nobles, could afford a nice grave. Even in cemeteries, slaves and masters wouldn’t be mixed. Nowadays every social class of the Guadeloupean society is represented. The oldest tombs seem to date from 1847, twenty years after the construction of the town.
Carnival is part of the Afro-Caribbean heritage. It is a major cultural event on the islands. In 1980, several federations were created in order to structure the carnival organization. The Carnival festivities begin in January, Pointe-à-Pitre and Basse-Terre host most of the entertainment. Costumes, Choregraphies and music are prepared one year in advance!
The themes of the groups are different every year. Costumes and floats are decorated in accordance to the themes, which is very important since there are many contests such as « the Best Costume ».
local instruments: recycled items (bottles, conch, wooden stick…), snare drums, Ka drums…And carnival groups have different classifications « Les groupes à cuivre », « les groupes à peau » and « les groupes synthétiseurs», 
The « Fat days» are the most important during Carnival. The « jours gras » are Fat Monday, Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.
The islet also has a lot of history, an Amerindian woman’s skeleton was discovered a few years ago right next to the lighthouse, it is 900 years old!
Guadeloupe Islands blog 
