DOMINICA - Part One

Thursday, Feb. 12, we woke up early as we pulled into the port at the capitol city of Roseau in Dominica. (We later learned that it's pronounced Dom-in-eeka.) We went out on our balcony and were excited to see we were facing the port and witnessed a glorious sunrise.

Right away we could see this terrain was unlike anything we had seen before. It was very mountainous and so lush! We loved the houses tucked all around and up the mountain.

We had a private tour scheduled with Levi Baron of Bumpiing Tours, (and yes that is how Levi spells it!), that Alicia had arranged for all of us. He had gotten excellent reviews on the cruise boards and we had our usual buffet breakfast and then hurried to get off the ship. You disembark on deck on 4 where you pass by security and have to insert your cruise card to verify your info and keep track of who leaves the ship. As we got off the ship we saw Cheryl and Kelley and walked over to the area where we were to meet Levi. He has other vans he sends out so we felt very lucky to have Levi himself greet us.

Levi, Alicia, and Chuck

Chuck, Helaine & David, Amy & David, Cheryl & Kelley

Our first stop was at Titu Gorge. To get there we had to travel on some very, curvy, winding roads up the mountains to the rainforest. There were some pretty scary moments but Levi had lived here all his life and we were in good hands. He told us all kinds of history and information about his island and stopped to point things out and for us to take pictures. He was very enjoyable and an excellent tour guide.

I didn't know nutmeg grew on trees!

Once we got to Titu Gorge we had to hike a bit up and thru a creek bed and across a bridge. Helaine and her David decided to wait for us in the van. (He has very bad knees and she had forgotten to bring shoe she could get wet.) We got to the Gorge and though other tour groups had arrived it wasn't too crowded. Once finding out how cold the water was Alicia and I decided to be the documenters rather than the explorer's!

Levi in the lead - with David close behind

Cheryl screamed the whole way from the cold!

Next up was a drive to Trafalger Falls. Once we reached the area we did have a bit of a hike to see them but it was worth it! It's really two falls and they call them the mother and the son.

The whole time we were walking thru the forest it felt like it was drizzling but it was really just spray from the falls.

This is the mother falls.

This is the son. It actually is higher than it looks in this picture. And you can see them both though my camera wouldn't go wide enough to get them in one picture.

Next we hiked down to an even further area to Wotten Springs where there are pools of warm water. Even though it was a slippery climb over large rocks to get there it sounded too good to me to pass on.

The water was indeed as warm as a bath and fairly clear although these pictures don't show that very well. I didn't want to get out - especially knowing that we would now have to hike back up!

We had already done so much and there was more to come. More on our excellent day in Dominica in the next blog!