Location: Portsmouth, Dominica
Dominica never ceases to amaze! We got to drive around the whole island on a fruit tour where we sampled an array of fruits, including raw coffee beans, cocoa, guavas, mangos, breadfruit, coconuts, starfruit, cassava bread, tamarind, gooseberries, and tiny bananas called lady fingers. My biggest secret is that I don’t like fruit. I don’t like telling people because, obviously, it is weird. Thank goodness I had Julia for moral support. I did my best to sample the new fruits that I hadn’t tried before, and I actually ended up liking the breadfruit! It was exciting to see each of the fruits come directly from the tree. For example, there weren’t many mangos on the island that were ripe, so this man climbed all the way up this huge tree and threw the mangos down to us. Some of the boys also began tossing the mangos around. The locals who shared their food with us also roasted some chicken and made chocolate for us to try. I think that the chocolate we ate out of the pan was the best I have ever had, and everyone burned their fingers reaching into the hot pan for more. A
ter we finished sampling the fruits, we went to two different spectacular waterfalls, which both had pools that we could swim in. Kiki tried to sneak up on me at the first waterfall, but he was really obvious. Eva, Julia, and I also saw an agouti, which we did not expect, and at first, we thought it was somehow a mini capybara. The second waterfall was extremely tall and had multiple streams coming down. The main part was cold water, but the other side was a hot spring and orange from all the iron in the sediment. To reach the pool, we had to boulder over big rocks and swim through parts of the river bed (sorry, no pictures of this part, my phone was left behind). I was absolutely blown away by the beauty of the waterfalls, and especially that we could enjoy it all from the warmth of a hot spring.
I wish that I could share this spectacular day with everyone back home. I think Ma’ayan would lose it if she saw me eat a fruit. Love yo, mom, dad, Ryan, Sin Binners, and D!
Grace Y.