March 23-26, 2008 - Roseau, Dominica

Having spent quite awhile in Portsmouth, we were anxious to move onward. Roseau, the next big city in the southern part of Dominica, is a port of call for cruise ships--ergo, a much bigger city. Roseau turned out to be a charming city with many windy, narrow streets full of shops and restaurants and grocery stores. The market was a treat, as usual, with lots of women and a few men selling fresh vegetables at reasonable prices. Although prices on wine were terrible, we were able to take advantage of the duty-free prices on liquor.

On Wednesday, we decided to take a bus tour to the west coast just to see the countryside. What an adventure. We found the bus stand with perhaps 20 van-like "busses" parked and waiting for passengers. Each had a destination marked in the window. We found one that was going to Marigot. The driver invited us to get in. We were the first passengers. Now we did expect that soon he would leave, however, that was not to be. It turned out he was waiting for his bus to fill up. After about 45 minutes, we decided that lunchtime was fast upon us and we had better get a bite to eat just in case the trip lasted a long time. Mike left to do this; just then the driver hopped behind the wheel. I told him I'd have to get off if he was leaving because Mike had gone to get food. No problem, he said; we'll wait for him. Well, of course, we waited for not only Mike, but others who were shopping, getting children, running errands. One more half-hour and we started up only to go around the block where the driver ran into a store to pick up a package. Back to the bus stand and more waiting. Soon he started up again for real although we did stop at another store along the way to pick up a package for one of the passengers.

We arrived in Marigot about an hour later after a lovely drive through the magnificent rainforest. The ferns are actually tree-sized; tall palm trees form a canopy over the forest. Banana plantations dot the hillsides. Although it rained off and on for most of the trip, it was beautiful. At one point on a hairpin curve, we had to back up the hill in order to let a tractor trailer make the turn--quite exciting.

Upon reaching Marigot, we were going to find a restaurant for a real meal. Instead another bus driver approached saying he would take us to Portsmouth where we could get a bus back to Roseau, but first we'd go to a nearby restaurant as he had to eat too. This sounded like a good deal so we wend to a local establishment where we had the fish lunch: grilled dorado, green banana, plaintain, salad and dasheen (we think). Not bad, but the most delicious thing turned out to be the drink of guava juice which we had instead of a beer. (When we asked for beer, the bus driver told us that the restaurant was a Christian establishment and did not serve alcohol.)

The rest of our trip worked pretty well except that in Portsmouth, two bus drivers fought over which bus we should get into. Obviously, we wanted the one leaving first as we had spent several days in Portsmouth the week before. On to Roseau. The western part of the island turned out to be dry and not nearly as pretty as the central and northern areas.