The Fredericks in Dominica: Wavine Cyrique

Wavine Cyrique is a hike on the east side of the island that not very many people go to. The ones who do always come back with stories about how hard of a hike it is and how it is very scary. The scary part about it is that you have to climb down the side of the cliff using ropes (no harnesses, of course). You may wonder why anyone would want to do this! Well, the reward is a beautiful waterfall that falls onto the beach.

So when Sara and Chris came to visit, I got a group of people together who were willing and ready to try it out. Christina, Tami and Erica from the bookstore, and Justin's buddy Greg met us at the front gates in the morning. I considered renting a car again, but I decided that it would be more fun (less stress) to let someone else do the driving, and since none of us in the group had been before, it would be nice to have an experienced guide.



The beginning of the hike was completely normal, steps going up... steps going down... the same old drill until...



We came to our first rope. Our guide, Victor, was great and encouraged us every step of the way.

You can just tell Sara is thinking "No worries, mon!"

We would climb down a rope and walk along the side of the cliff and then reach another rope. In all there were five ropes, one so steep there was a ladder too.

We reached the bottom safely and found a huge pile of coconuts that collected underneath the tree. Victor slammed one against a rock to open it up for Sara and Chris to try the coconut water and then we all shared pieces of fresh coconut.

You can see the waterfall between me and Sara. It wasn't as big as I imagined, especially considering all the rain we've had recently.

The sand at the beach was black and very metallic. After a short rest, the clouds came rolling in from the Atlantic and we climbed back up in the mist. I thought it was a lot easier to climb up than down.

Stragglers at the end of the hike.
At the end we all agreed that is wasn't as bad as we'd anticipated but that doesn't mean that we won't continue to spread rumors about how hard and scary it is!