Thursday, April 13, 2006

Dominica

Today, Dominica (Dom-in-ic-a). Not to be confused with the Dominican Republic.

Dominica is an island nation, and a part of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is one of the last remaining ocean rainforests. We took a not-so-leasurely stroll up the coast towards the main city. It was kinda seedy, and we were well outside town (apparently the usual cruise dock is under repairs). We were accosted by taxi drivers all competing for our business... but we just wanted to walk. We never did make it to town, it was above 30 degrees, and as you'd expect from a rain forest, quite humid.

We took a tour in the afternoon to Trafalgar falls, in the interior of the island. These dual falls, Momma and Papa a rastafarian man named Christopher informed me, were quite beautiful. They'd have been more beautiful if we could have been under them.

I got to, again, try the local beer, Kubuli.. which is the indigenous name for the island. Quite good. Dominica has no poisionous creatures, our guide informed us after our 30 minute trek in the rainforest... but lots of land crabs, lizards, and snakes (including boa constrictors). Lovely.

We saw wild (or semi-wild) mangos, bananas... and several species that I reconize from the garden at home. Several lizards were spotted, but only one photographed.

There were an unfortunate number of sad looking doggies on the island that Tam wanted to adopt. I managed to convince her that the puppies were happy, and that customs would raise some serious questions about them on our return to Canada.

All in all, a hot, busy, beautiful, poor, sad, bustling place... but we saw quite a bit of the city (Rousseau), and the rainforest, and tried the local beer and guava juice.... about all you can do in 8 hours.

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