HAVE I mentioned that Dominica is AMAZING? Yes? Well, it bears repeating, because DAHMN, this place is literally awesome. We’ve been busy exploring and hiking with new friends made at the beach barbeques and old friends met again after almost a year.
A few days ago, we took Dan and Rose of Exit Strategy and Florence and Peter of Filia Maris back to the natural hot tub we had visited the day before. In a small clearing in the jungle, a hot spring has been dammed up to make a natural pool that is the perfect Jacuzzi temperature. The six of us piled in, and Dan won the award for best prepared when he pulled a bottle of wine and six glasses out of his backpack.
Yesterday, Peter and Gail, our Aussie friends from Jabiru V whom we got to know in the U.S. last summer, joined us for our second attempt to walk to the Indian River. Our first attempt last week was a complete failure, but this time we met with more success because we had gotten directions from Bob and Cathy, a Canadian couple who’ve been here for 2 months.
However, we still missed the turn-off into the forest the first time, a mistake that – quite fortunately – took us a couple of miles out of our way, up to a small farm at the top of a hill with a divine view of the valley below and mountains towering overhead. We asked a wizened old man with about four teeth but a beautiful, open, craggy face for directions, and after telling us how to find the correct path, cheerfully told us all about his farm. Called Webster “Ti Babe” Brody, he showed us his taro, banana and yam fields, then fetched a long stick to knock down mangoes from his trees for us to eat. 
We happily chatted with while slurping on the two kinds of mangoes, the first a smaller, sweeter but more fibrous one, and the second larger but less likely to end up between your teeth.
An aside: It’s mango season here, but it’s more like mango madness. The hugely laden mango trees are everywhere. People are selling them on the street, but I can’t imagine why anyone would buy them, as you can simply walk up to a tree and pick up windfalls or knock down a ripe one with a stick. Seemingly everyone you see, on their porches, walking down the street, or waiting for the bus, is slurping on a mango. Some small children are completely covered in mango pulp, prompting me to declare, “If I lived here and had a kid, I’d ban mangoes until they were old enough to clean themselves up afterwards!”
We backtracked down the hill, laughing at the local man who passed us, a tire over his shoulder, a machete in one hand, and his cell phone in the other, chatting away. Philip joked that perhaps he was on his way back from the rubber plantation.
We finally found the correct trail and the Indian River, and our minds were simply blown by the sight of the swamp bloodwood trees, whose massive, undulating root systems form surrealist sculptures on either side of the dappled river. None of us had ever seen anything like it; the cruising guide’s admonition that the river was unlike anything in the Caribbean certainly proved true.
Then we rewarded ourselves for all the hard work with a beer at the bar at the end of the trail. Oh, yes, a mind-blowing nature hike that ends in a bar. What can be better?
(The bar actually serves as the destination for folks who take the guided boat tour up the river, which is something we would have done if we had more spare cash.)
On the way back, we met a charming young girl whose American mother owns the horse farm we were passing. She introduced us to her dog, Mikey, and chatted away with us until she noticed that her other dog had stolen a mango and was holding it – with some obvious difficulty, as the mango was a tad large for him – in his mouth. The girl put her hands on her hips and cried, in a very proper and old-fashioned manner, “Oh, Pocolino! You’ve gotten into my mangoes again! Just you wait until I tell Mama, mister!” We laughed, and laughed and laughed, repeating her words all the way back to the beach. Where we had another lovely beer and watched the sun set.
Yeah. Life doesn’t suck.
