Dominica, The Nature Isle

With my mind boggled down with thoughts of devastation back home, I have forgotten to write about my mini vacation after Mid-Service Training last week. Forgive me, as its a story worth telling and hopefully a nice break for my readers who obsessively scan every news source all day for anything related to the tornado (or is that just me?).

Mid-Service training came to completion on Friday, May 20th in St. Lucia. Myself and three other volunteers decided months ago to continue our time away from Grenada by traveling on to Dominica, where some of our best volunteer friends live. Thankfully they live a few islands away because we would never get any work done if we were all on the same island, use your imagination if necessary.

:)

After the lovely TERRIBLE service from LIAT airlines, we finally made it to our destination a mere 4 hours late. Dominica is much larger and mountainous than Grenada, so we were in for a treat while taking a bus from the airport to the capital. By this time in the day we were tired, starving and delusional, so our ride consisted of Samieh and Amirh singing Rhianna in the back row, Alex and Crystal sleeping in the second row and Errin and I trying to sight see in the pitch black night. Adventure people!

View from Ft. Young

The first night we rented a hotel room at Fort Young in the capital city of Roseau, which is much more developed than Grenada's capital of St. George's. Coincidentally, the hotel had a happy hour/dj dance hour(s) which we took advantage of quickly. Karaoke and Dominican beer made for an interesting evening.

Thunderstorm by the pool...beautiful.

The next couple days we spent hopping from village to village, crashing at volunteers houses along the way. The second day we ventured to Amirh's house in the southern part of the island, a village named Soufriere. We dropped our stuff and took a quick hike up to Scottshead, a beautiful little point that is separated by the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. So interesting to see the waves crashing on shore from the Atlantic side while the Caribbean Sea relaxes in beauty. While hiking the point we came up with the great idea to have an Amazing Race adventure. It was partially because my fat ass didn't want to hike the massive mountain that was planned for the group, but that's beside the point. Three of us were required to hitch to Alex's village while the other three had to hike over the mountain and meet us. Many competitions along the way made the challenge hilarious, but our hitching group came our victorious.

Scottshead overlooking the Atlantic (right) and Caribbean (left)

:)

Party Foul!!!!

We also made it to Alex's apartment in Grand Bay, where I was crushed by the news from home about the tornado. I wish I remembered more from that night, but my mind was shattered with thoughts of destruction back home. The next day we traveled/hitched to Samieh's village of Dublanc where we ate some AMAZING pizza and drank pitchers of TAP beer. Tap beer is unheard of on the islands, so this was a rare opportunity that lead to many many pitchers.

Soufriere

The following day included hitching with 50 pounds of luggage each to Rashawna's village of Marigot, where we climbed a wicked hill called Monkey Hill, ate delicious veggie burgers, drank Red Stripe beer and played hours of catch phrase. Life is good in Dominica!

Classic hitching picture. Amazing Race Champs!!!

Pit stop during Amazing Race.

I can't wait to host the Dominicans in Grenada during August Carnival time. They are in for a real treat in the Isle of Spice. Dominca is now checked off the bucket list successfully!