Dominica. A giant green jungle island that seems like something right out of King Kong or
Jurassic Park. Everything about Dominica feels different than the more popular islands: there is drastically less tourism; though there are some beaches, they are few and not the brilliant white kind coveted by many. The local authorities concentrate more on preservation than exploitation.
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Go to Dominica Part 2
The vast majority of organized activities here are designed to bring you deep into the island’s interior on eco-adventures so that you can imagine yourself an insect wandering through a fantastic collection of giant houseplants.
These differences are not coincidental. Dominica, more than any other island I visited, seems to actually be owned by its local people. In Barbados the locals seem subservient to the super-rich; they may have a higher standard of living than some other places but their position in society is utterly clear to the visitor – every square inch of decent land belongs to a luxury resort or a vacation home for a multi-millionaire. Local communities in Barbados are more developed than on many other Caribbean islands but the disparities here are disturbingly clear. In Dominica, though, where dwellings vary from shanties to cement single family homes with almost no mansions, these disparities are less apparent. There seems more of a modest middle here that still has dignity. It’s hard to describe the impression this leave except to say that of all the islands we visited, Dominica felt the most real.
In Roseauwe caught an organized tour to go inner tubing on one of the islands hundreds – yes, hundreds – of free-flowing rivers. The island is a giant rain catcher, and the rain is constantly draining from the high central peaks to the sea. But before you get to the jungle interior, you have to get through the bustling and fascinating city of Roseau. When a ship is in port the “official” vendors line up next to the dock and the unofficial vendors are just a few yards away on the city streets. you’ll notice signs in this crowd for “Juan El Cubano” (a tour guide) and “Yo Hablo Espanol” – that’s because the Carnival Victory cruise ship is heavily populated with Puerto Ricans. Believe it or not, our driver actually got us through this crowd.
As we drove through narrow, crowded streets with tippy-tall buildings that appeared to conform to no known earthquake standards we passed one of the Caribbean’s famous medical schools. This is where you go if you don’t get into med school in the states – most of the students are American. The school provides some local medical resources as well as money generated by the American students.
Further on as we started up the hill at the edge of town we passed quite a mix of housing. I enjoyed this scene (above). Note the garage in the middle – yes, that little wooden shanty is a garage, with the words “garage in use, keep clear” clearly marked on the side. I’m assuming that garage contains motorcycles as it seems rather small for a car, but fortunately, due to such prudent signage, the owner need not worry about obstruction. To the left of the garage is a heavily engineered stream channel designed to protect the nearby homes from flooding. We saw these on several islands. Then to the left is a three story cement house or apartment building under construction. In Dominica, houses and other buildings are constructed by their owners over a very long period of time. Like most countries in the world, mortgages are hard to come by, so this slow construction provides the ability to own a nice home over time – the difference is, you don’t pay a lot of interest, though the place looks under construction for many years.
To the immediate left of the above photo is the ocean, just beyond the house behind the palm tree. That house is likely a “Squatter” and we saw dozens and dozens of them. According to our tour guide, many landless people started squatting right on the edge of the water a while back, and rather than fight it, the govt allows them to take ownership if they stay long enough and the land is not in dispute. The good part is that ordinary people can have a piece of land convenient to fishing and support themselves. The bad part is that these homes are very vulnerable to hurricanes.
And up the hill into the interior we go…actually this photo above is pretty far into the interior, near an overgrown banana plantation. In the next installment, we’ll see a lovely waterfall decorated with fat tourists, and much more of the natural beauty of the interior of Dominica.