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Sighted by Columbus during his second New World voyage in 1493, LA DESIRADE appeared an oasis to his sailors, whose yearning for land earned the whalebacked isle its name - "the desired one". It ultimately proved anything but, as it's the most arid and rocky of Guadeloupe's outer islands. The lack of agricultural options gave it only one use to later French colonizers - ironically as a dumping ground for their "undesirables". From the early 1700s to the late 1950s, it served as a leper colony, a legacy it's only beginning to shed, as travellers are drawn by its off-the-beaten-track persona. Lying 11km off Guadeloupe's Pointe-des-Chateaux, and measuring the same distance from end to end, the two-kilometre-wide island is cut by several mountain peaks topped with wind turbines. While the north coast is marked by rough seas, the south side has some decent beaches within easy access of the ferry dock and the main settlement, Beausejour , a wee village with a miniature church, fading wooden houses and a conch-shell-decorated sailor's cemetery. Two smaller communities, Le Souffleur and Baie-Mahault , are a few kilometres eastward along the only island road; the latter hosted the leprosarium, whose only vestiges, the chapel walls, lie in ruins on the outskirts of town. Both villages front the island's nicest beaches, the better of which, the two-kilometre long Le Souffleur , is shaded by coconut trees.
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