Bob & Wendy Evans

The locals pronounce it DOM-in-EEE-ka. Here’s a link to a good map we found, the only thing missing is Titou Gorge, put a dot just below the town of Laudat for that (www.avirtualdominica.com/images/bigmap.jpg ). In Roseau we docked right at the town, port side cabins facing the town, starboard facing the bay. When you walk off the ship to the end of the pier you find all the tour reps, both ship and private, and you get tons of propositions as in most ports, but they aren’t pushy and accept “no thanks.” The going rate for a non-ship tour is $30 for 2 major stops over about 3 hours, and the ship charges $45-50 for the same thing. We like active tours and booked River Kayaking privately with Wacky Rollers, it’s not offered through the ship. But the ship does offer Wacky’s river tubing tour ($75), good fun we heard. We also booked floating up the Titou Gorge (between rocks) with Wacky, and got a 2 for 1 deal at $75. Some operators want you to pay for both a driver and a guide, about $45 pp total for half a day, but the drivers can “guide” too, just get the 2-guy deal if you want to have someone’s undivided attention.

However, it was raining that day and the rivers were too dangerous, so both the ship tubing tour and our kayaking tour were canceled, and people also weren’t allowed into the Gorge. It rains a lot there, I think we were told 400 inches a year. So we decided we still wanted to see the Gorge, and also wanted to see Trafalgar Falls, and got a private tour guy, Louis, (recommended by the Wacky rep), who agreed to take us to those for $30 p.p. We agreed with him that we would use the rainy morning for shopping and start the tour at noon, hoping for less rain by then.

So we started dogging the rain in and out of stores, and found shopping in Dominica was the cheapest of all the ports. The Cornerstone Café has internet upstairs, cheapest anywhere, I think I paid $2 for 20 minutes. There is one classy shop, Lande Leather, a general store selling lots of stuff, just off to the left of the end of the pier. . They were the only place on the cruise that beat the ship price of booze by a couple dollars. Know your leather prices, Wendy thought some were good but others weren’t. And we didn’t know what knock-off Gucci things and other knock-off brands were worth (you see these in San Juan too, like leather Gucci purses for about $50). There are many side streets off the main drag with vendors, little cobblestone alleyways, construction style reminded us of the French Quarter in N.O., but more run down. You bargain off about 20% of the asking price. Wendy got a lovely sun dress there for $16 that she later saw in San Juan for $34. And we got an oil painting about a foot square stretched over a wooden frame ready for a show frame for $18. That size in Aruba was $40, and in Barbados it was $300. CDs were $12, everywhere else they were about $18. You can do the main drag and all the side streets in a half day if you keep moving. Different vendors will often sell the same stuff, but their bottom price is never much different, so if you find what you want there’s not much point in wasting time getting a better price from the next guy, get your 20% off and take it. Don’t miss the little shopping enclave roughly behind Lande Leather, bunch of vendors in an enclosed area, very good selection here, and cafe where you can leave your DH with a $2 beer. The rain was not very heavy, off and on all morning, easy to jump from one vendor’s umbrellas to the next one’s, you don’t need to carry one unless you think you’ll melt.

Luckily the rain had mostly stopped later in the morning, and we grabbed lunch in the lido at 11:30 and were back on the dock at 12 where we met Louis. With the ship not leaving till 6 you could start a tour as late as about 2, but a flat tire or accident could make you miss the ship. The roads inland to the sights are narrow and winding, up hillsides, frequent stops to let oncoming vehicles by. If you get car sick easily you shouldn’t do these tours. One toot on the horn means “I’m approaching the corner”, a toot from another guy means “so am I”, and 2 toots means “I’m coming through.” We wondered what would happen if both vehicles gave 2 toots, but it never seemed to happen.

The scenery was lovely, very much like Hawaii, and Louis was great at explaining all the local sights. First stop was the Titou Gorge ( www.kenshinterlandtours.com/titougortraf.html  ), where the last 50 yards of the road were under a few inches of water, a river flowing down a gravel road, where we had to park the van with a couple other cars on a high spot and start walking up the flooded road. To walk to these sights you need footwear that can get soaked and muddy, like old gym shoes. Wendy had her rubberized slip-on beach shoes (Walmart and Sears, $8), and I had my old but sturdy sandals. When they get muddy there’s always some clear water nearby to swoosh off the mud. The Gorge was too fast and dangerous from the rain to do the swim-up between the rocks, as we’d been told, but it was fun poking around, getting some jungle/trail/water shots, there might have been 10 people there, and then back to the van for Trafalgar Falls.

Trafalgar Falls ( http://ruthtanner.tripod.com/wf/trafalgar.html  )has a $2 entry fee, from which you walk about 10 minutes to a viewing platform. This walk is over slippery roots and rocks, and you have to be careful picking your way along, it’s not a stroll. You can also walk further past the platform to the base of the falls, perhaps a 5 minute walk that’s even trickier, steeper, wetter. Near the base of the falls there is a “jungle hot pool” which you can climb down to and sit in like a hot tub, but again it’s over slippery rocks and we did it but not many others tried to get down. Louis said it’s much easier when the water isn’t so high, the water was covering up the rock “steps.” Louis often took our picture with our camera, or we traded cameras with other tourists and took each others pics. I bought beers for us and Louis back at the ticket place, $2 for the small bottles, local brand, and we headed back to town, got there about 3:30 I think, tipped Louis an extra $10, which he really appreciated, he was great, did a bit more shopping, and then back on board. People who went to the Emerald Pool said they could get into the pool even with the high water. We didn’t talk to anyone who went to the Sulphur Springs. If you like intense hiking, Ken’s Hinterland Tours offers a river hiking tour, crossing some rivers and really seeing the rain forest. Forget doing a beach, they aren’t good on this island, but the rain forest and mountains are wonderful.

Although Wacky Rollers Tours if very professional and reliable, you might prefer not to use them if it’s raining, because they use the open army vehicles like on their web site (www.wackyrollers.com ). We passed them on the road several times, and the people looked rather miserable wearing hooded ponchos in the rain, we were glad to be in a dry van.

Check out the shore excursions available in Dominica.
Dominica Shore Excursions

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