Dominica (unfinished)
Somehow 'not so rich, close to poor people and countries’ always attract me. Maybe it is because the people have not transformed into 'I am too busy being important to really notice or care' beings that we all have become.
Dominica (pronounced “dominique-a”) means 'Sunday' in Spanish, Christopher Columbus christened the island according to the day he landed there. To me Dominica meant paradise, 9 days of glorious vacation, no worries and beautiful scenery to soothe the soul.
Day 1: Arrival
We flew from Tampa to Dominica with a connection in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The arrival was kind of scary, all you see is mountain and no runway and at the last minute the pilot made a turn into a valley and still without seeing the runway, we land facing the sea. Since we landed on the eastern side of the island we had to take a taxi to the south-western side of the island. This seemingly simple trip (the island is only 29 miles X 16 miles) proved to be quite an adventure. The road winds up the mountain and down on the other side, most of the time its only one lane wide and the edges are rough. The driver hoots at each of these winds to notify oncoming traffic. The moment you are in the mountains you realize how unspoiled the island is, when we crossed a river, there were woman doing their washing on the rocks, they were singing all the time. Every now and then there was a small one/two room house, built with brightly painted corrugated iron.
We shared a taxi with another couple up to Roseau, the capital. From there the first driver's son took us to Soufriere. This road was along the western coastline, although you go up high too. The taxi-driver was very talkative. We discovered that all the Domicans were a little bit like this guy, extremely eager to tell you everything about their island, and to convince you to fall in love with it. He was rattling all sort of numbers. He had quite a vast knowledge of the plants. At some point he stopped in the middle of the road, jump out, picked some grass. On his return we had to smell the grass and guess what it is, we both thought it smelled like soap. It turned out to be lemon-grass, good for hangovers if you boil it like a tea, and if you dry it and then burn it, mosquitoes will keep away.
Telavilla - Our Web Home
September 14, 1999
Day 2: Discovery
The next discovery was that there are two thing synonymous with paradise, heat and mosquitoes. Every morning when we wake up the little beast we sitting on the net waiting for us to come out so that they can perform their vampire act. The open wall concept of course didn't really allow for air conditioning, but by the end of the week we were accustomed to the heat, but the mosquitoes, never.
Our first outing was to Scotts Head (the Caribs call it Cashacrou), the tip to the South that closes the bay we were staying there. Our cottage was basically between Scotts Head and Souvriere, and both were in walking distance. Once you've walk through the Village there is a neck and then there is a koppie. At the foot of the koppie is a miniature beach, you will just about fit a family on there. From here we launched a snorkel expedition. Ben was very impressed with the cuttlefish he saw. He chased them around watching them change color, until they lost patience and squirted at him.
On the way back we had a light rainstorm. We discovered that it would be a daily routine, of al least 15-30 minutes of rainfall everyday.
The evening we spend at a restaurant in Scotts Head. It was the owner, a very eccentric american lady, birthday celebration. We met almost the total of Dominica's white population, I would estimate about 30. Some are running internet gambling business from the island, some are there to hide from the year 2000 catastrophe and some are part of the Peace Corps. The party also meant that the restaurant/hotel was closed for the rest of the September because it's the low tourist season on the island.
I had seafood for dinner, but Ben did the brave thing and ordered Mountain Chicken, a huge from they catch in the mountains. The unfortunate thing is that the number of frog on the island is dropping seriously. Ben say it taste just like chicken. When we had a discussion about this with one of the local people, he said that everything edible on the island tastes like chicken.
Day 2: Our first dive
The
Our cottage was a nice surprise. It was a little bit south of the town, almost on its own. It was squeezed in between the road and the ocean on a piece of land, that couldn't be more than 10m wide. It was self catering with a small kitchen, the living room and bedroom 'walls' were concertina doors that could open up to the ocean. Everything was wood. Underneath was another cottage of stone, but it was uninhabited for the duration of our stay.
