We had planned to see some of the interior of Dominica yesterday and had quite an interesting local experience... We rented a car together with Anna, Christoph and Leoni from Ishani and set off in the morning to see the eastern coastline, the interior mountains and forests, and a village in the Carib territory. All those sights were well worth seeing (esp. the Kalinaga project in the village of Salybia) but when we eventually started driving back to Portsmouth our rental car made some very strange noises and pretty much came to a grinding halt with a broken universal joint in what seemed to us like the middle of nowhere, an hour before dark on a Sunday afternoon... What first seemed like an iffy situation eventually gave us a chance to meet some very interesting Dominicans and experience a great deal of genuine helpfulness. Starting with Joseph, a car mechanic who happened to walk past us on his way home, diagnosed our problem from the noise and coasted with us to the next little settlement (away from his home), after a number of exchanges we ended up with "Super Fly", a "Soccer Artist" whom apparently everyone in Dominica knows (and it sure seemed like it to us). He rode with us to the next little assembly of houses, fixed us up at a little bar/store run by a truly amazing older woman and stayed with us until our rental car agent arrived some hours later with a mini bus to ferry us the 50 km back to Portsmouth. While we were waiting I got to watch the 125 best World Cup goals on a little DVD player in a little hut in the Dominican mountains - not an every-day-treat... There were probably 5-10 other local people involved in all this - thanks to all of them for their help!

We then weighed anchor in Portsmouth this morning and are now in Rosseau at the southwestern end off Dominica, ready to set off towards Martinique early tomorrow morning. Stay tuned ...