Because we arrived last night instead of early afternoon as had been planned, we lost a solid ½ day in Martinique. On top of that, we did basically ZERO planning for this leg of the trip. Because of the schedule change the day before, we had cancelled our Airbnb for the night and had to scramble to find another. Found one that had really good reviews in the city of Saint Marie which was the general area we knew we were heading toward. If you stayed 3 nights, you got a welcome dinner cooked by the mom. The reviews were RAVING about the food!! We could only stay 1 night, so I asked the host if we could pay for dinner. Sure! $34. Sold. We now had accommodations and food for tonight!
Had a general idea of the route we wanted to take, but no idea of what we actually wanted to see/do along the way. So we hopped in the car and headed out. First item of business was to find a French adapter so we could charge our stuff. Somewhere along the way I lost mine. #Dominicancurse We went to the place the Airbnb host suggested, but it didn’t look like the kind of place with adapters- it was more of a home depot kind of place. Putting “electronics store” into google maps wasn’t helping either, as it kept taking us to electrical supply stores. After almost an hour of wasted time, I had a bright idea…When in doubt, there’s one place I always know will have them- the airport! And we were close. Friendly English speaking lady at the information booth told us exactly where to go, and just like that, for 11.50euro ($13), we had our adapter and were on the road!
The roads are FABULOUS. Like no potholes. And the drivers are aware of everyone’s personal mortality and conduct themselves accordingly. However, after contorting on the ferry for 2 hours yesterday to make my tailbone less miserable, I now had not only an ouchy tailbone, but a really sore lower back. Miserable was an understatement. There is a wildness to Dominica, even in the towns. There is a developed feel to Martinique, even in the wilderness. It’s gorgeous, but I have to say that Dominica is prettier. We found some little waterfall on Maps.me and hiked to it. It wasn’t really a waterfall- more like a water treatment plant. Disappointing, but it got me off my tailbone for 20 minutes. Next stop was another waterfall. This one had a pool you could swim in, but it was COLD!
Lunch time was approaching. This is France, and France is all about food. Martinique has a TON of restaurants, and they are all open!! And not only do they have restaurants, but grocery stores that are fully stocked! We shall starve no more! And not only do they have grocery stores, but they have Carrefour! A chain I know from France proper! A chain that is known to have Dr. Pepper. Alas, this one did not, but it did have huge areas devoted to the 3 staples of the French diet- fresh bread, wine, and cheese! We got a baguette and some salami to eat along the way. Delicious, and less than $3.50! There was a volcano museum in this town. We pulled in, but it was closed, so we headed down the road again. Our destination was the northernmost area of the island on the other side of Mount Pelee from where we were- Grand Rivere. Even the super rural roads were in perfect condition! The map said there was a viewpoint, so we parked and headed up the hill. A goat guarded the passage, so I had Brian hold him while I quickly scooted by. I don’t like farm animals unless they’re on a plate… We walked up and up. My back was not feeling it and it was HOT. I finally gave up and we turned around. Come to find out- the view point wasn’t ½ a mile up the road like our map said- it was more like 3 miles up! Did get one lovely shot of the beach below, and a lizard I’d never seen.
Research says: Martinque Anole (Anolis roquet summus)
By this time, I was done. I was in so much pain. We got to our Airbnb about 3pm and were greeted by Ester- the host’s mom. Ester is from St. Lucia and speaks English! YAY! We told her we’d like to eat around 5:30-6:30 and she said no problem. The bnb was a studio attached to Ester’s house- we had our own private bedroom, bathroom, and kitchenette. Perfect. I went in, laid down, and died for about an hour and 45 minutes. Literally, I didn’t even move once while I slept. I think I vaguely remember Brian checking me for a pulse at some point…
Woke up feeling a little better, and knowing dinner was coming definitely brightened my mood!! Look, I don’t know the names of everything we ate, but let me tell you this- EVERY BITE WAS PHENOMENALLY DELICIOUS!! We had some kind of little appetizer, then a salad, then rice with chicken and sauce and baked yam and oh my god we ate like KINGS!!
The wifi is great here, so I got some work done. Was talking to my son and his girlfriend (who teach in my school) and they said they wanted to facetime with me the next day. I told them I had no idea what my wifi situation would be (and they’ve never asked to do that before anyway). I was nervous. I told them to just tell me and they sent me a picture of an engagement ring! After 9 years, my son finally popped the question! I was ecstatic beyond words for them!!! Until I was informed that no parents are invited to the wedding, but we can all convene in Texas (they live in Colorado) a month after for a party. My heart broke so hard that I think I heard it crack. I won’t go into all the details, but I voiced my dismay at the situation, was reprimanded, and spent the entire night- ALL OF IT- crying. I can’t even remember another time in my life when I spent an entire night crying. To not get to see my oldest son say his vows to the woman I have loved as my own daughter for so many years…it’s painful beyond words. I have loved, accepted, encouraged and supported them in so many things and it really just feels like a slap in the face.
With a puffy face, hurting jaw and teeth from crying all night and the resulting sinus pressure, and a broken heart, we left the airbnb in the morning. I really didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to go anywhere, see anything, nothing. Poor Brian, he was trying to be so encouraging. Two items on the agenda for sure- the banana museum and the rum museum. But they didn’t open until 9 and it was 7. So Brian in a desperate attempt to get me out of the bnb and out into the world to get my mind off things we decided to drive out to the Caravelle Peninsula that was really close. Good news, my back no longer hurt, just my tailbone. Probably because the pain in my heart was taking my mind off of it…
The peninsula was gorgeous! Little fishing villages dotted the coastline. We drove all the way to the end and decided to get out and hike around. There was an attraction here called Chateau Dubuc. We had no idea what it was (that’s where not researching a trip ahead of time gets ya!), so decided to hike over and check it out. Of course, it was closed until 9, and it was only 8:30. So instead, we decided to hike through the mangroves. Beautiful mudflats and mangrove forests!
Ucides cordatus
Yellow billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus)
Got back around, and Chateau Dubuc was open. The man at the desk didn’t speak a lot of English, but was very friendly and explained enough so we understood that if we took this map and audio/pointer thingy, that when we touched it to the map it would tell us what we were seeing. Clever!! This was a sugar cane plantation built in the 1720s. And that’s about where the history of this place ends. The audio guide did a great (maybe too detailed) job of describing what each of the building ruins had been used for, but I couldn’t get a connection to the place because there was no story. Just “here is a building, and here is literally every single minute detail about how that building worked”. And it is EXPANSIVE- as in 20+ stops, each with several minutes of details. Still, it was cool to wander around the place. Today it’s in the middle of no where and you have to hike to it. I can’t even imagine 300 years ago…
It was well past museum opening times now, so we headed back toward Sainte Marie to go to the Rum Museum. First stop was the grocery store to grab a little breakfast. Holy. Shit. Every register, like 8 of them, had lines 10+ people deep!! Was a hurricane coming and people were stocking up? Was the grocery store only open one day a week? What the hell???? I stood there with my baguette, salami, and a couple other snacks for the road for what seemed like forever, while Brian went to the nearby gas station to get cold drinks. As I got closer, people with lots more groceries than me waved me in front of them in line. We didn’t speak the same language, but kindness is universal. This is France, and there is just a certain je ne sais quoi here.
Rum museum was right around the corner, and was FREE if you didn’t want to ride the train! There were two buildings- the main building with an upstairs video (not in English) and a museum behind that that WAS in English!! St. James Rum is still being produced today, and I have to say that the museum was very nice and well done. I didn’t learn a lot (my head was NOT in the game today), but Brian ooohed and ahhed over a bunch of machinery, so there was that!
This sign was just so disturbing to me. Ugh.
These are the oldest known bottles of St. James Rum. They were in Amsterdam and were shipped back to Martinique after Mt. Pelee destroyed everything in 1902.
Really just gorgeous inside, with a history of the different distillation techniques with actual machines.
Next up, banana museum just down the road. This one I had been excited about, because I had learned SO MUCH at the rice museum in Malaysia that I was hoping this would be like that. Well, kindaish. Again, my head just wasn’t really into anything. It was like $16 for us both to get in, and it was basically a lot of signs (in English!) discussing the history of the banana. I kind of felt I could have read the banana wikipedia page and got the same information, but I’m a bitch today so I hate everything! 😕 I didn’t even take a picture of a single informational sign, at either museum, which is definitely not me. After the museum was a beautiful garden of all kinds of bananas- there are like 1000 species and 300 are edible (see, I learned SOMETHING in the museum!!). Not sure how many species were out here, but it was fun to walk through and see the different types. At the end, there was a restaurant. We shared a banana split. I told Brian they should have “banana flights”- like beer flights. Bring out a bunch (no pun intended!) of different types of bananas and let you taste them. That would have been really fun! Oh- other thing I learned- they originated in Africa and were brought to the Western Hemisphere by Europeans. There are so damned many bananas in this part of the world, I thought they came from here.
Brian knew I was bummed yesterday when the volcano museum we were going to was closed. He found another one and attempted to get me excited about going to it. Seriously, I felt sorry for the guy. Between Dominica being our worst travel experience together ever, my aching tailbone, the news about my son’s wedding….I was in a serious funk and definitely not fun to be around. Nothing was funny. Nothing was interesting. Sigh. I agreed for us to drive to the other side of the island to go check it out, because, well, volcano. So off we headed to Sainte Pierre! I had heard of Mt. Pelee, and knew it was some big old nasty volcanic disaster- but I couldn’t have found it on a map to save my life. Who knew it was in Martinique?! Well, the town of Sainte Pierre sure the hell did in 1902. Mt. Pelee is actually the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century! How deadly? 30,000 people- the entire city of Sainte Pierre- DEAD deadly. Well, except for 2 people. I’ll get to one of those in a moment. That must have been one helluva lava flow, right? Wrong. Zippo lava. None. This was a special type of pyroclastic flow- a superheated combination of ash and gas. How superheated? Oh, about 1800F. That’ll bake your cookies! It was so hot, that it ignited ships that were anchored offshore!
The ladies at the museum were so friendly (do you notice a theme here? EVERYONE is friendly!!) and spoke great English. They gave us headsets that would automatically start playing as you went around to different exhibits. I am very much a multitasking type learner- I like information from a lot of different sources all at once. (That’s exactly how I research for lesson plans.) This was cool because I could read the information on the exhibits and the headsets had totally different information- they were more like stories that supported what you were seeing. The museum was very modern and very well done. I was slightly happyish for the first time that day!
Very nice museum!
Get a load of this!! On the left, that’s BREAD! Right? That’s CHEESE!! #howveryfrench
Check out these objects that were literally melted together by superheated gas!
Just part of one wall that listed all 30,000 victims names
Mt. Pelee, towering above the little town of Sainte Pierre
When I was boo-hooing last night, Brian started researching Atlas Obscura. He knows I love any kind of crazy weird sightseeing kind of thing. He told me about the only entry for Martinique– A man named Sylbaris had been tossed into solitary confinement for fighting. The cell was made of very thick cement walls, a solid door, and just a slit facing the ocean (opposite side from where Pelee was) for ventilation. Well, this proved to be his saving grace. He was burned by the air, but not killed. In fact, he went on to join Ringling Bros and Barnum Bailey Circus, where he would tell his story and show his scars. France pardoned him for his crimes. SUPER INTERESTING! And the best part, his cell still stands amidst the ruins of Sainte Pierre! You can even go inside of it! We walked up and visited it, and I was so enthralled by this history that I even made a few educational videos!
Sylbaris’ cell
That was basically the end of our sightseeing for the day, and we headed south to Anse Noire, where I had booked us a splurge accommodation! For 2 nights, we would be staying in a treehouse on the beach! It was part of several bungalows run by a super nice man named Claude of Domaine de Robinson. We parked our car at the top of the hill, and went down WAY too many stairs to get to the beach and the treehouse! Down with bags is one thing…I was dreading up (for Brian, because I knew I wouldn’t be carrying shit!).
Path at the top of the stairs
View of the beach from the stairs. WOWZA!
Our treehouse <3
We walked through the gate that said “Private Property” and found Claude. He took us to the treehouse and loaded our luggage into a makeshift elevator. It was not for people. Something called a “monkey bridge” was for people. I don’t drink, but I am seriously concerned for the lack of discernment I apparently was exhibiting at the time of booking the zipline o’ death bnb in Dominica and the monkey bridge o’ death here in Martinique. I swear to god, neither of these things looked so high and sketch when I saw the pictures online! So I swiped right. Things online though sometimes look much better than they do in person, because I was having a serious case of wanting to swipe left after one look at that bridge….
Access to said treehouse…
Claude went up first. He said one person on the bridge at a time (don’t have to tell me twice). I didn’t even know this man 2 minutes ago, but for some reason I didn’t want to look like a total wuss in front of him. I didn’t have any time to contemplate the 80 different ways I could die on this thing before started my slow, deliberate steps. It was shaky. It was high. At the end it was steep. Even worse- at the end there was no solid board and you had to step over a damn gap of empty space!! Space that if I lost 50 lbs and my internal skeleton, I could easily slip through and plummet to my death! That one freaked me out for a second, but I pulled myself over it and on to the porch. I told Claude I was scared of heights. He said a couple of times back and forth and I wouldn’t even think about it (spoiler alert: he was wrong, but it did get minimally better).
Claude got us settled in. We had a big room with a large bed and mosquito net, a little kitchen, a shower, sink, and a separate room with a toilet. And wifi!! I said in an earlier blog I go for unique, cheap, and wifi when I’m booking, but will settle for 2 out of 3. For almost $200 a night, easily 4 times what I normally like to spend, you can see what got left out this time. But it was worth it. It was so quiet, so peaceful, so relaxing. Just the sounds of birds and frogs. We ate some food we had picked up at Carrefour on our way in and just sat on the porch, relaxing. Something we hadn’t done since we started this trip several days ago…Something we desperately needed after everything.
We had one visitor that night- a moth as big as my hand! He was amazing! Until I did research on him get an ID (literally about 5 days after seeing him while writing this blog, otherwise I would have been even more freaked the fuck out). Meet Ascalapha odorata, better known as the Black Witch moth. Silence of the Lambs- you know the larvae that the killer was putting into his victim’s mouths? It was of this moth!!!!! And get a load of this….THE FREAKING THING HAS LEGENDS ABOUT IT BEING A HARBINGER OF DEATH AND MISFORTUNE SINCE PRE-COLUMBIAN TIMES!!!!! So yeah, if this damn thing flies into your house, death, misfortune, or a curse will befell you. He’s a little late to our pity party, but you know what they say about island time…. #fml
Black Witch Moth (Ascalapha odorata)- that’s like a 4″ wide board he’s on!
Woke up in our treehouse!!! Slept GREAT! Of course, I took zzquil to insure that….After the week I’ve had, it was necessary. It’s our last full day of vacation. Wanted to head out early for a snorkel. Of course, that meant having to exit the treehouse via the monkey bridge… I walked up to the edge. Two things struck me immediately. One, holy shit the bridge on this side was REALLY steep going down!! Two, that gap between the board and porch had exponentially widened over night, appearing to require a feat a tad less impossible than taking a step across the widest part of the Grand Canyon. How do I get myself into these things??? Brian went across first, and encouraged me from the other side, but I physically could not make my leg take that first step. I’ve been scared on stupid crazy scary bridges before- ones even higher and scarier than this one (side eye at you, Borneo ). But stepping across a gap like this at the top was way out of my mental capabilities. Look, let’s be real, it was about a foot wide. But my leg literally refused to go over it! Brian suggested sitting down and trying it that way. Sitting down- my tailbone’s least favorite thing to do, but I seriously didn’t have a choice. I never did manage to just step across that gap like a normal person…
Claude had told us that if we went to the sea grass bed further out, we might see some turtles! A guest had seen 5 feeding there yesterday morning. We swam out and it was nothing but sand bottom and sea grass. Hardly any fish. I was getting kinda disappointed! This was our “splurge” location chosen for the snorkeling and unique accommodation!! And then…ZAP!! ZAP ZAP ZAP!! We started getting tiny, painful stings on our arms and legs from some unseen creature! Holy shit it hurt! Like jellyfish stings! We decided to turn around, and this time follow the wall of the cove on the way back. There’s the snorkeling we wanted!! So much life! Lots of little fish and corals! It was very nice. Got back to shore and decided to walk down the dock on the other side of the beach. Water looked a lot clearer than where we had been snorkeling earlier, so we took a ladder down and decided to snorkel around the pier back to shore, then go chill out for a bit. As we rounded the end of the pier, something large caught my eye. As it got a little closer, I could see what it was…A GREEN SEA TURTLE!!! OMG!! He had a missing rear flipper, poor thing. Most likely from a boat strike or shark. We followed him for almost 10 minutes (according to gopro video length!). He came up for air a couple of times. He swam so effortlessly. Just a beauty to watch! As he turned to head out of the cove, we decided to come back in.
So those stings…when I got back in I had several large welts, like big mosquito bites on my right forearm, and one whip mark from an actual jellyfish on the back of my upper left arm that extended from my elbow about halfway to my shoulder. Research is pulling up different things for the tiny stings- larval jellyfish (I’m not convinced), hydroids (my top choice), and something called sea lice. Next time I go out, I’m wearing my long sleeve rash guard for sure. We packed up to do a little drive around this part of the island, with 2 scheduled stops: A slave museum and a slave memorial. This area is really pretty- probably one of my favorite parts along with the Caravelle peninsula.
The slave museum is called La Savane des Esclaves. And here’s the best part….everything is in ENGLISH!! We paid $9 each and were given a little numbered map and the lady explained how to work our way through. Everything is outside- it’s kind of a “living museum” I guess you’d say. There are replicas of different huts and some slave artifacts (the restraints and torture devices will give you chills for days). And the information- WOW! It’s SO WELL DONE!! I’m a teacher. I know a well done museum when I see one, and this it is! The man who created it is Gilbert Larose- a descendant of slaves. And the time, effort, and detail he has put into this place points to only one thing…passion. I got to meet him and told him that I travel the world visiting museums, and I’m extremely impressed with this one. I could tell he was pleased! I was entranced for the entire hour plus that we were there. It was powerful and real and tangible. It was so good, that I took pictures of every single sign (and there’s a lot of them!) so I can share this story with my students.
We drove around to the other side of the peninsula to visit the Anse Cafard Slave Memorial. This series of 20 eight foot tall statues are staring out to sea, where in 1830, 15 years after slavery had been outlawed in Martinique, a slave trader tried to sail his ship ashore at night to sneak in his illegal human “cargo”. The ship crashed on the rocks, killing all 40+ slaves who were shackled together in the hull. The statues are in direct alignment with the Gulf of Guinea in Africa, and are arranged in a triangle pattern to represent the triangular slave trade route across the Atlantic.
Just around the corner is beautiful Diamant (Diamond) Rock. Past that, we found a little restaurant and had lunch- fish and fries (about 5 lbs of them!!) and chicken and rice. Mmmmmmmm. Good. Except that chair and my tailbone were not on speaking terms about halfway through the meal…
Came back to the treehouse and decided to take the kayak around the point to the other cove. One cove (ours) is Anse Noire- a black sand beach. Just around the point is Anse Dufour- a white sand beach! It was an easy paddle over. The water in this cove seemed to be much deeper and clearer than in ours! Pulled the kayak up on the beach and snorkeled out. Holy moly!! This side is much better for snorkeling!! Huge reef walls full of different kinds of coral, huge barrel sponges, tons of fish (even trumpetfish), urchins, stars, and more. We had snorkeled all the way back out to the point along the reef face before we realized it and turned around! Water here was 30 feet + in places, and crystal clear. Added bonus: No stingy things. I think they come out mainly in the morning. Double bonus: Sitting on a lifejacket made a perfect seat for my tailbone where the hollow part of the jacket is! I might take this thing with me… By the way, I took these 3 photos with my phone that was enclosed in the clear dry bag Brian got me for Christmas. Pretty pleased with the result!
Anse Noire- Our black sand beach
Anse Dufour- the white sand beach
We paddled back around to our cove, put the kayak away. Came up to our tree house, cleaned off our gear, and chilled out on the patio for an hour or so. Soon it was time for sunset. The cove is positioned perfectly, so we headed down to the dock. Some local kids were jumping off of it into the crystal clear water. The sun was slowly disappearing, just like our vacation together. This has been our most challenging trip together ever (I’m blaming it on the moth), but we made it through. Tomorrow, we’ll be in different countries again- me in Guadeloupe and Brian back in Los Angeles.
I’m going to start this blog by saying this. It’s been 27 hours since our last meal. In that span of time, the following has occurred:
-A flight from Antigua to Dominica
-A car wreck
-My tailbone injured
-Getting a new rental car
-Completely changing our plans so we can find wifi and food
-Being denied food, but getting wifi so we can call insurance about the wreck
-Going to a grocery store that was all “store” and no “grocery”- not even a loaf of bread
-Searching and not finding any food
-Driving through INSANELY gorgeous country with INSANE drivers
-Going on 3 hikes, totaling about about 2.5 miles
-Snorkeling off the beach
-My camera is still cursed from the man on the donkey in Antigua and only taking blurry pics. Any clear ones on this blog were taken by a phone.
-Finally finding food
So yeah, it’s been a busy 27 hours, and the day didn’t even end when we finally found food! Let’s discuss, shall we? But before we get started, pronunciation lesson. It’s Dah-mah-NEE-kuh. Not Doh-men-EE-kuh. Think dominos, not Dominican Republic. Having a hard time getting right? Don’t worry, I say it right maybe every 3rd time! 😂
So we woke up at 4:30am to leave Kerry and Charmaine’s house and headed for the airport. The street lights along the road were all red- so they wouldn’t disturb any nesting turtles or hatchlings! That’s so awesome! Dropped off the car in the parking lot, got our boarding passes, and left at 6am.
We flew on Liat Airlines. Locals say it stands for Leave Island Any Time and Luggage In Another Terminal! Fortunately, we had no problems (yet!)
Landed in Dominica at 6:40am, ready for adventure!! Easy getting through immigration, headed for our rental car. They weren’t there yet, so we waited until about 7:20 (pick up time was 7am). Did all of the paperwork for the Suzuki 4 wheel drive, put our stuff in, and got ready to hit the road! First order of business, turn off the ac and roll down the windows. Except Brian’s window wouldn’t roll down….unacceptable. Went back in and the lady just took us to another car, without redoing the contract, and gave us a Rav 4. Not a 4 wheel drive, but the windows worked so we were good to go. Hit the road, take 2!! They drive on the left here, just like Antigua. This is not an issue for Brian, who has driven on the left in Malaysia, South Africa, Malta, and in Antigua all day yesterday. He’s driven on the left immediately after 20+ hour air travel. He’s driven on the left with a manual after 30+ hour air travel! In other words, he’s got this. We follow google maps out of the airport. The roads are narrow, pretty much exactly like in Antigua. The difference being that everyone here drives like their ass is on fire. Fast and erratic!! We came around a blind curve (there are lots of those in Dominica- way more than any other type of road), and a van was barreling toward us at mach speed in the middle of the road. Because that’s where they all drive- the middle. Not interested in the Dominican version of chicken, Brian eased over slightly more to the left to give the van more room. BAM!!!! The car jumped up in the air and somehow Brian managed to avoid us flipping over as he maneuvered to a stop on the grass. I poked my head out the open window. The tire and rim were mangled. What the hell had just happened?! We had no idea!! We looked back, and there was a god damned cement curb about 3 feet long on the side of the road behind some tall grass. We had hit it. We were in shock at what had just happened! What the hell do we do? Well, I guess we send the car rental lady a WhatsApp message, because literally we weren’t much more than a mile from the airport. But of course, I had zero signal. Let me stop here to give an announcement to all T-Mobile customers. You will rarely have a signal ANYWHERE in Dominica. It’s the worst of any country I’ve ever been to- including the depths of Borneo. So we’re standing there, dumb founded, with vans and trucks whizzing by us. The only thing to do was lock it all up and walk back.
?
About that time, here comes the rental car lady on her way home. She pulls over and asks if everything’s ok. Uh, wanna see? She was stunned. And this is where things just start to go sideways. She says the collision damage waiver we signed is only for colliding with another vehicle. This wouldn’t be covered. So I asked if it would have been better if we had just hit the van. Her answer? Yes. Jesus. So now we’re kind of freaking out as to what’s going to happen to us. She takes a bunch of pictures, tells us the tow truck will be on the way and we’ll be responsible for the towing fees, plus all of the damages. There’s fluid leaking from the thing as well as the fucked up tire and rim, and god only knows what else. Then she puts us and our stuff in her car to take us back. And as soon as I climb in, this is when I feel a very ouchy pain in my tailbone. The day before we had joked about me making up a new word- shituation. I said I really needed to figure out a way to work that into the blog. Thank you, Universe, for your prompt attention to that matter…
Back to the rental car lot, where she hands us the Suzuki we had refused earlier. We were in no mood or position to argue. From accident time to back on the road time, about 30 minutes. Original plan was to go to Cabrit’s National Park and hike around. What we needed though were two things: wifi to contact American Express and Geico for how to handle the insurance situation and FOOD. We decided to detour to Portsmouth instead. Drove through some AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS country. Rainforest and ocean- just magnificent. But the scenery couldn’t fix the sinking feeling in our guts, or the worsening pain in my tailbone. The hit was on my side of the car. I must have flown up in the seat as much as the seat belt would allow, and came back down hard on some piece of the metal frame in the seat. Got to Portsmouth and even though I was in a city, still barely had a signal. Tried to google “restaurant with wifi” and only came up with one- The Champs- which was also inside of a hotel. Perfect. We headed up narrow, crowded roads until we found the place. With a huge sign outside “Restaurant open to the public at 4pm”. THE FUCK?! We sat in their parking lot trying to eek out enough signal to find somewhere else to go when the owner came out and said our exhaust was filling up her bathroom. We explained the situation and she invited us into the cafe to use the wifi. No food, but Brian got a coffee and I got a juice, and we reported the accident to American Express. Geico only had 800 numbers which wouldn’t work. Of course, the lady never changed the rental contract from the Suzuki to the Rav 4 (which was the one that was wrecked) so trying to give information was interesting…. At least the view was good.
Blurry, but beautiful, country! #cursedcamera
View from The Champs Hotel and Restaurant- taken with my phone.
Time to go find FOOD!! It was about 11am, we’re in a city, shouldn’t be a problem. That’s lunchish time, right? WRONG. Not here. Nothing was open. NOTH-ING. Ok, we’ll go to the grocery store. Found an IGA Supermarket. Perfect!! Except there was nothing super about it. There was nothing even slightly super about it. They didn’t even have BREAD!! Which meant our peanut butter went back on the shelf. Seriously, about 40% of the shelves were empty space on every aisle. I grabbed a can of cheese Pringles, declared that I didn’t give a damn how much those imported crunchy saddle shaped pieces of love and stress relief cost, and those- along with a big jug of water and some bananas- concluded our shopping trip.
Dejected and starving, we decided to just skip Cabrits, find a beach restaurant along the way (google showed lots of them!!), and take the Northern Link Highway toward some kind of scenic overlook thing I found on Maps.me and some bat cave thing that popped up as well- as these were things in the general direction of our Airbnb. Came to the first restaurant- obviously closed. 2Nd, 3rd, 4th…closed, closed, closed. One had promise!! It showed as open on google!! It wasn’t right on the road, so we couldn’t see without driving back. Awesome looking little beachfront place! Yay food! Got out, walked around, and…..closed. Saw a sign- closed Thursdays and Sundays. Today was…Thursday. Fuck our luck. Found another restaurant a bit down the road, there was a guy outside!! We pulled in, got out- no food for about 45 minutes we were told. It was already noon. Screw it. Onward and outward toward the Northern Link Highway- munching on some beef jerky, pistachios (that Brian could not throw out his window because it didn’t roll down), and of course our Pringles.
We drove through more stunning scenery. The mountains, the jungle, the ocean- it was absolutely breathtaking. The other thing that was breathtaking was the pain in my tailbone every time we hit a bump, which was about every 3.8 inches of pavement on average. We stopped at a place called Cold Souffiere. There was smoke pouring out of the side of the hill a little ways out, which didn’t look like it was cold (#volcanicactivity), but we were here so let’s give it a whirl! Walking was MUCH BETTER on the old hiney than sitting, that’s for sure. A short hike (maybe ¼ of a mile) revealed a dead end into a platform thing and a serious odor of sulfur. The water here was grayish, and it was bubbling ferociously! Boiling, I’d say, from my experience with geothermal activity. But why did it say this was called COLD Soufriere?? Because Brian’s job description for traveling with me includes “touching and picking up anything I don’t want to touch or pick up myself, but am curious about”, I told him to touch it. He’s the “show” to my “tell”. 😁I was fairly positive he’d pull back a boiled finger, which would allow him to suffer along on this trip with me and my butt. But no! It was…COLD WATER!! Just bubbling from air seepage, not heat. Super interesting!
Blurry, but beautiful, trail!
Back to the car and off to the next stop- Thibauld Bat Cave. We literally had no idea what this was other than a named icon on a map that sounded cool. Pulled into town, praying for food. What do atheists get when they pray? Probably the same thing as religious folk. And in this case, a solid helping of DENIED. Fine. Bats. Where the hell are they? Are they edible? We asked an official looking guy who was walking around the sleepy little town, and he told us to park over there, go up the hill, and find the path by the green house. Followed his instructions which lead to a very rocky, but gorgeous coastline. Followed the arrows around to an amazing cave that was full of bats!! HUNDREDS of them flying around! Then I saw this weird looking huge black mound thing toward the back of the cave. Zoomed in and holy crap, it was a mass of THOUSANDS of bats!! Super cool. We both agreed this was one of our most favorite stops of the day!
The entrance to the cave! Across a sketch bridge…there’s always a sketch bridge in every vacation I take…
In every little village we passed through, we looked for a restaurant. None. We were STARVING!! But between us and the next largeish town was a place called Batibou Beach. One of our Airbnb hosts had messaged me and said not to miss it! There was a sign saying $5 US each, but we decided what the heck- you only live once. Parked the car on the highway and decided to walk a little over a half mile to the beach. Because that’s what people who haven’t had a real meal in over 24 hours do… Got down there and WOW!! This is literally a quintessential Caribbean beach!! Beautiful sand, gorgeous cove, palm trees leaning toward the water…just WOW!! Paid the guy $10 and it was worth it. There was a security guard there so you could leave your stuff on the beach while you snorkeled (because the whole 3 other people on the beach might be thieves!!). He said that during busy season, 300-400 people were here each day! So we felt rather fortunate to basically have it to ourselves. I say this is a Caribbean beach, but really, it’s on the Atlantic side, which means pretty rough water. There was a reef just a little ways offshore that we could snorkel too, so decided to do that. As we were walking out, we saw 2 juvenile sharks!! The guy said we might see them, as it’s baby shark season. I was happy that my marine biology knowledge tells me mama sharks could care less about their babies so weren’t hanging around being protective! The snorkeling was pretty eh. Tons of algae, just a couple of corals- although I did see a Ricordea mushroom that got me all excited! Plus, with the waves, the visibility was pretty poor, maybe 8 feet if that, and it was really difficult to swim over the reef. We turned back, took a stroll down the beach, then decided to go find FOOD!!
What do starving people do? Hike, of course!
View from the top of the hill. It was so much more beautiful than this! Damn my cursed camera!!!
We had to pass back by this morning’s crime scene- the scene where my tailbone was traumatized! Car was gone. I seriously suggested maybe we just go to the airport and eat, because there HAD to be food there!! As we rounded the corner, we saw a little local restaurant. We didn’t care what they were serving. We didn’t care how much it cost. We stopped and went in. This was a VERY local place, right next to the airport. There were 3 choices- fish broth, lentil soup, or something I’d never heard of, peleau. She showed us each. The peleau looked the most like “stick to your ribs because who knows when you’ll ever eat again” food- rice and chicken. We took 2, plus one coconut water and one tamarind (maybe that’s how you spell it??) juice. There was so much food we could have easily shared one plate, even as hungry as we were!! Like $5.50 each- not bad! With full bellies, we headed off toward Kalinago territory for our airbnb!
That is the smile of a man who has finally found FOOD after 27 hours!!
So when I’m looking for an airbnb, I tend to look for three things- something unique, super cheap, and wifi. Usually the “unique” is the first causality of my searches. In this case, I was willing to go without wifi for 2 nights to stay in this crazy cool airbnb for an experience like no other- and for only $15 a night! It was called Floating Bed in the Trees…and it was owned by a Kalinago man named Denus. It was also across a river- with no bridge…just a zip line!! Normally zip lines are not my ideal mode of transportation, but from the pictures it looked pretty low to the ground (water), so I figured I could handle it. The directions were confusing (just for us- most likely because we were already so addled from the days events!!). We drove back and forth in the wrong place for a long time, because the GPS showed it in one place and we could not find the landmarks Denus described (literally a roots sign, a yellow container, a blue bin, and a parking sign- this is how addresses are done!). Finally, after driving back and forth in front of the same locals half a dozen times, we decided to stop and ask. Got directions, we hadn’t gone far enough and google maps had the wrong place pinned (shocking, but true story #eyeroll #lovehategooglemaps).
Of course, I had no signal to let them know I was there, so we kind of stood on the opposite side of the bank, hoping someone might see us. We then decided to walk down the little path. And that’s when I saw it. The zip line. Oh my god, it looked like something put together by 10 year old boys with no sense of mortality, using stuff they found in the trash. There was this blue piece of plastic that you were supposed to sit in- kind of like a piece of plastic tarp. And it looked like one false move and you would flip right out of it, plummeting to your death on the rocks about Let’s stop here a minute. There is plastic tarp all over this country. It was devastated by category 5 Hurricane Maria in September 2017. Tarp covers so many roofs still. Tarps that say “USAID” or “SAMARITAN’S PURSE”- organizations donating these tarps so people literally have some kind of roof over their head. Almost 2 years out, and that tarp is still their roof. It’s heartbreaking.
Zipline of death….
A woman appears on the other side and shouts, “Mary!”. And starts sending over the zip line. I’m telling Brian I just want to cross through the river. If you read this blog, you know I DON’T do heights (even though I always end up doing heights on every freaking vacation somehow…). I was trying to figure a way out of this situation (shituation? There’s 2), when the plastic tarp chair o’ death stopped in the middle of the river. The lady then disappears and reappears on our side. Something is wrong with the zip line (someTHING? Just from looking at it I could have named multiple someTHINGS!). Anyway, bullet dodged, we were crossed on foot. Her name was Nefertari, and she was beautiful and had this really cool peaceful vibe. We all held hands and crossed the swiftly flowing river without incident. She showed us to our hut- literally a wooden platform built into the side of a hill, surrounded by rainforest, covered with aforementioned relief tarps, with a mattress inside on the floor covered with mosquito net. She brought us some sugar cane to sample, and it was such a treat- especially since I had just visited the plantation yesterday and learned all about it! The sticks were SO juicy and refreshing! I did a little video for my students about it.
We were wiped from the day’s traumas and activities. We laid down at 6:30 and went to sleep for like an hour. Woke up, and promptly went back to sleep. The thin mattress was not very comfortable for my tail bone, and I woke up about every hour to adjust, then immediately starting worrying about Brian’s back, then would go back to sleep. It rained hard off and on during the night. What a day!!
Woke up with the sun around 5:30am. Laid there for a bit and discussed the fact that this mattress was not a good match for our current ages and various maladies. Airbnb should seriously have a filter for that….And that we really needed some wifi so we could continue working on the insurance situation and I really needed to do some work for my school. Got up and did a little walk around the lovely garden. Then decided to take a much needed bath in the river. Stripped to our skivvies, then ditched those as well. The water was really nice!! Scrubbed up, and I washed out my undies so they could dry in the car. We weren’t going to have a washing machine until we got to Martinque in 3 days, and I’d already had 4 days of no washing machine. Other than bathing our stinky selves and stinky clothes, washing in the river had another benefit- it cleansed the curse of the camera!! How or why, I can not tell you. But if a man on a donkey in Antigua ever curses you, go to Dominica and bath in the Pagua River. #truth
Brian is all Mr. Modesty until I get in and show him how it’s done!
Got back to our little hut to gather our things and cross the river. No sooner did Denus appear. I seriously wonder if he saw us nekkid in the river!! He said he was about to go across and we could go with him. We followed, and did not go down to the path to cross the river. We headed directly for the zip line o’ death. I told Brian, “We have to do this, right?”. The proper response of a loving fiance who knew I was scared to death of that thing would have been, “No, darling. I will carry you across the river on foot!”. But Brian says, “Yes.” Seriously rethinking this ring….
We reach the zip line, and not only is it a plastic tarp- IT HAS A TEAR IN THE BOTTOM, I SHIT YOU NOT!! At this point I’m ready to just move in to the hut and live out my days there… Denus shows us how it works. And you don’t sit on the tarp!! There’s a piece of hammock that your butt rests in! Ok, that’s better. We still haven’t approached a point where I’m happy with this contraption, but it is minimally better. I then look at the pulley. It was a completely rusted out assemblance of what used to be a working pulley maybe 50 years ago… Seriously, the inner ring wasn’t even complete it was so rusted. Kill me now. (Zipline: As you wish.). So Brian goes first. That way he can watch me plummet to my death from the opposite side of the river help me out of this suicide contraption if I manage to make it to the other side. And guess what?! He made it! In one piece! With all of our stuff! Ok. I have to do this. It’s one of those tests I seem to get on every vacation… As I’m trying to fit my butt into the hammock piece so I feel semi-secure, I realize that I am in a dress. And my freshly washed panties are on the other side of the river with Brian. Well, someone may be getting a show… Once I’m in, Denus starts pulling the rope and I smoothly glide over the rushing water and deadly rocks 15-20 feet below me! And guess what? I wasn’t even scared!!! And guess what? I actually enjoyed it!! And guess what? I managed to get across without flashing my lady bits!! I know this, because Brian caught it all on video!!
Walked to the car with Denus, who we were going to give a ride to. Brian reaches for the keys in his pocket. No keys. We go through the backpack, feeling for keys. Nothing. We go through our little cloth bag. No keys. Panic is setting in!! We dump everything we have out on to the hood. NO KEYS!!! We start peering into the tinted windows. NO KEYS!!! I asked Brian twice, “Did you check your pockets?”. Yes. We’re standing there, freaking out, while I’m trying to figure out how we explain THIS to the rental car agency. Then, Brian reaches around and feels something in his pocket, but not where his pocket is supposed to be. IT’S THE KEY!!! When he was in the river earlier, the pocket swooshed to the front!! Crisis averted, but god damn I am constantly on edge in this country, waiting for the next disaster.
We dropped off Denus and headed toward the Kalinago Cultural Center to learn all about the indigenous Kalinago people. It didn’t open until 9, and we had about 45 minutes to kill. I pulled up Maps.me and saw on there that there was a church really close in Salybia, and it had a short hiking trail next to it that went to a beach. Sold! Pulled up to the yellow and blue church, parked and started walking down. And then…there was a CHURCH! I’m talking an OLD church. Ruins of an old church. And it was freaking GORGEOUS!! All I wanted to know was every bit of its history!! I wanted to marry Brian in that church! EEEEEEEEEEEEEK! There’s not a lot about this place on the interwebs, but here’s what I managed to learn. Construction began in 1913 (it looks sooooooo much older than that!). In 1916 it was almost finished when a hurricane destroyed much of it. Construction began again, and ended in 1925. Hurricanes hit again in 1926 and 1928, with the church sustaining only minor damage. Then, in 1930 another hurricane hit and basically left the ruins we see today. Sure seems like God was maybe telling them to leave the Kalinago people to their own religion! Across from the church there was a cemetery, with a stunning ocean view. We continued walking down the path, which followed a small stream that ran into the ocean. There was a Kalinago man bathing in a small pool toward the end. And here is a good place to mention this. As we drove down the road, I saw several extremely nice looking Kalinago guys. As in, if Brian ever pisses me off, you will either find me in Paris or Kalinago Territory, Dominica! Seriously, their skin tone is gorgeous. We hiked around to another little ruin we saw. And there was grass there, growing along the path, unlike any I had ever seen before. It was almost like moss- so soft and low growing. Here and there it would grow in little mounds. At the end was a little tiny spring, running just under the grass with a little waterfall through the palms and bushes. It was literally like a magical fairy land, I’m not kidding. And we found it by sheer accident. Sometimes not planning is the way to go!
Path from the old church to the beach. Seriously, it couldn’t have been more gorgeous!
The pool the Kalinago man was bathing in
Beautiful fairy grass covered trail to a little ruin of some sort.
Magical hidden fairy waterfall
Brian photobombing my shot from inside the little ruin.
Brian’s panorama shot of the little cove
Headed back to the Kalinago Cultural Site. There, for $10 each, we had a guide (to ourselves!) who went through the entire interpretive center exhibit with us, explaining all about the Kalinago people, how they migrated here across the Bering Strait land bridge, the different islands they lived on and traded with (all the way up to the Florida Keys and down to South America!), their culture, and interactions with the other indigenous people in the area- namely Arawak and Taino. It was really interesting! After the mini-lecture, he then took us out to walk the grounds and see the different types of native buildings and plants that were used. When we were done, we went to the craft shop and met a woman named Elizabeth who was weaving baskets in the ancient tradition. They were so beautiful and intricate!! Her son carved masks out of some kind of fig bark, and I thought those would fit in the suitcase better than a basket, so I got one for $10.
This shows the changes since Hurricane Maria came through
My favorite sign in the museum. It’s a subtle, yet strong acknowledgement to the evils of Christopher Columbus.
Dominican Ground Lizard (Pholidoscelis fuscatus)- endemic to Dominica!
These red seeds are used as beads and rattles. They are GORGEOUS!
Watchmen overlooking the sea
Elizabeth, demonstrating traditional basketweaving.
Headed out down the road again toward our next stop. Emerald Pools. We drove through some more AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS country- towering mountains and lush rainforest, interspersed by the ever present completely bare trees sticking out everywhere…a reminder of Category 5 Hurricane Maria that practically destroyed the island in September 2017. And, of course, the ever present crazy drivers who think the middle of the road is their lane, even though every 100m there’s a blind curve. Between that and my tailbone, I’m never comfortable when we’re driving, and we drive a lot. We reached Emerald Pools and parked. There was an official center here with a guy in a uniform, even though the little museum was closed (so many things are closed because it’s off season). We didn’t have to pay, but he said we could swim in the falls! So we went back and got our swim stuff. As we did, it began to pour. And I mean POUR!! As in, if you walked outside and looked up for more than a few seconds, you’d probably drown! After all, we were in the rainforest. The guy said they get over 230 inches of rain a year! It didn’t last but about 15 minutes, then we headed out for the short hike down. The pools were so beautiful, with a magical waterfall pouring into them. But they were cold! Like freezing cold!! I told Brian to get in so I could get a picture of him (again, he’s the “show” to my “tell”!). He was like, “NO WAY!”. I’m very convincing. As we hiked out, it started to rain again. The rain was way warmer than the pool!
Brian, the best sport ever, taking one for the team in the freezing water!
I found an umbrella on the hike back up!
This would have been a better umbrella, but it wasn’t shaped right. Still, HUGE leave!!
Next stop, Roseau. We hadn’t had a meal in over 24 hours, and since that’s the capital city, we figured we could easily find something. Plus, I had a decent cell signal there and we needed to find an airbnb for the night that had wifi and preferably a washing machine! But first item of business, food. I looked on the map and saw that there were a lot of restaurants clustered in this one area. We turned left off the main road, toward the ocean, and regretted it immediately. The traffic was awful. As in, it took us about 40 minutes to go 8 blocks. The already narrow streets were lined with parked cars on one side, which meant two things- no parking anywhere, and very tense driving trying to make sure we didn’t hit one. The other side was lined with drainage ditches that were basically 2 foot deep cement death traps with no barriers that were just waiting for our wheels to fall off into them. The exhaust fumes were horrible. And there was literally no way out of it. Every single street, no matter which direction, was completely jam packed with a line of cars trying to get somewhere and a line of parked cars (which to the casual observer looked just about the same in terms of speed). It made my commute in Los Angeles look like a day at the park. Plus, the restaurants we did see were closed, so even if we could find parking it would have been a moot point. We were starving, tired from not such a great night’s sleep, and super bitchy at this point. When I’m so stressed and bitchy that I don’t even think to snap a picture, well…yeah. There’s a new chant we have. HELL NO, ROSEAU. We seriously hate this town, and it now will live on in our list of towns we never want to see again, including Las Tunas and Santiago de Cuba. Yeah, as much as we loved Cuba, we hated two of the towns there. And Dublin, Ireland is not on my top 10,000 list either.
The street finally dumped us out at a waterfront. I saw a cruise ship in dock!! Compared to the cruise ship we saw in Antigua, this thing was a dingy, but here’s what I know- where there are cruise ships, there are tourists. Where there are tourists coming off of cruise ships, there is money. Where there is money, there are locals trying to sell them things- including FOOD! There had to be a restaurant down here!! Quick! Follow the tourists! (That is seriously the only time you will ever read that in this blog, as normally I avoid them like the plague. But desperate times call for desperate measures). We parked, went down to the waterfront, and looked around. Nothing. We asked a security guard lady who was standing at the gangway to the ship. She said there were basically three places- two hotels and if we wanted something more local, the 2nd floor of some building she pointed to up the road. Dominica, you really need to learn how to take better advantage of tourists. #justsaying We decided to go to the closest place- a hotel with a restaurant upstairs overlooking the water. There was a lunch buffet for about $20 each, which was kinda spendy, but whatever at this point. There were two soups, salad, rice, potatoes, steamed vegetables, tuna, and chicken to choose from. It was ok, but nothing to write home about. We have yet to have an amazing meal here. The only thing amazing about the food is that we manage to find any.
We seriously considered sneaking on board just to find food…
Mermaid statue at the hotel. Why is she sad? She lives in Hell No, Roseau.
After lunch, we decided to walk back to a fancy-schmancy grocery store called Fresh Market that we had seen. It looked like it might actually have groceries in it! Yep. It was a fully stocked store! One of those kind of fancy-schmancy expat kind of stores with lots of imports, presumably for the cruise ship passengers. We got some peanut butter, bread, honey, argued over what snack to get (chocolate, cheesecake, or ice cream- I vetoed ice cream because it would melt before we got back, so we decided to do both chocolate AND cheesecake #adulting). As we walked to the check out, the soda aisle was right there, facing it. Brian went to get some cokes and what to my wondering eyes did appear?? My maroon can!! Dr. Pepper!! If you read this blog, you know that I always take a picture of it on the shelf wherever I find it. So, I snapped a pic of the single cans, and the 12 pack (which was $66 ecd, $25 US- OUCH!). Immediately a woman was on me. “We do not allow pictures in the store.”, she said none too politely. Um, excuse me? I’m sorry, but I didn’t realize Dominica kept their top state secrets on the soda aisle at Fresh Market in Roseau. Like seriously? Well, I had already snapped my pics- what was she going to do? Make me delete them? But I was pissed. Just another frustrating Dominican incident to add to the pile of things making me not like this place so much. Dear World, Never get between Mary and her Dr. Pepper. Love, Mary. It was several hours days before I quit bitching about that little encounter. #poorbrian As we got back to the car to leave, a man in a wheelchair rolled up and started yelling something at Brian. Whatever it was, he was furious. We ignored him and drove off. Fuck this place.
Feast your eyes on these contraband pictures, and really take them in….because I’m sure I’ll be receiving a cease and desist order from Fresh Market any day now. 🙄
We found an airbnb on the phone app that had wifi and a washer and a host that had a fast response time. It was spendy at $60 for a private room, not an entire place, but with the crappy phone signal we really didn’t have the ability to go through a lot of options. Sent a request, she immediately replied, and we headed up the hill above Roseau to her place. Of course, as we were contemplating a turn because the GPS is a little slow, some local guy on a scooter screamed, “Fucking white people!” at us as he passed. This did not add to the pros column on our Dominica spreadsheet…. Found our way to the house, and I’ll say this- it was SPOTLESS, and the woman was very nice. But there were a few rooms with guests, plus a bed IN THE LIVING ROOM…someone’s getting greedy. Our room was this tiny, windowless thing that barely fit the pulled out futon and dresser. Way too overpriced for what it was. All I cared about though was getting my clothes washed and having wifi to get some much needed work done! We arrived about 3:30pm. No sooner had we gotten there, than the car rental place sent me a WhatsApp stating that they had the damage report and charges and wanted us to come to their office today or tomorrow to view them and settle up. I told them no, I wasn’t driving all the way over there (they had known we were supposed to be in Kalinago territory for our stay). She insisted we come to the office in Roseau. Um, wrong. I am already coming to your office on Sunday to drop off the car. We can do it then, as I’m not taking any time out of my very short vacation to come to your office twice for no good reason. And this is when I got really creeped out. She said, “We saw you in town.” Seriously? It pissed me off to no end, and made us really contemplate just ditching the car at their place, ditching the repair bill, and cancelling the card. Fortunately for them, we aren’t those kind of people. I insisted several times that she email us the damages and charges. She ignored me the first few times I asked, still insisting I come to the office. I finally told her that I wasn’t coming over there until I had the charges emailed to me, and I needed a contract for that car since we didn’t have one. Shortly, I had the invoices. We opened them with trepidation. About $5800. Fucking OUCH. Hopefully we can recover the charges from Geico and/or American Express.
The whole interaction and having to insist on getting a bill had us both frustrated. That, combined with the stress of the roads, my tailbone, hardly any sleep, eating one meal a day because there are no restaurants in this country or decent groceries, the cluster fuck that is Roseau…well, we were over it. Even though this is the top 1 or 2 most beautiful countries we’ve ever been to, it hates us. We’re cursed here. Seriously, worst travel experience ever, and it’s not all Dominica’s fault. It just is. We discussed maybe just catching a flight out the next day and leaving this place. Until we looked at the cost of flights to our next destination, Martinique, that is literally the next island over (all with 12 hour layovers somewhere!!). Then, we needed to book our ferry out for Sunday. When I had looked at the schedule back in February, it left Dominica at 10:30 and arrived Martinique at 12:30. Well, it has changed since then. Now it’s 4:30-6:30pm!! FUUUUUUCK! Our Airbnb in Martinique was on the other side of the island, it gets dark at about 7:30pm, and once we got off the ferry and went through immigration, we still had to find a taxi to the airport and pick up our car! We’d never make it! This required us to a) cancel the first night of our airbnb b) find a new airbnb close to the airport c) change our car pickup time. Points b and c were easy. But the people who we had originally booked 2 nights with refused to allow us to cancel the first night- even though they had a flexible cancellation policy with airbnb which meant I had up to 24 hours before check in to make changes or cancellations for a full refund. Because they refused to work with me, even after I explained the situation, I just cancelled the whole damn thing. I wasn’t paying for 2 airbnbs for Sunday night! They didn’t like that one damn bit, and it led to a back and forth messaging relay where I kindly explained how Airbnb works and why I was in the right and that if they had just honored my request they would have only lost out on 1 night instead of 2. So now, we have to find an airbnb for night 2 in Martinique. Fuck it, we’ll just fly by the seat of our pants, figure out where we end up at the end of the day (since our schedule is now completely off due to the ferry being a half day later than we thought). Just one more aggravation to the growing list….
So now I’m ready to work. My 2nd summer session for school starts in less than a week, and I needed to get class access instructions out to everyone and set up the rosters. Enter another aggravation. The main reason we booked this place was wifi. And it was not cooperating. I realized I only had 1 bar of signal. I messaged the lady to find out where the router was. It was in the bar next door. Fucking seriously?? No wonder it kept cutting in and out. I literally fought it for almost 5 hours and got nothing- not one single thing- done. I paid $60 a night for a crappy room, crappy bed, and non-existent wifi in a town I hate. Pissed is an understatement. At least laundry got done. So with no signal, I decided to download the days pictures and get them ready for the blog. Pulled Day 2 from the SD card on the camera, popped them into their folder on my laptop, deleted them off the SD card, went back to the folder and….THEY WERE GONE!!! I searched and searched and nothing. I was SICK about it! Will someone please take the pins out of my vacation voodoo doll? Then, get me off this island, stat.
Lunch time was approaching. This is France, and France is all about food. Martinique has a TON of restaurants, and they are all open!! And not only do they have restaurants, but grocery stores that are fully stocked! We shall starve no more! And not only do they have grocery stores, but they have Carrefour! A chain I know from France proper! A chain that is known to have Dr. Pepper. Alas, this one did not, but it did have huge areas devoted to the 3 staples of the French diet- fresh bread, wine, and cheese! We got a baguette and some salami to eat along the way. Delicious, and less than $3.50! There was a volcano museum in this town. We pulled in, but it was closed, so we headed down the road again. Our destination was the northernmost area of the island on the other side of Mount Pelee from where we were- Grand Rivere. Even the super rural roads were in perfect condition! The map said there was a viewpoint, so we parked and headed up the hill. A goat guarded the passage, so I had Brian hold him while I quickly scooted by. I don’t like farm animals unless they’re on a plate… We walked up and up. My back was not feeling it and it was HOT. I finally gave up and we turned around. Come to find out- the view point wasn’t ½ a mile up the road like our map said- it was more like 3 miles up! Did get one lovely shot of the beach below, and a lizard I’d never seen.
The wifi is great here, so I got some work done. Was talking to my son and his girlfriend (who teach in my school) and they said they wanted to facetime with me the next day. I told them I had no idea what my wifi situation would be (and they’ve never asked to do that before anyway). I was nervous. I told them to just tell me and they sent me a picture of an engagement ring! After 9 years, my son finally popped the question! I was ecstatic beyond words for them!!! Until I was informed that no parents are invited to the wedding, but we can all convene in Texas (they live in Colorado) a month after for a party. My heart broke so hard that I think I heard it crack. I won’t go into all the details, but I voiced my dismay at the situation, was reprimanded, and spent the entire night- ALL OF IT- crying. I can’t even remember another time in my life when I spent an entire night crying. To not get to see my oldest son say his vows to the woman I have loved as my own daughter for so many years…it’s painful beyond words. I have loved, accepted, encouraged and supported them in so many things and it really just feels like a slap in the face.
We continued walking down the path, which followed a small stream that ran into the ocean. There was a Kalinago man bathing in a small pool toward the end. And here is a good place to mention this. As we drove down the road, I saw several extremely nice looking Kalinago guys. As in, if Brian ever pisses me off, you will either find me in Paris or Kalinago Territory, Dominica! Seriously, their skin tone is gorgeous. We hiked around to another little ruin we saw. And there was grass there, growing along the path, unlike any I had ever seen before. It was almost like moss- so soft and low growing. Here and there it would grow in little mounds. At the end was a little tiny spring, running just under the grass with a little waterfall through the palms and bushes. It was literally like a magical fairy land, I’m not kidding. And we found it by sheer accident. Sometimes not planning is the way to go!
