Dominica Day 1

I woke up this morning as Dominica came into view outside of my window.  It was both a beautiful and welcome sight!  I spent the morning watching as we pulled into the dock before heading to breakfast.  I wasn’t sure what to do since my Carib Indians tour didn’t start until 12:30, so I stood beside the line of people leaving the ship until someone invited me to come with them.  That seemed to be a pretty good strategy for figuring out what to do, so I may keep doing that in the future.  I ended up leaving the ship with Ko (the resident director for my ‘sea’ or deck) and a bunch of the other RDs.  I think there was one other student there too.  We passed a KFC on the way to the market, which we all thought was funny.

(Here’s a picture of me somewhere in town)

                We spent the morning walking to town and the market.  It was very hot; turns out I shouldn’t wear jeans in this country.  I took lots of pictures!  But I don’t think I will be able to upload very many…  Sorry…  I had to go back early to catch my tour, so two of the RDs and I walked back to the shop.  Terrie (one of the RDs) and I stopped for lunch at a place at the side of the road while the other RD returned to the ship.  I had the fried fish, which was very good!  They were also selling pig snout…  But I wasn’t quite brave enough to try that yet.  We also stopped at a market on the way back where we picked up a few things before boarding the ship.

                I ran down to my room and changed since it was so hot outside…  And put on more sunscreen and bug spray.  When I was filling up my water bottle one of the kitchen staff told me I have a very beautiful smile.  I like that guy.

 

(Driving around the island)

                We met up in the Union for the Carib Indian tour.  There were about 55 of us that were divided into buses and set off for the tour…  Until our bus realized we didn’t have our tickets to see the Emerald Pool.  That added about an hour of driving to the already long ride.  We didn’t get to the Carib Indian Reservation until about 3:00.  It was very interesting to see how they lived.  There was one guy that took us around his yard and showed us what each plant was good for (I wish I could remember all that he said, but I can’t) and cocoa beans, among other things.  We saw a part of the set from the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  The chief’s sons were extras in the movie, he was very proud.  We were able to eat some snacks that they had made before loading back onto our buses and heading out for the Emerald Pool.

               

(This guy was telling us all the medicinal purposes of his plants)

It was getting dark by the time we reached the Emerald Pool so we were unable to walk all the way down the path to the water.  We ended up just walking to an overlook and taking pictures.  I wasn’t able to get a good one since it was getting pretty dark by that point.  It was completely dark when we made it back to the ship.  I found some people going out to dinner as soon as I got back onto the ship and decided to go out with them.  We found a nice restaurant downtown, after taking a taxi to get there.  It was not the best service and the food was a bit pricy, but it was good to have to chance to go out with people.  I am now back in my room and getting ready for bed.  Going snorkeling tomorrow!