Dominica is truly the gem of the Caribbean. Despite being a decently large island, 73,000 inhabitants means vast expanses of the territory are left completely untouched. To compare, Martinique, located due south, has nearly five times the inhabitants.
With nine active volcanoes, there is no shortage of fertile soil for plants and land to discover. We got ourselves a tour guide for the day, Brent, and commenced on an incredible learning journey. An avid botanist, Brent made a point of showing all the different plants and trees that grew, and I've never seen vegetation in such abundance. By no means a comprehensive list, we saw: castor seed, coffee berries, cocoa trees, many varieties of coconut and bananas, guava, papaya, passionfruit, cinnamon (not just the bark of the tree, but leaves are also used), bay leaf, lemongrass, soursop and sweetsop, breadfruit, bread nut, purple and white dasheen (tarot root), red and white sugarcane, potato, pea, mango, orange, grapefruit, pomegranate, cabbage, and sugar apple.
Syndicate falls was the first destination, located deep within the rainforest, necessitating several river crossings in order to access. Heavy rainfall from the past days made the water cloudy, but Brent said he had never seen the fall as powerful as it was that morning. We then got a wonderful drive around the island discovering the quaint little villages, before stopping in Calibishie for a local lunch.
Post lunch, we made our way to Red Rocks, a rocky cliffscape of a stark red color, made so by the inhabitable concentration of iron in the clay at that particular spot. Several rain bursts later and we ended our day with a tour of the local chocolate factory, using completely local ingredients to fabricate their delicacies.
Abeona, the secondary support yacht for Jeff Bezos's Koru
Brent, our local guide, showing us around Dominica
Unlike most other fruit, cacao pods grow directly on the trunk and branches of the tree, instead of at the ends
A Lesser Antillean Bullfinch, native to the island, eats a guava
One of the four river crossings we had to take to get to Syndicate Falles
Syndicate falls peers out from the vegetation
An African Tulip
Many towns in Dominica are like this one - small and winding along a mountainside
Lunch made from entirely local ingredients, paired with a delicious "BB and grapefruit juice" recommended by Brent as the local favorite rum drink
Red Rocks, an area aptly named for the iron-rich clay
Cacao beans are put in wooden boxes to ferment for six days
After fermentations, the beans are spread out on wooden tables to dry, before being roasted and cracked to remove the inner cacao nibs from the outer shell of the bean
Once roasted and cracked, the nibs spend several days in this drum as they are ground finer and finer, eventually becoming chocolate
Calibishie, along with many other areas around the island, has abandoned worksites set up by the Chinese
