Chuggin

We're chuggin up the Amazon, there is brown murky water, coasts of
rainforest, and big bugs boarding the ship. This will be interesting.
Tomorrow Manaus!

Dominica

Dominica, pronounced Dom-in-ee-ka, is quite a beautiful country. It's an
island in the southern carribean, sort of near Antigua, but has features
all its own. The best word to some it up is pristine. It seems the
island has been barely touched, and therefore the vast majority of the
island is untouched, thick, dense, lush rainforest. It is quite
mountainous, very green, and the people are some of the friendliest I've
ever met. Everywhere I go people want to make sure you are enjoying
their island and ask if you plan on coming back. Tourism is a blossoming
industry for Dominica their poor airport makes getting their rather
difficult, and its lack of chain hotels and nice beaches make it a sort
of niche destination, focusing on its nature, whether it's hiking on
their many trails or diving in some of the worlds best reefs. My time
here was an adventure to say the least.

Day 1) For a long time I had no plans in Dominica, it always seemed to
me as the replacement port for not getting to go to Cuba. Which it was,
but a might fine replacement. I new i wanted to see the nature, get lost
in the rainforest so to speak. Little did I know how close that was to
actually happening. I had found an appealing geocache to seek out a few
days before, it talked of a hidden, off-the-beaten-path place called
Bamboo river in the northern rainforest reserve. But all I had was some
coordinates. I found a couple friends willing to go on my adventure with
me, I got them excited.
I woke up early the morning we got to Dominica (6:15!) to watch the
sunrise. Miles loves to take pictures of the sunrise and sunset
everyday. I got breakfast and we were off the boat by 9. The first thing
we had to do was find the tourism office so they could help us figure
out how to get to these coordinates. After 30 minutes we found it and
this wonderful woman somehow managed to find the nature retreat barely
mentioned in the geocache description with the corresponding
coordinates. We were ecstatic. She told us how to get a bus to Concord
where the retreat was near. We found the right bus, which was really a
van, and packed in with a bunch of locals. Quite the cultural
experience. The woman told us the ride would be 45 minutes. It was
really an hour and a half on windy, narrow rides up and down mountains.
The scenery was amazing. The driver eventually stopped at a road and
said it was the way to Concord. The road itself was under much
construction. We got out, put bug spray on, and began walking. Little
did we know we'd be walking down that road for 5 miles in the noon day
heat, practically running out of water, with no food, and almost dieing
of dehydration. Ok, I'm being a little dramatic, but that shit was
intense. We passed a school, many friendly locals, and beautiful scenery
on the way. But by mile 4 we had almost had enough.
We finally got to the drive of the retreat called Roots Nature
Retreat. Little did we know the driveway was gonna be a 2 mile hike
straight up-hill. At this point we were rationing the little water we
had left. Soon after starting the trek up the driveway I could tell the
girl in our group needed a serious break, I told them I'd walk ahead to
hopefully find this retreat and some water and food as well. Little did
I know how much longer the driveway was going to go. Their were points I
thought I might pass out I was so weary. But I pushed on and eventually
got to the retreat. As I got there I started yelling to see if anybody
is their. No answer. I saw 3 little huts, and a big hut. They were
beautiful. Like if George Clooney wanted to stay in the rainforest, this
is where he'd stay. But nobody was their. I could see luggage and
laptops, but the people staying there must have been out for the day. I
walked to the main hut which featured a magnificent open-air kitchen.
Their was a large fruit basket on the counter, and a fridge stocked with
cold Kubili beer. It was like the garden of eden. I thought it over and
decided to survive I need to take some sustanance back to my collegues.
I quickly stashed 3 bananas and 3 beers in my backpack. Feeling a little
adrenaline rush I started the long trek back to the bottom of the long
driveway, but just as I'm about to leave I see a pair of feet on a
hammock by the river. Then another pair of feet. I ran over and it was
them! They were just behind me! I was so happy. At that point I knew the
cache was right their so I quickly got my berrings and we descended via
a rope tied to a tree to the swimming hole. Quickly we found the cache
which became rather unimportant at this point. We ate our delicious
bananas, changed into our bathing suits and jumped into the freezing,
refreshing water. It was really amazing. We chilled for a little,
cracked open our beers on a rock and relaxed under the jungle canopy.
Pure bliss. We signed the logbook, dropped in our trinket, took some
photos, and headed back up. I showed them the huts and kitchen; they
were amazed. Then we began our descent. As we neared the bottom of the
driveway we noticed what looked like a cow, which hadn't been their
before. As we got closer we noticed it was no cow...it was a bull. It
looked like it was tied up, but as I tiptoed by I could the rope tied
around its neck wasn't attached to anything. We were all terrified. The
bull began circling around us. I ran up on a little hill, thinking I was
safer there (I wasn't). Krithi came up on the mound with me, she was
TERRIFIED. She held my hand and I just told her to stay completetely
still. The Bull wriggled itself a bit, and then finally walked back up
the road we came from. We darted in the other direction and were safe.
Now our adrenaline was really pumping. With a long walk in front of
us we quickly focused our attention on hitching a ride on the next van
that passed us. Like a godsend, withing 3 minutes a white van/bus starts
driving toward us. We flag it down, ask if there's room for 3, and
squeeze into the already crowded van (which they call a bus). We zoom
past all the familiar sights we passed on the walk there. Then the bus
stops. We're not sure why at first, then someone in the bus says "Tire
burst" and there is a communal groan. We get out of the bus and start
making the best of the situation while our driver calls for a new bus.
The locals are laughing and joking around. It was kind of nice. We could
have the just walked the rest of the distance to catch another bus going
to Roseau, but we didn't want to. Instead we waited for 25 minutes till
a new bus showed up.
The driver, knowing we had to get to Roseau offered to drop
everyone else off, and then take us to Roseau for a fairly moderate
price. We got in the bus, dropped off everyone else, including some
Dominica State College girls who we talked to and they asked if they
could touch my hair. I obliged. Then we had the most beautiful hour and
a half drive along the western coast as the sun set. The driver pointed
out a couple sights along the way back, such as their medical school.
You could tell all the people we met were proud of their island and
wanted to show it off. As the M/V Explorer finally came into sight we
were all relived. We did it, and we didn't die or get injured in the
process.
So 10 hours later we boarded the ship, rushed to catch dinner, and
ate so much pasta and potatoes. But as we ate, we felt different from
everyone else around us. I'm sure they all had fun, saw some cool
things, but they didn't have an adventure like we did. We were sort of
on a different plane from the rest of the ship for those 30 minutes of
snarfing down food. It was nice. For I didn't feel like a tourist, I
felt like a traveler. Then of course that feeling went away the second I
boarded a bus to go to the local bar in town were we drank Kubili and
danced to popular American music (It was a blast), but that's ok.
Sometimes you have to know your place.

Day 2) A much more touristy day. Me and Melissa went into town, ate some
jamaican beef patties with popcorn shrimp, got juice from the juice man
(we didn't get sick!), and got a taxi to take us to Trafalagar falls
(stunning). We swam under the waterfall, relaxed in the hot springs,
took some photos, bought a couple snacks at the grocery store for the
next leg of our trip, and got on the ship by 3. Way before our 6pm
on-ship time, but I did NOT want to be late.

Dominica was a great start of the trip, sort of like an appetizer.
Something to whet the palette. Next port I'll be exploring a whole new
rainforest, the Amazon rainforest. This time I'll actually be spending a
night IN the rainforest. Kind of scary, but that's a good thing.

The First Few Days

So I just woke up in my cabin (3045) with the ship gently rocking from side to side. My roommate Miles seems to be an early riser, that’s probably a good thing. I missed breakfast since it only goes till 8:30, but lunch is at 11:30 so I’ll manage. I have my first class at 1pm, or I should say 1300 hours. It’s World Theatre and Performance. I met the professor yesterday and she seems very nice. I think people are beginning to relax a little bit, realizing that we’re all going to be with each other on this ship for quite a while and we need to help maintain each others sanity.

           

Yesterday was quite a long day; full of orientation meetings, health and safety stuff, and leaving Nassau, coming back to Nassau, and leaving again. We’re now actually on our way to Dominica and the ship seems to be going full speed to make up for the lost time. This 3 square meals regimen is certainly putting my eating schedule back in order, and my sleeping pattern seems to be adapting as well. I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 9:30. We’ll see how long that lasts. Last night I had dinner with a few friends and then a professor and lifelong learner joined us. We started talking with her and boy has she had the life. She seems at least 80 years old now and in those 80 years she was a civilian working as an anesthesiologist in Vietnam during the war with some German peace organization. And in 2004 she was in Afghanistan doing the same thing. She was such a quite and unassuming presence until we started talking to her. My eyes widened as she explained her stories to us. Rebecca told me these lifelong learners were fascinating people and boy was she right.

 

I’m very eager to get to our first port and really get this trip started. It’s still pretty hard to imagine that this boat with all these people is going somehow make its way all around the world. They say it’ll happen. I guess I should believe them.

Here we go!!

I leave for the airport in 6 1/2 hours. By 11:15 I'll be in Nassau and by noon I'll be basking in the Bahamian heat. So long winter, hello flip flops!