Adaj, Mason and the Moth

Second semester is more information and at a faster pace, so getting a night off is a rare occassion for Mark. Last saturday some classmates of Mark invited us to dinner with them at a local restaurant called Adaj. It was a nice evening and it was great to have Mark away from the books for a few hours.

Dinner at Adaj.

On a random evening I was washing dishes and looked up to see this mammoth moth staring at me from the kitchen window. This thing was so gross...
The HUGE moth in the kitchen screen.

Mason has taken up a new form of anger management. She decided to shred the pillow when I wouldn't give her any of our dinner.

Mason and her masterpiece.

Morne Aux Diables (Devil's Peak)

So we met up with our new found friend AJ on Thursday September 24th. Earlier in the week we decided AJ would take us up Morne Aux Diables (Devil's Peak). AJ mentioned to be sure we wore sneakers and long pants since the brush is a bit longer than other trails. So Anna, Sam and myself met AJ about 7:30am to start our hike. We had about a 5 minute drive after picking AJ up to where we would begin the hike. He had us stop at a little shack on the side of the road that his friend owned. When we went in, the offered us a drink in a small cup saying it was "good for the body." I politely declined along with Anna and Sam. Turns out is was rum soaked in Marijuana leaves- you just have to love Dominica! We moved on an to the hike and parked below the farms (they farm on the side of the mountains here). We spoke to a few of the farmers and they gave us oranges, avocados and starfruit to take home with us. We toured the farms on teh way up the hill, saw pineapple, passonfruit, oranges, yams, potatoes, dasheen, watermelon and a bunch of other stuff. When we started to see fewer farms the incline of the hill started to get pretty intense. Before I was realizing what was happening, AJ pulls out his machete and starts hacking away at the brush... I stopped Anna and said "is this even a path??" After following AJ for 10mins just climbing over brush that he hacked away we decided to ask him, is there a path here??? He tells us, oh, there used to be but it has probably been about 6 or 7 years since we have taken people up here. Holy Crap! It was NUTS!!! We were on a ridge back about 16inches wide with nothing but brush and some serious air on either side of us. The brush was taller than me for most of the hike, you couldn't really see where you were stepping and all of us fell multiple times holding onto roots to stabilize ourselves. It was not the smartest thing by far I have ever done but I can honestly say not many people have ever done it. The spores and dirt from all the plants were covering us, literally I looked like I was turning into a reddish brown color. We hiked up this ridiculous incline for about 2.5 hours before AJ cleared the brush on either side of us to reveal sights that made it all worth it. We could see the east and the west side of the island as well as Guadeloupe and Marie Gallante. Looking around me and taking it all in, with no sounds but the wind and a few birds it was a one of those moments in life that humble you. Those moments can not be duplicated or even completely described. The treacherous hike was worth it. There were moments in the hike I did think to myself what if one of us loses our footing, how are we even going to get someone down. When we stopped at the top of the mountain, we asked AJ why he brought us up with no path, he said "there's always a path, sometimes you just have to create it." On the way down, I sat on my feet most of the time and just let myself slide, it was easier when your butt is closer to the ground, hurts less when you fall :) . It only took us about an hour and half to get back down since we were sliding. When we got to the bottom of the hill, we ate some fruit and some of the sugar cane that AJ cut for us on the "path". During our hike AJ told us he used to have to carry the fire wood to cook with down off this mountain as a child. He explained they named this Devil's Peak because only the Devil would make you climb this. In the car on the way back, AJ said you guys are good hikers and mentioned he brought rope and a large sheet in case we had to carry anybody from falling.... lesson officially learned..... you never hike with Dominicans unless you know exactly what your getting into!!!! It was crazy but a wonderful experience. I am happy to say we all had some scratches up our arms but other than that we came out of this hike just fine!

The only part of the hike I could actually see around me a little bit... notice how tall the brush is..all taller than me!


Views from the top of the mountain, about 3,500 ft above sea level.








Some pictures with our new friend and tour guide AJ and his trusty machete.




After the hike with sugar cane and banana trees.


Some more views, we are higher than the other mountains around us!!

Discovering the North Side of the Island

One of the spouses, Anna, had her brother visting this past week. She rented a car which equals huge excitement for all of us! If we want to go anywhere here we have to arrange a driver and pay them more than we really want to and usually have to have a specific destination. So in effort to take full advantage of the freedom, Anna, Margo, Sam (anna's brother) and myself hopped in the car and hit the road. Most of the trips that we have taken on the island are on the south end of the island, so we headed north. Now we live on the Northern west side of the island but have not ventured to the north east side. We found that the people here are much nicer and more accepting, almost excited to have us here. In Roseau, the capital, it is a bit rough. They are used to tourists and are usually after money when talking to you. The people we met in the North side were excited to talk about Dominica and even more excited that we wanted to know about it. We ran into a man named AJ on one of the beaches we stopped at. He was hacking away at coconuts with his machete to get bait to go fishing for some red snapper. He is a retired school teacher and I can tell you that his passion for teaching did not end when he stopped working. We spent a few hours on the beach with him while he gave us more information about Dominica then I thought I could handle in a day. He talked about his childhood and how he carried fire wood from the mountains down to his home so his mom could cook. He was the eldest of his family and began teaching to make money at the age of 16. He was actually teaching kids older than him. So needless to say, AJ knows most of the people on the north side of the island. He cut open some coconuts for us while he continued to school us on Dominica. Let me tell you , machete's are a wonderful thing here in Dominica. They are an all around handy tool. Before moving on from AJ we took his phone number and made plans to have him take us around his old stomping grounds later in the week. We continued to drive up the coast which turns out to be one of the prettiest on the island. All was going well until Anna said, "um, guys, I wasn't paying attention and the gas light is on!" This doesn't seem like it would be that big of a deal except that there are roughly 10 places to get gas on the entire island. We were on top of a mountain fortunately and coasted most of the way to the nearest gas station, which was about 25 mins away. After getting gas we headed up to a trail called, The capuchin trail. This is a hike that takes you across the island on the north side from capuchin to pennville. It is about 5 miles one way. We decided to hike it. It was a pretty good hike, not too challenging but great scenery. There were lime trees, mango trees, banana tree's along the way so we had a snack. It was a great day.

The beach we met AJ on.. Vielle Casse

Entrance to the Capuchin Trail

Anna, Margo and myself

Our Dominican Home

I figured it was time to put up some pictures of the apartment we are in. The apartment we live in is brand new and our building is about a 8 months old. Enjoy the pics.

Kitchen/Living Room

Bedroom area and an awesome shot of the bathroom :) The door near the bed leads to a small balcony.

View from balcony and bedroom windows.

The view from the kitchen area and the bedroom windows.

Secret Beach and Hermit Crabs

Last Sunday I took a trip to Secret Beach with a few of the spouses and some of the kids. Secret Beach is one of my favorite places on the island. Usually we take a trip by kayaking in or taking a boat, but Wes, one of the spouses befriended a local who showed us a way to hike down to the beach. This was hard to wrap my head around that you can hike down to this beach since when you are standing on the beach and look all around it is nothing but large cliffs. Sure enough, we drove about 2 miles outside of Picard (where we all live) and parked on the side of the road. Gathered up the five kids all under the age of 10 and started toward the cliffs. Now, Wes is one of the spouses that is, let's just say a bit fearless, and has passed this trait on to his 6yr old and 4 year old. His two girls are the first ones at the cliff foaming at the mouth to climb down. I was worried about myself let alone trying to bring these kids down. About a half hour later we were all at the bottom. It wasn't as bad as it seemed but I can say with alot of confidence that almost everyone I know would never have done that hike with their kids. The other family with kids that came with us did wonderful as well, they were just a bit more cautious then then Wes' two firecrackers!! The rest of the afternoon we hung out, snorkeled and had some hermit crab races. Wes gathered up literally at least 30 hermit crabs and we had the kids pick their favorite then dropped them on the "track" we drew in the sand and off they went. Love it! I posted the video below. Just another tough day on the island.....

The view from where we started our hike down with the kids.

Jillian with a crab shell she found.... fearles... seriously fearless:) love her.

Some of the hermit crabs preparing for the race...

The race...

Mark's Break

After our interesting trip to Guadeloupe we kept it simple for the rest of Mark's break. We took mason to the beach where she discovered she likes to swim when the island dogs are with her and also that she likes coconuts.

Mason attacking the coconut.

We checked out a restaurant we haven't been to on break as well. It is on the Pagua Bay and creatively enough called Pagua Bay. (so original these people I tell you, would have never thought of it!) They have amazing food and an even better view. Check it out...

The guys don't get to go out much during the semester so we dragged them to Roseau (the capital) to go shopping and for lunch for a day. Most of the time the guys just hung out and did their best at doing nothing. We did make our Friday night rib night at Peter's BBQ. This guy cooks some mean ribs (riblets) and they are only 10EC for a plate (that is $3.60) which is soooo cheap. After ribs one night the four guys that we were with lined up for a picture, I think I should send it to AT&T for the next commercial... (how many bar's do you have?)...

The last trip of the break we went to Red Rock Haven, I have mentioned this wonderful place before. We were not able to go in the water since we has a Tropical Storm coming but watching the waves was pretty incredible. They were coming from all directions and you could see it raining in all around the island. Pretty fun...

Le Sainte = Guadeloupe!

So here's how the story goes. Emily, Margo and I decided to plan a little trip to another island over the break for the husbands. We decided on a small french island off the coast of Guadeloupe called Le Saintes. Their are ferry's that leave from Dominica that go to the neighboring islands for much cheaper than flying there. We planned to take the ferry from Portsmouth (Dominica) to Guadeloupe then another ferry from Guadeloupe to Les Saintes. When making the reservations at the hotel that we spent a good 3 weeks picking out we called the ferry company and asked them for literally the 20Th time if there was indeed a ferry leaving from Guadeloupe to Le Saintes on the day we had planned. The company reassured us there was a ferry that leaves every hour to Les Saintes since it is so close. So when the day comes we are all excited!! We take the ferry ride to Guadeloupe and we stopped in Marie Galante on the way to pick up some more people. Upon arriving in Guadeloupe we struggled to find someone that spoke English to ask where the ferry left from. There was a gentleman that worked for a different ferry company that actually grew up in Dominica and told us that the ferry we were asking about stopped service 10 years earlier. GREAT! We were extremely angry with the company and even more so that we could not communicate with them to ask how we can get there. The young man from Dominica decided he was going to help us and we found out we could not leave until the next afternoon which meant we were stuck in Guadeloupe with no hotel, no idea where to go, and hardly anyone that speaks English. Then we are approached by some slimy ( I really mean slimy, greasy) gypsy cab driver smoking a cigar telling us that he can take us wherever we want on the island and pointed to his van with no windows. (can I say, um no!) The guy from Dominica got us a cab driver that he said would take us where we needed to go, which was well, heck I have no idea. So we all got in this cab and just asked the guy from Dominica to tell him to take us to a hotel. In the meantime, I am calling our friend Anna that is watching mason and having her look up hotels in Guadeloupe. After some research work from Anna we decided to go to the closest tourist area which we now had to write down on paper in french (which Anna had to look up on the computer) to tell the cab driver what we wanted to do.

Although we never really quite communicated with the cab driver he was very patient and friendly with us. After checking out 4 hotels we decided on the last one we saw, La Creole! After seeing some run down hotels with no view, no beach, and dirty rooms and not being able to get to le Saintes, we thought this vacation was going to turn into quite the nightmare. As soon as we walked in this hotel, we knew it was the one. It was gorgeous. The girl at the front spoke English (JACKPOT!) and we sang her our sad song about our experience so far and she gave us the local rate for the hotel which knocked off quite a few dollars or should I say euros. The six of us decided that we were going to stay in the hotel for our whole trip instead of making our way to le saintes, we had enough adventure at that point! The trip turned out to be great. We did struggle with communicating since all the workers besides the front desk spoke french. I was extremely good at pointing and putting up how many I wanted of something with my fingers. It was an interesting trip, one I will not soon forget. I will tell you all someday about the massage our friend Dave received while at the hotel, let's just say the french do it a bit different!

Here are some pics:

The crew waiting in the customs line to board the ferry!

Emily, Margo and I before dinner

The hotel we ended up at and the view from the pool.

Mark and I on the beach in Guadeloupe.

Time to Catch up!

Ok. I know it has been quite awhile since I have put up a post. I have been pretty busy this last month. Mark went on break and I had finals. So for the last two weeks in august Mark was studying every waking hour, then the first two weeks of September I was studying and writing for my finals. Mark ended his first semester with 2 A's and 3 B's.... Awesome

During Mark's break we went to Guadeloupe (I will make a post for that) and moved up a floor in our building. We now have a view of the mountains and the ocean. Can't beat that! This apartment is much bigger. In the original one we only had 3 window, 2 in the kitchen and one out the back end of the apartment. The new place we have 2 in the kitchen and 7 in the bedroom (we have a bay window 3 sets with 2 windows a piece). It is so nice at night to catch the breeze but we bake a little bit during the day in the sun!! Just outside our window is a breadfruit tree (mark's favorite). They are a fruit but are starchy like a potato. You can boil them, fry them, even make them into a dough and stuff them. They are just out of our reach through the window and its driving Mark nuts, he keeps trying to come up with some sort of scheme to get them.

We are both doing well and I will try to catch up the posts in the next few days!