Dominica 15:17.10N 61:22.80W
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Sun 20 May 2007 23:08
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For those of you who have read my blog in the past
and had a quiet little chuckle at the expense of my poor spelling, well
chuckle no more.....I've fired the secretary and got myself a computerised one.
She might not be able to make a cup of tea and doesn't look up to much but she
doesn't answer back and does pretty much what she is told. Yes, ABC Spell
Check, but no doubt I will slip in a few spelling & grammar googlies every
now & then just for the amusement of the English Language
police.
Well, did Dominica live up to our high
expectations......yes and some.
Portsmouth, Prince Rupert Bay was our first stop. A
very beautiful bay surrounded by rain forest and over looked by an old British
Colonial fort. As you might expect with a rain forest, there is a lot of rain.
But lucky for us, it fell mostly on the forest and not in the bay. It is still
officially the dry season but it didn't stop the rainbows from putting on a
fantastic show for us with great regularity. Besides, according to the
locals, it is not rain, but 'liquid
sunshine'
  Our first trip was up the Indian River. This river
is part of a nature reserve and you are not allowed to travel up it without
a registered guide and outboard motors are banned for all. So we were silently
rowed up the river by Albert our guide right into the rain forest
itself. It was very atmospheric with large overhanging trees, intertwining
vines, strange tropical plants and rainforest wild life such as exotic birds,
big bugs and boa constrictor snakes. The site is very much like you would
imagine a jungle to be, so much so, it was used as a back drop to film part of
the 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.
   For our second tour we used another guide. He
looked like a cross between Princess Anne and Frank Bruno and was aptly
named Winston. He had a great sense of humour, an extensive knowledge of the
islands flora & fauna and wore a silly hat....perfect. This was a
nature tour, mostly by minibus and some by foot, and the islands goodies were
suitably pointed out and explained. Did you know that there are numerous types
of bananas?..... some you eat as fruit, some you cook as vegetables, some that
are yellow & some that are red, and some that aren't called bananas at
all but called plantains and just look like bananas. Confused, bored or
both?, well sorry 'cos here's some more very interesting facts. Dominica can
grow almost any fruit or vegetable but strangely enough not apples. Their main
crop used to be sugar cane to produce rum, molasses or raw sugar but is now
citrus fruits & cocoa. They don't have any dangerous beasties or
poisonous snakes except perhaps for the boa constrictor which when provoked
might give an affectionate squeeze and then swallow you whole. They have an
abundance of water, approx 300 inches per annum up in the mountains, 365
rivers (one for each day of the year) with numerous water falls. There are 9
volcanoes on the island, 7 of which are active, sulphur springs, hot pools, cold
lakes, and organised nature trails to see them all, which
will keep even the most arduous hiker satisfied. Around the coast there are
marvellous coral reefs covered with the clearest azure blue waters, the best we
have seen so far. This is all topped by the friendliest, albeit one of the
poorest peoples in the Caribbean. I know it sounds a bit like a freebie from the
local tourist board, but if you are into the nature thing, I can think of worse
places to go!.
Prior to the English, Spanish & French bashing
each other & the island about mostly in the 18th century,
the island was occupied by the peaceful Carib Indians from South
America. Some of the descendents are here today and mostly live in an
Indian Reservation in the North East of the Island. We visited the site but the
tour was a bit sterile and you only got to see what they wanted you to
see so it became a bit of a theme park. We were half expecting a log flume
at the end, but we did get to take some photos but we didn't get to see 'Big
Chief Sexy Bones' the witch doctor....a bit of a shame as Joanne was hoping for
some voodoo magic to help her sleep better at night.
    Photos above: Not a very good one of Winston
getting his silly hat blown off, me & Neil getting pummelled under the
water fall at Emerald pool, a Carib Indian house and Jo & Tracy getting
snared by a strange women eating tree.
We moved on to Roseau on the South West
coast to explore the southern part of the island. This is where most of the
action is with regard to both urban & jungle. The town is nicer and has
more to offer than Portsmouth (and Portsmouth UK) and the rain forest has the
most volcanoes.
We chose Seacat as a guide for our tours here and
picked up one his moorings and took a line to the pontoon to keep the
bows into the swell. This was a great spot as not only was it very comfortable,
we only had a short row to get ashore and water was available by hose
as & when.
This Seacat guy was interesting to say the least.
When he wasn't away with the fairies, if you know what I mean, he was a bit of a
giggle. He gave us several options for a tour and we whittled it down to
two. The first choice was a hour & half hike (there
& back) to a spectacular waterfall, have a nice traditional Caribbean lunch
and a gentle hike to another waterfall to work off our lunch and a cooling
swim at the end in one of the natural freshwater pools. Choice number
two was a 14 mile, 6 hour, killer hike up & down volcanoes to a boiling
lake. Now this boiling lake, as the name suggests, is boiling so you cant swim
in it or you just end up being lunch for the local cannibals. So you can only go
there to look at it, if you can see it through the steam and then turn round a
go back...d'oh. I also can't remember when any of us walked more than
a couple of miles on the flat let alone 14 miles up & down rugged volcanoes.
So it seemed a bit of a no brainer for me....waterfalls here we come. But no we
had dissent amongst the famous four, Neil fancied the Boiling Lake trip, oh
pooh! That's ok I thought, Jo was even more unfit than me and Tracy was the
only sensible person amongst us, the waterfall trip is still in the bag. I
smugly suggested a majority vote and would you believe it, Tracy in a
moment of madness and solidarity for her husband, voted for the Boiling
Lake. Damn, stalemate I thought, but no the worse was yet to come. Jo said she
didn't mind which she did & so abstained. This meant with two for, one
against the Boiling Lake and one abstention, no,no,no,no.....yes we were going
to the Boiling Lake.
The trip started at 6.30 and after a short
minibus trip we were at the base of the climb. Everyone seemed quite chipper,
even me despite my sore throat, head cold and general misgivings. Off we yomped
at a reasonable pace up a gravel track, some log steps, a near
vertical incline, some more slippery steps and yet even more steps.
After approx one hour of this we were knackered and asking 'how much
further is it? are we there yet?'. So Seacat stopped at a stream for a while so
that we could have a break and some breakfast. At this point, it dawned on us
that we weren't even a half way there yet and I sensed even top yomper Neil
was having second thoughts like the rest of us. But no, with true grit, we
marched on and on and on and up and on and up again and just for good measure we
went down a bit and then up. Cripes, we were going on for ever, up & down,
up & down, where the hell were the flat bits.
Eventually we stumbled across the Valley of
Desolation. Aptly named, as hot stinky sulphur pools and hot rocks was all
that was on offer. To make light of the near desperate situation,
we stopped at one of the hot pools for our second breakfast. Just as
we were slowly recovering we were attacked by Seacat who had obviously been
affected by altitude sickness.
   We survived the attack, which actually was only a
friendly gesture Dominica style and he gave us a hard boiled egg each, boiled in
one of the hot water streams. Very nice but where was the
bacon?
After another hour or so we finally reached the
Boiling Lake. Well there it was, the Boiling Lake, boiling away, ya boo. Time
for another breakfast. Breakfast no.3 was a 'Dominica hotdog', which is a
plantain (banana type thing) with salt cod in it. It was surprisingly nice but
could have done with some ketchup.
So after being suitably fed, we started back
down.....only another 7 miles and three hours down the same track.....couldn't
wait.
All was going well until me & Neil decided
to jump in one of the hot sulphur pools. A bit hot at first but it soon became
very soothing, in fact too soothing 'cos much to our dismay, our legs ceased and
we still had the best part of the trip back still to do. Seacat said with a
smile on his face ' yeh those hot pools will do ya no good mon'. That piece
of advice would have been better given before we jumped in. Neil wasn't too
bad but I suffered big time. I struggled to walk at all and part the way up a
steep incline I seized with cramp. For encouragement a guide said ' they'll
never get you outa here mon', 'no heli-choppers to fly you out in Dominica
just black men with big choppers!'. After a fair bit of moaning and thigh
slapping, we all eventually made it down to the start where we swam our aches
and pains away in a cold pool under a waterfall in a cave.......a finish in
grand style.
Neil feeling quite pleased with himself for getting
down first in just under 6 hours, said ' that was good wasn't it'. A
resounding 'NO' echoed off the cave walls as we all
considered throwing him back in the pool fully clothed.
It took several days to recover, much to Seacats
amusement. He said 'I take you for a little stroll and then you sleep for 3
days'. Perhaps we should stop eating all the pies and eat more Dominica
hotdogs.
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