At the gates of Paradise, Hell
The Isle of Pins, 100 kilometers southeast of Nouméa (New Caledonia), is nicknamed the “island closest to paradise”, tropical vegetation, beaches of fine white sand, the blue of the lagoon. This is undoubtedly what the 3,000 French political deportees (communards) and Algerian Kabiles saw first. They will build roads, military buildings, their homes, walls of tears and pain. The penal colony will be in service until 1909.
Since nature has reclaimed its rights, the sand is still white, the lagoon is still blue, you are at the gates of paradise.
