Vacationing in the West Indies: Dominica Style presents...Dubique Falls

I was excited that the spouses organization was planning a trip to a waterfall while Katherine was visiting. As easy as it is to rent a car and go, this trip came with a guide. Our destination: Dubique Falls, on the very southeast corner of the island. While Bense River was a fun little excursion, this trip promised three waterfalls!

So we woke up and met everyone by the shacks where we piled into a transport bus and headed south on an hour and a half long journey. When we reached Dubique, we encountered problem number 1: a huge ditch being blasted out of a newly poured road (of course it was a road we needed to drive up).

After some discussion, we parked the transport on the side of the main road (you know, the one "highway" that loops the island) and started our hike a little early. A local guy in a red shirt who was working on the road construction agreed to lead us up to the waterfall, seeing as our driver had never been before.The hike started out as normal, walking on a path alongside a creek. So far so good. We reached the first waterfall of the hike without incident.

And then problem number 2: A huge boulder to climb (some of you may be thinking, no big deal, keep going, and I would say, yes! that's the spirit! unfortunately, not everyone was on the same level as we are and decided to stop their hike right there and wait for us.

Christina made it up...Katherine made it up...

And so we continued on our hike in hopes of seeing the next two waterfalls. The red shirt guy was hiking full steam a head and the seven of us following stumbled through the rocky "path" in pursuit.After a while, the trail ended and we continued our trek up a rocky river bed following our red shirted guide. In most hikes to waterfalls here this is pretty standard. Mostly. But here we encountered problem number 3: this river bed was dry. Mostly. While there was no water flowing, the rocks and dirt were just wet enough to be very slippery.

After what seemed like the longest hardest part of the hike, I finally asked my friend in the red shirt if he was sure there was a waterfall coming up. He assured us there was, and yet again we continued.

A few minutes later we encountered problem number 4: there was no waterfall.

That's right, y'all. I called it. Here we were, looking forward to swimming in the waterfall's refreshing pool of water before our nightmare of a return hike and our guide is standing in the middle of a dry river bed looking up at the rocks with a puzzled expression saying "well this is where it should be..."

Let me tell you, the journey back was not fun. That's why there aren't any pictures. We met up with the others who waited behind (lucky them) and finished up back at the transport. The ride home was pretty sad.

so the moral of this story is: don't ask to go to Dubique Falls when you come visit.

And sorry to Katherine who had to experience that hike that had so many problems and zero satisfaction.

Vacationing in the West Indies: Dominica Style presents...Hiking with Katherine

Katherine and I hiked to Cabrits one morning to see the ruins at Fort Shirley. It is only three miles from campus and has several hiking trails. As often as I see goats around the area, I never thought they were indigenous to the island. Perhaps this is a misuse of the term, seeing as the island has no other native mammals.

The old battary is where I saw my first Dominican snakes, but we were lucky this time.

On the other side of the peninsula, there is a view of Douglas Bay and sometimes you can see Guadeloupe. Not today.

We found these trees with thorns on them and stopped to take a look.
Part of the ruins were very over grown.
Katherine with a view of Prince Rupert Bay.

Vacationing in the West Indies: Dominica Style presents...Cliff Jumping with katherine

After visiting the Bense River with the spouses group, Christina and I knew we wanted to return. So Katherine's visit gave us the perfect opportunity to rent a bus and go again.I let Christina drive! We loaded up and headed out.

We made it there fine with only a few scary parts, like the driver in front of us who switched into reverse and back up towards us and then pulled off the road or when we scraped the bottom of the bus on rocks going up the trail. Christina was an excellent driver...she even managed to get all the way up a steep hill after stalling half way.

We parked the bus and headed down the trail until we came to the Chaudiere Pool.

Now for the best part!

Katherine decided to take the plunge and jump off the cliff into the pool (everyone else was doing it).
We waited in anticipation while she convinced herself it was a good idea (I know you are all holding your breath in anticipation as well!)
Doesn't it make for a great picture?

They guys that came enjoyed their morning off from studying and jumped off over and over. The water was really refreshing and we splashed around for a while before heading back to campus.

This was an attempt to take a picture of everyone from the hood of another car. I don't know why we didn't think to scoot up.

The ride back home was incident free and we ate lunch together after returning the bus.

Vacation in the West Indies: Dominica Style presents... Kayaking with Katherine

On Wednesday, Christina and I rented a car and drove to the airport to pick up Katherine from the airport. We picked her up with no problems and brought her to Portsmouth where she will be staying with us for the next week.

On Thursday morning we kayaked to Secret Beach. Christina, me, and Katherine ready to get going!

The weather was really windy and our kayaks collaided once, but no one tipped over.
We managed to separate and we were on our way! A school of about 30 fish greeted us in the water by jumping out of the water all together twice!

Christina brought her snorkle and masks for us to play with, and we got some great underwater pictures. The water was very clear but we only saw a few fish around us.

It kind of looks like I'm doing the Egyptian...Katherine gave the peace sign
The water wasn't very deep where we were and we had a hard time staying underwater for a picture.
Christina, me, and Katherine at Secret Beach

You can't go to secret beach without getting in the cave.

It really isn't scary, I just took this picture to be funny.
See...Katherine and Christina are smiling!
We made it back out safely and kayaked back. Rachel's office is right by the beach so we stopped by (I'm sure it felt more like an invasion to her) and cooled off before heading over to the Picard Grocery for a snack.

Katherine and I returned home to make dinner and shower (in that order because you can't not sweat when you cook). We ate with Justin and then left him to study some more while we watched TV and ate dessert at Rachel's with Leslie and Christina.

(this could be you)

Justin's Birthday

To celebrate Justin's 24th birthday, we invited everyone over for tacos. It wouldn't have been a success without the random light class load on Wednesday (only two hours of class! WOW!). What a better excuse to stop studying early and hang out? Well at least that is easy for me to say... and I'm pretty persuasive.

I spent the morning making tortillas and preparing to have anywhere from 12 to 20 guests for dinner (the beauty of single male students who can't give a definite RSVP...typical right?)We had chips and salsa, tacos with all the fixings, rice, black beans and cake. I know the spread looks awesome, I'm making do without serving platters!

Not everyone was able to sit, but everyone was in good spirits after a homecooked meal. Christina remembered to bring the camera and we took lots of pictures!

Robert, Kyle, Greg, Justin, and David, the guys from aisle E as they like to say, because that is where they study in classroom 6. On sunday they are playing in a dodgeball tournament and thier team name is Aisle E featuring Killer Dan (don't worry, no one actually dies).

Justin even got a gag gift: some flavored soup from his buddies!Rachel made two delicious cakes. Isn't she a great friend? She did eat one before she made it to the party though. What an oinker! But in all fairness you can read her side of the story at www.xanga.com/life_in_dominica , it is a modest attempt at saving face. The second cake was made during dinner and to keep our apartment cool, Lauren let us use her oven. I noticed the rack wasn't in the middle, but we were in a hurry so I went ahead and baked it. Now we know that it IS important to have the rack in the middle, because the cake burned black on the bottom before the top was brown. In true Martha Stuart style, Rachel and I scooped the top of the cake out of the pyrex and frosted it on some foil. Fortunately it was a success and not a fiasco!

Justin, Ashley, Christina, Andrew, Rachel, and Brian. You can see that we left the door open to help keep the apartment cool, but I think it really just let the bugs in. Not as bad as it could have been. In all it was a fun night and happy birthday for Justin!