Roseau

We decided to get up extremely early last Sunday so that we could go and take pictures of the city before we leave in a few weeks. The city can be a little dangerous so we wanted to travel down to Roseau when there were not many people around. On Sundays everyone goes to church here, and I mean everyone. On Sunday morning once church started the streets were completely empty allowing us to get plenty pictures of the town. The town is run down a bit, but it is so unique to me because each house is painted a different color. The colors are so bright here as well. Basically what happens when you want to paint your house is this: You walk in. You say you need paint. They say well we have these two colors. Then you pick one, and that is what you get. It is actually really pretty. It was very early in the morning but we enjoyed ourselves.

Brush Fires

We have seen two brush fires since we have been here. We could not believe it when we saw the first one last week. This rather large fire was making its way across the mountainside towards peoples houses and the lady we were with said something like, "Oh, don't worry about it. They will wait it out. It will be fine". John and I were like really? By the time the fire truck would have even gotten there it would have been bad. At that moment I thanked the Lord for all the regulations we have in the US making sure there are so many fire stations according to a city's population!

Victoria Falls

We decided that we would make the hike up to Victoria falls. The hike was a difficult one but once we saw the falls it was all worth it. We were told it would take about 25 min to hike into the falls, but it took 3 hours. I have noticed that our version of time and the Dominican version of time are not quite the same. Who knows they might actually be able to do it in 25 min because they have done it so many times before.

Boats

I just love all of the boats here. Old boats, new boats, rusty boats.. I love it! We went down to Portsmouth for church on Sunday and we saw a ton of boats. The pictures turned out pretty well too.

Ti Tou Gorge and Indian River

John and I had such a blast at the Ti Tou Gorge and the Indian River. The Ti Tou Gorge is actually on the hike back from the Boiling Lake and the Indian River is located in Portsmouth. Two completely different locations but they do have sometime in common...parts of the Pirates of the Caribbean II and III were filmed at both of these locations!

The Titou Gorge is a narrow water filled canyon just at the start of the Boiling Lake trail. A lot of people come up just to see the gorge itself, and leave the Boiling Lake hike to the brave. We enjoyed a swim in the gorge after our exhausting hike. I really just wanted to get home but John convinced me that we should go for a quick swim. I am glad we did :) The water was cold and crystal clear. It was just plain beautiful with the sun shining down into the cracks above the gorge.

The Indian River was actually a lot more that I expected. We started at the base and hired a guide to paddle us up river. It was so calm and relaxing. It was really neat to see all of the vegetation growing straight up from the water, and creating all of these reflections on the water. The trees hung just over the water, creating a surreal effect (no wonder why the filmed a movie here).

I will try to get pictures up as soon as I can, but the internet is not working well over here.

Plantains

A few nights ago we enjoyed one of the local foods, plantains. Plantains are much firmer and do not have as much sugar in them compared to regular bananas. Normally you would eat a banana raw but plantains are usually cooked before they are eaten. They can be used to make a variety of foods, but we just fried them up as plantain chips. They taste kind of like a potato. They were yummy. If you are really curious to learn more about the plantain check out this website:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantain

Boiling Lake

On Saturday we traveled up to boiling lake. We started out very early in the morning because most people take anywhere from 4-8 hours to finish it. We definitely took a while because we took so many photos! Let's just put it this way, my legs are killing me today! It was definitely strenuous but well worth it. The boiling lake was only discovered about 50 years ago. Basically the island is full of volcanoes so this is just another way for the pressure built up underneath the earth to escape. At the top of this crazy hike there is a cliff and just below that lies the boiling lake. It is considered the largest boiling lake in the world, well actually tied with another lake in New Zealand.

It was believed that a man actually fell in the lake after trying to retrieve a tourists camera that fell down the cliff. The man actually came back after the tour was over to get the camera but he was by himself. His rope broke as he was repelling down the cliff and no one was there to get him out of the boiling water. The man had third degree burns on half his body, but supposedly survived because a tour group that came up right after us told us they met him. Apparently he was selling some sort of trinket down at the bottom of the trailhead, and he was telling them this story. Crazy huh?...that is if it is true :)

We took several pictures. The one on display is just a black water pool. There were several of this bubbling black water pools (man did it stink) in the Valley of Desolation. The Valley of desolation is on the way into the Boiling Lake.