Dominica: in the Lost World by Jini Reddy
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Zoetry Agua Punta Cana
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I don’t know if it is the shirt – opened to reveal a bare chest, the crucifixes round his neck, the dark sunglasses (even though the day is overcast) or the overpowering aftershave, but when I meet the man who is to guide me along the most challenging hike in the Caribbean, my heart sinks a little. Then I see his bamboo walking stick – with ‘One Love’ carved into it and I perk up. Only a serious guide would have a walking stick, I reason. ‘You be OK, everyting eyrie,’ says Kelvin, eyeing up the bundle of nerves in front of him.
I’d read all about the hike to the Boiling Lake, in the Morne Trois Pitons National Park, in Dominica (on the tourist office’s online guestbook) and what I’d read didn’t reassure me. ‘One of the toughest hikes I’ve ever done,’ said, someone who, worryingly, was from Switzerland, a country not noted for its flat terrain. ‘Treacherous!’ exclaimed another.
The lake is what geologists call a ‘flooded fumarole’, aka, a split in the earth’s crust, which emits steam and vapours. You get your first glimpse of the eerie plumes when your plane comes in to land on the island – the aircraft dips, and volcanoes, endless tracts of rainforest and waterfalls rear up at you. You think: ‘Oh, my god, The Lost World! No, Jurassic Park!’. Forget sand and surf – and the Dominican Republic, which Dominica is often confused with. This is the Caribbean for nature lovers, quirky romantics, rogues, and free spirits.
The vegetation grows so wantonly, you wonder if it’s on steroids. Exotic blooms hit you with colour, and the mildest of travellers soon turns into Jungle Jane. I, fearful of reptiles, found myself cooing over iguanas, and yes, a baby boa constrictor. OK, it was a tiny boa, but still…. (It’s worth knowing there are no poisonous snakes on the island.) With a population of just 70,000, the vibe on Dominica is laid-back, and locals – eking a living in farming, or increasingly eco-tourism – are friendly but not intrusive.
Hiking and diving are the big draws for adventure enthusiasts, and equally you can snorkel, ride horses, kayak, or bounce down rivers on tubes. But it is Boiling Lake that lures outdoorsy types here, and it is as good a place as any to shake off jet-lag. Allow at least six hours for the trip to the lake and back (16 km in all) but don’t feel pressured to stick to an invisible stopwatch – much depends on weather conditions and your fitness levels.
Kelvin, despite his louche appearance, knows the terrain intimately – a few years back, he even upgraded the trail, installing steps made from tree logs. The first hour, through the rainforest, is easy. We stop to inspect hummingbirds, plants noted for their healing properties, and spot an agouti – a sort of black guinea pig they stew in these parts. We drink sweet fresh river water to quench our thirst and I think, ‘hey, this isn’t so bad after all.’ Moments later, I’m stumbling and cursing down a cascade of boulders into the Valley of Desolation. It is a bleak spot indeed – pongy, black sulphur springs spit and hiss, and streams run milky white or yellow from mineral deposits.
Kelvin scoops up a handful of sulphurous clay. ‘It’s great for the skin,’ he says, inviting me to smear the grey goo all over my face. I do, and the pair of us, resembling characters from Lord of the Flies, hike out of the valley and up to the lake. It is, if anything, even spookier than the Valley of Desolation, steamy and bubbling like a witches cauldron, daring you to edge closer, and meet your fate. We sit down to rest, and Kelvin begins to smoke a joint. A reminder that we are still in the Caribbean.
The hardest part of the hike is the last hour. It’s a downhill slog, and my knees jar with every step To distract me, Kelvin tells me about the man who fell into the boiling lake: ‘He abseiled down to steal a camera someone had dropped, thinking he could sell it for drugs money. He slipped and fell in and suffered third degree burns.’ More fool he.
If you’ve still energy at the end (I didn’t) you can cool off from the hike with a swim through the narrow Titou Gorge to a waterfall. I dragged my weary limbs back to my digs at Papillote Wilderness Retreat, and soaked them in one of the hot mineral pools there. The rainforest hideaway is a half hour drive from the lake (on Dominica you need to rent a car, or hire a driver to get around – public transport is erratic), and features simple rooms, and waterfalls, trails, an aviary, and lush gardens.
Over dinner, owner Anne Jno-Baptiste tells me Oprah Winfrey was once a visitor: ‘She wanted to lose weight, so she walked up to Trafalgar Falls.’ The falls are a ten minute stroll away, hardly taxing, and you wonder how the talk show host would have shed a single calorie, especially if she’d eaten dinner at Papillote: the callaloo soup, made from dasheen leaves, tastes like goodness in a bowl, the rabbit is meltingly tender, and the key lime pie, well sinful.
The next afternoon, I take a gentle horse ride along mountain trails near the village of Bellevue Chopin. At a break in the forest canopy, you can see clear across to the Caribbean. ‘At sunset, it’s a romantic spot,’ says Dave Winston, who with his wife Melanie, runs High Ride Nature Adventures. But it’s ATV rides, not horses, that have pulled in the punters. The former are mini-tractors – boys’ toys – which you bomb around on, getting good and muddy. Actor Tom Cruise spent his 42nd birthday here doing just that. ‘It was all very hush-hush.We couldn’t believe it when he turned up with his entourage,’ says Dave, still shaking his head at the memory.
It’s easy to see why the A-list have fallen in love with the island – they don’t get hassled here, and the few tourists who come aren’t of the gawping variety. Every local I meet has a celebrity tale to tell – my driver ferried Keira Knightly about when she was filming Pirates of the Caribbean, and the boatman who rows me up idyllic Indian river, named after the indigenous Carib Indians, was on nodding terms with Jonny Depp. (‘He didn’t say much, but man, he was cool.’) I’d hazard that the actor thought the river was pretty cool too – it has a sultry, bayou-ish feel to it, and the gnarled Mang trees look like they’ve been lifted from a Tim Burton fantasy.
Later I meet Simon Walsh, President of the Dominican Watersports Association. He tells me that the colourful reefs and marine life in Soufriere, in the south of the island, are one of the best kept secrets in the Caribbean. I’ll take his word for it – the thought of plunging flippers first into the Big Blue make me break out in a cold sweat. Novices pluckier than I can try a four hour ‘Discover Scuba Diving’ course, or hire a snorkeling guide. (Seasoned divers in search of a longer fix can stay at dedicated dive lodges.)
I finally get to grips with the ocean when I check into the Jungle Bay Resort and Spa on the Atlantic coast – don’t be put off by the word ‘resort’, it’s a slice of eco-paradise. I stayed in wooden cottage nestled in the forest, with great technicolour views of the ocean – never has the Atlantic looked so blue and seductive, and the crashing of the waves lulled me into the sweetest sleep.
Jungle Bay’s charismatic owner Sam Raphael happily organises everything from mountain treks to snorkelling to cycle rides round organic farms for guests. And the food served here is organic, local and divine. One of the Carib chefs is an ex-Pan American featherweight champ – all I can say is, if his right hook was as potent as his shrimp coconut curry and pumpkin and ginger soup, he’d have been some boxer…
Shocked that I haven’t even dipped a toe in the water, on the morning of my departure Sam spirits me away to a nearby cove and coaxes me into an ocean kayak. What bliss! The salty tang of the Atlantic, the clear waters, those thrillingly choppy waves – oh, yes. In Dominica, ‘everyting eyrie’ indeed.