Location: Roseau, Dominica
Today was a day that I will remember for many years to come. Today, we had our fruit tour, which many of us had been looking forward to for many days, and so we should have.
We woke this morning to a very filling and delicious apple bread made by our head chef, Smudge. We quickly finished our breakfast and cleaned up as soon as we could so that we could get onto shore for the much-awaited tour. The tour today took us through the beautiful island of Dominica. We were indeed able to experience the beauty of Dominica with the rain forests and greenery completely surrounding us throughout our entire day and our drive. Our tour today consisted of our bus driver educating us about the island as well as all the local fruit that is grown on the island. We stopped at multiple different places to pick off fruit from trees and to taste all the different flavors of fruit that the island has to offer. We had the opportunity to drink from fresh coconuts, eat tamarind, green mango, breadfruit, and guava, and smell bay leaves and cinnamon bark. Cassava bread was also a group favorite on tour today, especially for Aika, who wanted to buy 5 for herself; it is a locally made bread that we were able to see being prepared and made. This traditional cassava bread is made from delicious cassava fruit. We were then treated to another snack as if we hadn’t tried enough food: some cocoa, chicken, and breadfruit prepared for us by local Carib Indians, which was delicious.
We then proceeded to go to a black sand beach to eat some PBJ sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly). But our tour did not stop there; we were yet again shuffled into the buses to go to our next destination- Emerald Pool. It was a beautiful destination to have a quick, cold dip into the water. This pool is fed by a beautiful 50-foot waterfall and is situated in a national park; therefore, it is bound to be beautiful, and so it was. Once we had freshened up from our cold swim and shower provided by the waterfall, we were yet again told to get back on the bus for our final and most beautiful destination of all, Trafalgar Falls. It is a 125-foot-high waterfall called the Father and a 95-foot-high waterfall called the Mother. Many of us hiked to the bottom of the waterfall to have the full experience and power of the water, while others stayed back and just relaxed in hot water springs, which have all quickly become the best baths that we have ever had. Our final and last treat for the day was when our bus driver stopped at a lookout point overlooking the town of Roseau while the sun was busy setting, and if that sight was not breathtaking enough, we had a rainbow just behind us.
Therefore, today is a day that I will remember for many years to come, and it makes it even more surreal to think that we are nearing the end of this program and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we have all been blessed to have and experience. Today was the perfect end to our short Dominica stay. We are all ready to set off tomorrow to experience more places and even more picturesque sights that will be forever embedded in our memories.