Dominica Highlights - A Camera and A Cookbook

Dominica (doh-muh-NEE-ka) is known as the Nature Island. We eagerly woke up before the alarm…again. Did our normal routine of going to the dining room for breakfast. I had the same thing I had the day before, but Rob switched it up a bit and ordered French toast.

We got off the ship and loaded the bus for our tour called Dominica’s Favorites. Our guide was amazing. Throughout the day he impressed upon us that Dominica is the nature island where they eat healthy and use all natural remedies for medicines when necessary.

We saw this rainbow as we made our way to the first destination.

Our first stop was at an overlook to see a view of the capital city Roseau. Great view of everything down below.

Then we drove through the Botanical Gardens.

We stopped to gawk at what is called David the Goliath. This is the remains of a tree that smashed a school bus during Hurricane David in August of 1979. The tree has continued to thrive and grow even on its side. Pretty powerful sight.

All over the island we saw that they use old tires that they painted to partition off new trees and vegitation.

We continued on to Trafalgar Falls (Morne Trois Pitons National Park).

It was raining when we got out of the bus so I took my smaller camera with the water cover in it. We walked a little ways until we reached the a covered platform. It was sprinkling on us as we made our way there.

Here’s a bad picture, but that’s our guide on the right. He was always smiling.

Before you get to the platform you can hear the rushing of the waters from the 2 falls: Mama and Papa falls.

Let me preface this by saying and we said this while we were there. Pictures, I don’t care how good they are, will never ever do this experience justice. You need to go there to really take it in. We want to go and just spend a week on the island.

Mama falls is narrower and falls more gently.

Papa falls is bigger and stronger.

Pretty amazing and breathtaking. We saw crabs along the path that live in the rainforest. Did you know crabs live in the rainforest?

Everything on this island is so green and lush.

The downside to this tour and really all tours that day is that there were lots of tour buses arriving around the same time and probably at least 100 people coming and going, which caused us to have to kind of hurry and not linger taking pictures.

Then we had a decent 45 min. ride over to our next stop which was for a free drink. I chose this Cranberry drink hoping that it was something local. Flipped it around to the back and saw it was from the island not far away that we went to the next day, St. Lucia. Winner!! It was yummy.

After we got our drink we just tried to stand out of the way and enjoy our drink without being in the way. There were probably 8 other buses there with 50 people on each bus. Needless to say, it was very crowded.

Unbeknownst to us when were in line to get our free drink, we walked under this huge beetle. He was quite happy to just hang on the garland while the paparazzi photographed him.

Then we had about a 5 minute drive to the Emerald Pool, which is in the Trois Pitons National Forest. It was even more crowded than the first stop.

Gorgeous but similar to beautiful places/falls we have near us in Alabama/Georgia.

We stayed there for about 45 minutes. Some people wore bathing suits so they could take a quick dip in the cold Emerald Pool. Rob and I actually forgot that detail, but I was glad we didn’t. To me it wouldn’t have been worth it, plus it was chili.

Gorgeous views similar to what we see back home.

On sites is The Banana Leaf restaurant.

We loaded back on the bus for about a 40 min. ride back to port. We weren’t actually docked at the cruise dock because there was another ship on port. Looks like Dominica’s cruise port only has room for 1 ship.

During our ride back the driver stopped so the guide could pull up some lemon grass and later stopped at a cinnamon tree. He passed them around for us to smell. Along the drive our guide pointed out Elephant eggs (nonedible),cocoa beans, breadfruit, coconuts, bananas, grapefruit, and mentioned there are 35 types of mangos on the island!

Loved the way he said “yeah man!” As the tour ended he sang my favorite reggae song called “Three Little Birds.”

After getting off the tour bus, we went into the warehouse where there were local vendors set up. We got some souvenirs and gifts. Back to ship for lunch where Rob had Caribbean fare and then Chinese from Chopsticks. I had Mexican from the Blue Iguana Cantina. Dessert was good. Grammas cake-not a fan chocolate and cheese cake. Rob had strawberry frozen yogurt.

We took the elevator to the top floor of the ship to take more photos. We went back to the cabin for some rest.