When we stepped out of the bus in Bense the air was infused the sweet smell of warm cinnamon. A man was sitting in a shed taking the bark off of logs of cinnamon tree. Each log was about two feet long and about 18 inches in diameter. He used a hatchet to peel big curls of bark that are big enough to curl around my arm.

Bense is a small town in the northeast corner of Dominica and the start of the hike to the Chaudiere Pool on the Hampstead River. The hike starts on a dirt road that is lined with fields of citrus, bananas, cocoanut, dasheen, and yams. After about 20 minutes a side trail on the right drops into the valley of the river and into lush tropical forest with tree ferns and huge elephant ear plants. We have been here twice before, but this was a new hike for Barb and Chuck and we enjoyed this lovely corner of Dominica with them.

The pool is usually crystal clear, so clear that we brought our swim goggles to watch fish, but today the water was turbid. We found out that the community water supply is above the pool and the waterworks folks are working on the catchment dam and that caused the water to be a bit muddy. Hunter and I swam in the pool, swimming hard to get to the falls and climb the rocks to jump into the deep pool.