Thursday 12 April: After putting up the dinghy last evening, music started coming from a new part of the beach. We were tempted to go ashore again but we are wise now: music doesn’t equate to action!
We awake leisurely, meaning no alarm and no rush. We finally make it ashore by 10.30am, take our laundry to a launderette, then head off in the car in the same general direction as yesterday. Only today the sun is bright and colours and beauty much more vivid.
Our aim today is to get to the Kalinago Territory on the mid-east coast, where in 1903 the British governor finally granted to the Caribs 3500 acres and recognized their chief as the leader.
As we pass Calibishie village on the north coast, we stop at Veranda View guest house, hoping to find a coffee while taking in the beach and bay. The guest house doesn’t cater unless staying there, but the very nice Dutch owner and her friend are very pleasant to us. Both have lived here for 30 years. The guest house is really cute and beautifully decorated with all kinds of tasteful art. The owner is an artist and her paintings on the walls are colorful and beautiful. Her friend, Michelle, from USA, lives right next to the Chocolate Making we visited yesterday, just up the road. When we tell her we are going back to buy more chocolate she asks us to pop in to see her place too.
Before our stop at Chocolate Making, we visit the Red Rocks just below the factory. Quite impressive scenery. At the factory, just a kilometer from Calibishie, we meet Allen, the owner. He has lived here all his life. His grandparents were from Scotland, and while they were traveling the world in 1930 they visited Dominica, fell in love with the island and settled.
Allen has amazing stories of how they could only get to Portsmouth, the nearest town, by donkey on a track. Their house was build in Roseau at the other end of the island, dismantled and bought up to the north by boat, then the sections floated into the bay, hauled up the cliff and reconstructed. It has never suffered storm damage all those years and only after his grandparents passed away did he have electricity installed!
He proudly shows us around the house which is now rented for holidays. It’s made of hard wood and beautifully set in natural gardens with a great view. And all the chocolate you need right next door! We buy our chocolate and he tells us that he only started making chocolate about 7 years ago as a hobby. Then so many people liked it and asked him to sell it, he started on a bigger scale, with proper packaging etc. Still, it’s not really a factory – more like a cottage industry in just 2 rooms.
We then visit Michelle and her husband Lou. Their cottage is tiny but really cute. Again, built several decades ago and no hurricane damage. They have wooden shutters and the roof is pegged on with strong hardwood dowels. No nails. And we can’t help wonder why locals build such flimsy roofs today, most held down with just a few nails. No wonder they all blow off as soon as the first window breaks and pressures up the interior.
Michelle proudly shows us her garden and her artwork, as she is also a talented painter, and also tells us of a property for sale “next door”, set in 4 acres on White Beach. Apparently owners are desperate to sell and would take $500k for it. We can’t resist but go and look. There is a long driveway down to the house on what looks like a newish concrete road.
As we drive up to the house itself, half the roof is lying across the roadway. In fact the main house has completely lost its roof, but the rest seems intact excepting all the obvious water damage to the furnishings and all electrical fittings destroyed. There is a bedroom each side of a living area and a terrace with amazing view down to the White Beach and bay, and an infinity pool! Wow! It’s amazing. Each bedroom has large ensuite and an outside jacuzzi. More Wow!
We walk down steps to the beach and pass another building which is intact, with full kitchen below and guest accommodation above. Then further down, on the beach itself, a beach bar and restaurant, still with the menus written on chalk boards. It must have been an amazing set up.
The beach in front is white sand in a pretty bay. No other houses around. We are quite taken with it and the next hour of driving we are both thinking and talking about it. But we are not ready to settle down yet, and certainly not in such a remote place no matter how wonderful the situation. But if you want location-location-location at a reasonable price, this has to be a golden opportunity.
It’s now 1:30pm. We have got ourselves quite distracted from our goal today! So we set off not planning to stop again. We pass Douglas Charles, the main airport, with no sign of any aircraft movement. In fact the only plane we see is a single engined Cessna, oddly sitting near the beach, not even on the airport, with its tail fins missing. Did it get blown there by Maria we wonder.
As we get into the Kalinago Territory, we do notice that some people do look more like South American and not African, and some are clearly mixed race. Finally we find the Kalinago Baraja Aute, the visitors center, where we take a tour. There are several traditional buildings and one has a very good display, outlining the Kalinago version of the European invasion. Our guide clearly states that it was the Kalinago who discovered the Caribbean, not Columbus! He only saw it and unfortunately made it back to Spain to tell all the Europeans, thus creating the “disastrous” European invasion.
Kalinago is the name the natives called themselves. It was Columbus who named them the Carib, because he thought they were cannibals – and hence where the Caribbean got its name from. All very interesting. We walk around the site and find Elizabeth, an old Kalinago woman weaving baskets. She is very chatty and happy to tell us stories. And even happier when Oana buys some of her baskets.
Further down the road we try to see L’Escalier Tete-Chien. It’s a natural lava flow into the sea that has very special spiritual significance to the Kalinago. But as we start on the trail we are harassed by a Kalinago man who is adamant that we must have a guide. We tell him we don’t want one but he gets very persistent and starts to get verbally aggressive. So we drive off. Later, we understand that you don’t technically need a guide, but if you decline to take one you will get trouble. We were hence warned, one needs to be a bit careful in this part of the island.
Next stop is the Islet View Restaurant which Michelle had recommended to us. We have the usual “meal”, a huge plate full of fish and various local vegetables all in creole style. Very tasty but disturbed by an annoying cat and a puppy that are also determined to eat our lunch!
Behind the bar there are maybe 100 old bottles each with odd looking ingredients and each with a label. They are all rum based, mixed with various items. Like peanuts, carrots, mango, chilly, garlic, etc. Joking we ask if anyone has ever managed to sample them all in one evening.
The restaurant, which is very local and all but deserted, looks down on Castle Bruce in the valley. This north and central part of this east coast had the front wall of Maria hit them directly, as the Cat-5 hurricane eye passed over the north part of Dominica. And it shows, most buildings either have new roofs or are still missing roofs, and the trees up the valley are still completely stripped, just bare wood trunks remaining.
From here we drive across the central road that transverses the island east to west, then head north up the west coast back to Portsmouth. Each and every river that the road passes over, the original bridge is either collapsed or missing since Maria and a makeshift river crossing as placement. Goodness, they still have a lot of work to do.
Back at the dinghy dock the swell is coming in very strongly and it’s rather a struggle to get into the dinghy. But finally we are on board and settle in for another quiet evening after another eventful day exploring.