Picture tour of Dominica

Good Friday Mar 21 5:05 PM

Yes it is Happy Hour...and we did not have one drink last night.....more on that later......Neighbors coming over soon. Well yesterday Joyce spent the big bucks for an Island tour. As I mentioned before other than bananas...the beauty of the island is their only income. Martin our Boat Boy (really the business manager and owner of the tour group) picked us up at 8am and took us ashore to meet Paul our tour guide and driver. This was going to be an all day affair. We started off up the best road we would see for the rest of the day. 20 min later after our ears had popped we stopped at the 1st of many overlooks. Here we are looking back over the bay where Plymouth is located. The anchorage is at about 9 o'clock by the flowers.







Here Joyce is practicing being a professional photographer.



As we continued to climb the road got narrower...and the number and size of the pot holes grew. What we know as a guard rail has not been invented here yet....notice the upper left....yep we are going up there....

Paul our guide was a real botanist...he pointed out every plant and fauna. This is vanilla. Vanilla itself cannot grow without a host tree. The vine here is the vanilla plant

Next stop was a "COLD" Volcano. Here in the States when we go to Yellowstone...the geysers and bubbling pools are hot and stinky. Well here the water is cold and stinky. It was quite a hike for the Capt.

There is no flat and level to be found anywhere...so they grow everything on the side of the hill or mountain...They clear and burn off an area...farm that for a few years then move to another area.

If you look closely you can see 2 farmers working their "field". This was taken with the telephoto...about a mile across the valley. Notice the huge leaves to their left...those are bananas plants

These are something called deheen...a starchy plant like a potato. Notice the bananas on the ridge. They put blue plastic bags over the bunches of bananas. The chief bananas checker comes along and ties a colored ribbon to each bag. They announce "We are cutting the red strings this week"

Wild along the side of the road are these flowers...very tropical
More and more and more and more bananas...there is no hunger on this island...as long as you are not allergic to bananas or coconut.

We stopped for lunch at a seaside town called Calibishe. The projects in Baltimore make these look like 5th Ave. The pier at 9 o'clock was ocean front a few yrs back.

Take away the palm trees and blue water, the west coast of the Island looks like the Oregon coast.

A view of the deck at lunch

This is Red Rock...a red lava flow ....seen from the lunch deck.

After lunch we drove over to this red lava flow that runs into the ocean...I have seen many flows...but never in red.

Seems the Island elders have the same problems with their teens...this is the local party and "do it" place visited by the island teens.. Notice the rum and beer bottles.

This is the black and white sand beach...Paul (our guide) made comment to why the black and white sands don't mix. Interesting

We went past the "Airport". Hugo is funding that...throwing his oil money around. As I stated before the Chinese are building roads and bridges....Hmmmmm now why would they want to do that??? I see another Grenada in the making. Hate to see Matt down here in a few yrs with his Marine buddies.Here we have the poorest of islands where the people hold their crooked politicians in awe, kissing up the our enemies. We visited 1 home in Paul's home village. We were invited in ..given some local drinks...of course they were trying to sell us stuff...very nice but there were pictures of the local politicians on the wall. I can see me walking into Cindy and Ed's home back in Chattanooga only to see a picture of the mayor and other crooked politicians on the wall. Don't think so. If you have read Michener's Caribbean you will better understand these peoples fate.

Home sweet home!!!
Yes some one lives here...notice the electric meter..........
Freshly painted...usually 1 or 2 adults sitting around the home. Unemployment is 23 %. Among the 15 -24 it's 33%.

These are some of the nicer homes.

This is your local Sear Automotive Center

This is downtown Calibishie on our way back to Plymouth. Streets were filled with adult males and females....who was at work???

We then went off road to where 1 of the rivers meet the sea. Here is a cashew nut bush...damn out of season. On the way down we saw the locals collecting coconuts, wacking off the husks. Even little kids got into the act. These are cracked open then dried over a fire and sold as copra. Sold to someone who then extracts the coconut oil. This where the fresh water meets the sea...notice all the coconuts on the beach.

This black sand beach is one of the few on the windward east coast.

At the base of the coconut palm on the right, someone has made a pile of coconuts. Left there they have sprouted and there are 10-15 new trees growing. This was a coconut forrest....thousands of old and new trees.

Another pile that has sprouted new growth.

The day was an eye opening experience. The beauty and the poverty all rolled into one. Their willingness to work hard to scratch out a living was demonstrated as we passed through the farming areas. All the work that goes into the bananas and other crops. 1 whole bunch of bananas ...a blue bags is worth about 12-14 US$ A banana tree only produces one bunch. That tree is then cut down and another will grow up from the roots. The whole cycle take up to 1 yr depending on the soil and conditions. Those on flat soil (not much of that) turn around faster. On the way back we stopped at a cinnamon tree. Paul whacked off some bark and got some leaves. Too cool. The leaves are now in a bottle of rum.... Earlier in the day he cut some lemon grass. Very pungent...Joyce is now making lemon grass tea ....wants to get rid of our commercial lemon grass tea and get more of this stuff...I would like to cook with the stuff.

Now to why we did not have happy hour last night....this AM this old fart went diving. Why should Joyce have all the fun....was down 40 ft or so for about 1/2 hr...think I might go for certification.....