Dominica (dom in EEK ah)

The south.

Our first impression of this most anticipated of islands was not that good. The main town of Roseau is a bit seedy and not the least bit attractive. But we had a visitor at the boat named Poncho who asked if we were interested in a tour of some of the wilderness areas inland. If we were, there was another couple who were also interested and that would halve our cost to him. We agreed and he and his assistant Miguel picked us up at 9:30 the next morning. We met John and Diana from South Africa and off we went up into the rainforest. For the first hour, Sue and I did the aerial tram ride over the rainforest canopy while the others checked out some remote lake. Then we all went to a gorge that you are supposed to swim up. Sue and I felt compelled to get a little work done so opted to go up the trail and get a shot of the falls instead.
"How far is it to the falls?" I asked.
"You'll see the turn off to it."
Well up the trail we went. And up, and up, and up. We finally met a guy coming down who told us we had passed the turn off long ago. Back down we went. Upon finding the falls, we saw that there was no shot. We got to the bottom just in time to get in the van and head off to the next thing. Everyone said the gorge was fantastic and we really missed out. Oh well. Off to Middleham Falls.

The hike to Middleham Falls is 45 minutes of very strenuous hiking up and down extremely steep, muddy terrain. It is however through beautiful, lush rainforest tangled with every description of plant and tree imaginable. Many of the trees had those long, thin, buttress roots near the base. Since every step of the trail seemed to be up or down, it was paved with sections of a certain type of tree with a very fibrous bark that makes it very non-slip. We could hear the falls long before we saw it because it's 260 feet high and the water makes quite noise when it finally pounds into the pool at the bottom. And a wind. Swimming in the pool (Sue's photo) was like swimming during a tropical storm. Sadly, we were there just long enough for a few photos and my swim. Then it was back to burning the quads on the trail. After surviving that, we went to a small restaurant overlooking the river. Poncho called in lunch orders from the falls. (cell coverage in the US should be so good) Everyone mostly ordered the shrimp or fish. These might have been the best choices but I had the curried goat if only because, well, how often does one get offered goat? It was good too.
We thought this was the end of the day but no. We headed next to Miguel's family property which had been turned into a day spa of sorts. First there was a Robinson Caruso-esq building that was a bar. Then the grounds spilled dramatically downhill toward a small river. On this hillside were breadfruit trees, banana trees, flowers that you would normally see at a nursery hothouse, vines, etc. Combined with the fact that we were now getting a brilliant orange glow from the western sky, it all seemed like a real Garden of Eden. Where the land turned steeply back uphill, there was a 30 foot waterfall. We walked along the river in the other direction and came to 6 old bathtubs clustered together. Above each was a length of large bamboo. One end jutted out from the hillside and the other ended over the middle of a tub. Out of each poured hot spring water that welled up on their property. We each got in a tub and soaked until well after dark. Very relaxing - as if I wasn't relaxed enough from the many rum drinks and all the brisk hiking. Some day. We didn't get back too the boat until near 10.