More Dominica

Literally marching on… we went hiking several days with our hosts and got great views of the island and surrounding ocean from many vantage points.

We hiked up to the clouds to reach Boeri Lake, one of 2 huge freshwater lakes near the top of the island, filled only by rainwater!

Repeating what I said before about hiking conditions on Dominica, we went through a lot of mud and water at times:

On other hikes, the sun came out and we were surrounded by beautiful flowers…

…and treated to great views of the coast.

That’s Guadeloupe on the horizon (about 50 miles away), where we’re headed next for a few days before returning to Nashville.

As Steve and I would drive around the island, I was particularly taken by the plantings of what we would consider in the States to be “ornamentals” on both sides of the road, even in very isolated areas. Apparently the volcanic soil is so rich here, and growing conditions so perfect, that you can just “put a stick in the ground and it’ll grow”.

Another interesting point about the island is that several scenes from the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies were shot here. The road map we used to navigate even had filming sites noted, and what scenes were staged there. One of them was called “Chase scene” where Johnny Depp was chased up a river. Rivers all over the island empty into the sea after passing through lots of rainforest.

Dominica is said to have 365 rivers, while Antigua and Barbuda (a Caribbean island country we haven’t visited yet) has 365 beaches.

I haven’t ever posted someone else’s video (and especially not a commercial), but this group that took us canyoning was just awesome. Everything you see on the video we did, but it was nice because we were just a group of 4.

If you ever really want to test your limits (and stretch them), canyoning is the way to go!

Another neat sight right near us on the NE corner of the island was the Red Rocks area. We hiked on white sand and black sand beaches to get good views of it…

…and then walked up over it and found a nice spot to have cocktails…

…while watching the colors shift with sunset and night fall.

Adieu for now. Next up - Galapagos!