Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Dominica

We had a lovely time on holiday in the Commonwealth of Dominica, just as several people had predicted, and as can be judged from the attached photographs.

We arrived on a Caribbean Star flight from Antigua; anyone who knows anything about flying around these islands will know that it is not a smooth process. VC Bird airport in Antigua can accommodate large planes but the infrastructure isn't that good. When we were finally allowed to walk across the tarmac to our turbo-prop plane, we saw our bags driving off in the opposite direction! I told the stewardess, who just shrugged and said she would see someone about it. She didn't...she was more occupied in trying to fit 46 people onto a 44 seat plane - eventually, two passengers had to get off!

The flight into Melville Hall airport on the island of Dominica is amazing - you fly down the mountainside, with a river just below you and eventually come to the runway. How the larger jet planes will land (once the planned runway lengthening out into the sea is finished) is not something I'd want to think about too much...nor is the thought of "coming next year" night flights!

On landing, as suspected, our luggage wasn't forthcoming, and neither was anyone else's! It turned out that the luggage on board was all from the morning flight, and none of our luggage would fit onto the plane too, so they left it off in Antigua and drove it away! Lots of queuing ensued and then form filling; our bags eventually arrived 22 hours into our hotel after we did...

We had some rain on the first morning; typical Caribbean showers - five minutes on, five minutes off! - but generally had pretty good weather for the rest of the trip. It did rain some nights, and maybe when we were out of town, but we didn't get too wet anytime except on one occasion I'll mention later.

I'd arrived with a bad cold, so didn't fancy doing too much anyway on the first few days, but...

  Posted by Picasa...the carnival Jump Up preparations were in full swing, with makeshift bar counters being constructed out of wood and Kubuli (the local beer) hoardings. We found out about timings for the parades, and made our way into town quite early. We just followed the sound, past some people getting into costumes (left), as it was a little chaotic at first; trucks with huge sets of speakers on the back crawled along the street with masses of people dancing along behind. It was a strange dance really - more a zombie-like jig than anything definitive.

  Posted by PicasaPlenty of rum and Kubuli beer was being bandied around, and everyone looked pretty happy - especially the kids in their costumes. Later in the morning, and after lunch, the more formal parade took place with all the Carnival Queens (left) in their amazing costumes, and lots of groups - ethnic, business, or club driven - following on.

  Posted by PicasaAll the various groups seemed to have their own speaker truck to lead them and all pumped out the salsa/calypso music at very high volume. It soon became clear that one song was being played a lot more than any other - this as the Mas Domnik Carnival theme called Pirates by Bople (some called it Pirates of the Caribbean). Lots of "Yeh Mon's" and quite political when you listened closely to the words...very catchy too! The kids loved it too!

  Posted by PicasaWe took lots of pictures and it was quite easy to follow the parade through the streets or just find a shady place and watch it all slowly go past. One reason the parade was so slow in travelling around the streets was that the massive tall speaker trucks kept getting tangled up in the dangling telephone wires! The kids all looked great in their gear and all were taken care of very well in respect of having plenty of cold drinks available - it was a very hot afternoon!

  Posted by PicasaThe best "speaker" float was the only decorated one - the Black Booty, in honour of the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 the year previous. It was put together by the American (I think) owner of Cornershop Cafe and Green Flash Grill, who obviously had experience of these things... The "Pirates" film crew stayed at the Fort Young Hotel too, and they had the whole block where we were roomed, so it is possible that Johnny Depp and us shared the same room...

  Posted by PicasaWe saw the Black Booty float being built on the Sunday, take part in the parade on Monday (above), and then saw the remnants after it was dismantled (left, Tuesday)! Presumably, this was to allow the truck (far right in pic) to return to former duties...

The Tuesday Jump Up was less organised; it was a really hot day so we didn't venture too far into town in daylight, but we did visit the Rainforest Aerial Tram (left) which was fun. It's very expensive to do (US$55 each) but not a bad three hour jaunt. It was our first venture inland, and we started to understand why things don't run to time very often - mainly due to the volume of traffic on narrow roads with hairpin bends!

We wandered down into town that evening and it was mad! Everyone was very into the music that was pumping out even louder, and we felt a little out of place - not uncomfortable, but that we were at the wrong party. We therefore walked into another hotel bar, and settled down for a few beers. As we drank the first, a woman entered and told the barman that one of the band members around the corner had just been stabbed to death (once in the stomach, and five times in the back it transpired!). We must have been pretty close to this which is a bit scary. He was just 17 years old. The police eventually arrived and with an explosive situation developing they cut short all the rest of the street celebrations and shut the carnival early.

  Posted by PicasaTalk of the gang related murder was everywhere the next morning and most locals were ashamed that it had happened on their island (it certainly isn't a usual occurence). Vaval is the day after carnival has finished, and is the rest day after many hours of celebrating. We went whale watching, and the boat turned up an hour late, but it was worth it. We saw two sperm whales (or the same one twice maybe...but my first ever whale sightings), the second of which circled the boat and even came up for a look at us! The trip was marred a little when the male of an English couple we had been talking to slipped getting off the boat - he badly bruised his toe but it could have been oh so much worse...

  Posted by PicasaWe then took a day trip up to the north of the island; first to Portsmouth and Indian River (left) - a slow row boat trip up though the jungle - then onto Milton Falls (our first proper waterfall of the trip), and then through the rainforest to watch for the two indegenous and endangered parrots - the Sisserou and Jaco, both of which we saw. It was a nice and relaxing day really.

  Posted by PicasaThe next day we decided to head south for Soufriere (left) on the local bus (an event in itself - with a drive via the supermarket to pick up a passengers groceries and then the driver carrying it over and dropping it off on the old ladies porch - real personal service here!), and hire bikes for some exercise. The Dive shop had plenty of literature advertising this bike service but we seemed to catch them short on arrival, and it took a while to get sorted - only a hand-drawn map was provided, and no trails were maintained or available.

  Posted by PicasaWe therefore just headed for Scotts Head which was a nice easy ride about a mile or so along the sea front. At Scotts Head, we climbed the hill to the lighthouse for great views of the meeting of the Caribbean and Atlantic (left).

We had a couple of beers in a roadside bar and then rode back to Soufriere and up the (steep) hill to the Sulphur Springs, where we had a dip in the muddy-looking warm pool. The ride down the hill and back to the dive shop was great, and only a leading car slowed us down and (probably wisely) forced the use of brakes. Rachel had another dip, this time in the hot pool by the sea, where the hot volcanic gasses bubble up and heat the sea water. Several other locals were lying in the pool too, one apparently face down!

  Posted by PicasaOn Sunday, we joined a bunch of Boston-based divers on a trip to Ti-Tou Gorge and Trafalgar Falls. The cold swim through the gorge mouth was good fun for Rachel, and we both clambered across the slippery rocks to get up near to the twin falls (left). Luckily, this wasn't a cruise ship day (they dock on about 4 or 5 days per week), or both places would have been much busier.

  Posted by PicasaThe next day we did the hike to Middleham Falls (left), the tallest waterfall on the island at over 200 feet. It was nice gentle hike really for about an hour, then a steep climb down to the waterfall pool. Rachel was brave enough to climb up the cliff wall and dive (or jump really) into the pool from a good height! The water was too cold for me!

  Posted by PicasaThe Middleham Falls walk was a warm up really for our major hike to Boiling Lake, which we did the next day. It's about 12 miles all told, and took us 8 hours door to door. You start with around three miles of steady climb up through the jungle, then drop down steeply to the Breakfast River, cross it, then climb out and upwards onto the ridge above. This was where we got really wet; you are really sweaty by the time you get to the river anyway, then I slipped in and got two boot-fulls of river water, then it started to rain very heavily. We were both drenched, but happy...The climb along the ridge is tough and long, about a mile and a half of steps, up mainly - probably a climb of around 1500 feet. We had a rest at the top, and had great views, and then we started the very steep decent into the Valley of Desolation(above left). This was quite tricky, and we had to be very careful not to fall. Once down in the valley, the gasses fizzle out of the rocks and sulphur steam is everywhere. It was quite noisy and spectacular.

  Posted by PicasaThrough the valley, you follow the stream down another half mile or so, crossing it a couple of times. I was wet anyway so I didn't care too much if I stepped in the water. After that, you rise up another couple of hundred feet to reach Boiling Lake. Its viewpoint is quite hidden until you are there, and it was another fabulous sight. The lake boils away below you sending out steam and sulphurous gasses (no, you can't swim in it as an American asked - it's BOILING!!!). We had some lunch and then, tired already, started on the return journey back the same way we came. We did stop for a dip in the hot pool of the stream just below the valley which was nice. It was really hard work, especially climbing out of the valley and up to the ridge. The trudge back after Breakfast River was easy in comparison.

  Posted by PicasaKnackered, we didn't go too far that night, or for the next couple of days! We did see some really good sunsets though... Dominica was also the first place I had ever seen the fabled green flash at sunset. In all, we saw the green flash four times during our stay, which is quite something when you've never seen it before!

  Posted by PicasaOn our penultimate day, we were surprised to see two cruise ships try to dock but fail, and after a while they both set off in a westerly direction never to return. The sea had a bit of a swell, but didn't look too bad from the haven of our bedroom balcony, so it was a mystery why this had happened, until...we went into town early that afternoon with the idea of catching the bus down to Scotts Head for an afternoon on the pebble beach and a few beers. The driver told us that he couldn't get that far as the road was blocked. We travelled anyway, as far as he would go (just past Soufriere), and were amazed to see large rocks on the road ahead and later huge chunks of tarmac broken away, all caused by the choppy Caribbean Sea that morning (left). This was why the ships couldn't dock! It was pretty bad, as school kids had to walk home through the damage and some tourist hire cars even braved the road (stupidly!). Hopefully it will be repaired quite quickly but that will be a major undertaking.

The journey home was another long one - having been dropped at the airport, we had a long wait to check in. We were told to go through security immediately but, crazily, only one person at a time was being let in to the room where the x-ray machine and metal detector were situated. Luckily, our Boston dive friends were ahead in the queue and they let us go first as our flight was scheduled before theirs. In the end, the flight was late (qu'elle surprise!) so we needn't have worried. Being late arriving at Antigua meant we only had three hours wait, and as the Virgin, BMI, and BA flights had all just arrived, we had no chance to get out through immigration and into town anyway. Our Virgin flight took off over an hour late but had a tail wind so we arrived at Gatwick pretty much on schedule.

  Posted by PicasaWe really enjoyed Dominica, and can recommend our hotel - Fort Young - plus the only other decent dinner restaurant in Roseau - Le Robe Creole - and also the following; Guyave (for breakfasts and lunch); Cornerstop (for lunch); Green Flash Grill (at Loubiere, for sunset drinks, great service and good food); and Tony's (at Soufriere, for chicken!).

The Dominican people were lovely, the island beautiful, and if they could keep some of the cruise ships away and/or sort out the roads it would be an even better place to have a relaxing break.

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