Roseau, Dominica

 

At the botanical park in Rosseau, we saw a school bus crushed by an African baobab tree during Hurricane David in 1979. Thankfully, the bus was empty at the time.

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As we approached the island, it was nice to be greeted by a rainbow without the rain.

We had to go ashore by tender. I do not enjoy being stuffed into one of these sardine cans, but thankfully it was a short ride.

Today, we went inland and up. It was a steep 1800-foot climb for our minibus.

The first stop was a narrow gorge people could swim through to get to a waterfall. I decided against it due to a minor wound on one arm that I did not want to risk getting infected. Pam forged ahead.

 Unfortunately, in the crowd swirling around the axis point to the water, I did not get a chance to give her the underwater camera before she waded in. For reasons explained later, this may have made no difference.

While there, I noticed a water pipe descending further up the mountain. Over much of its length, it was made out of wood. Our guide told me the wood was oak but could not tell me why there was wooden piping. I was skeptical of the pipe being made of oak since that tree is not indigenous to the tropics. According to Google, there are several tropical hardwoods.

As for the question of why use wooden pipe, online I found, "Why wooden pipes? Wood was inexpensive, readily available, and proven to last at least 20 years. Its smooth interior surface allowed a larger carrying capacity than metal, which was likely to form tubercles (small nodules or protuberances) within a few years."

We descended a short distance from the gorge, then followed a fork in the road to a sulfur hot spring. The sulfur in the water and the much smaller number of people in the water had me join Pam this time.

I took the underwater camera with me, but for some reason, it acted up, so what might have been some fun pictures were lost to posterity.

There were other pools and the river as well as a waterfall.

Tourism on the level of cruise ship-sized crowds is relatively new to the island. This was apparent at both of today's locations, where parking to restrooms and changing facilities were limited.

Having driven through the botanical garden on our way back, after returning to the waterfront. we briefly checked out some craft booths, then boarded the tender to return to the ship.