Up early this morning, 5am, we are being picked up in an hour to go and do another walk with Yolene & Jean, Matthew from Kinship is also joining us. This will be a long one, around 7 hours in the Morne 3 Pitons National Park. We need to go south of the island so an hour’s drive with Charly, a real chatterbox who give us a non-stop commentary . Everything is discussed, from Dominica’s economic, politics, schooling and health system as well as history and the impact of hurricane Erica last year. Crossing the few villages on the way, we can definitely see the huge impact on the road; all of the bridges have been destroyed and are lying in bits across the rivers. New temporary ones have been built… probably would not survive another big storm though. There were many landslides and 30 people died.
The sun is up and it looks like we will have good weather for our hike. We meet Bolo our trekking guide at the bottom of the valley and we quickly settled into a comfortable pace, Bolo in front telling us about plants and the national park, and the need for another airport and government failure to attract more tourists and any other topics that crosses his mind. Very quickly the slope becomes steep and although the path is well maintained (despite Rolo’s grumbling that the rangers should do more maintenance), Erica has definitely wrecked a few places along the way, mainly by the rivers. It is beautiful; the sun barely penetrates the dense canopy of the tall trees. The world has become a symphony in various shade of green with a few bright orange and red dotted around, flowers. Birds are singing their weird electronic sounding calls reverberating across the rainforest. Lofty ferns sway in the breeze. It is a very special place and everywhere the sound of rushing water.
The smell of sulphur is getting stronger as we climb. The views from the top of the ridge are fantastic, high peaks and deep valley covered with luxuriant vegetation. Some parts of the path have collapsed into the river and we need to hold on rocks and roots to get down to the river bed. We glimpse some plumes of vapour rising above the next peak. From the top, a desolated valley appears. Nothing grows and it is a stark contrast with the previous landscape, only rocks of fascinating colours tumble down the slopes. The smell of sulphur is really strong and bubbling little pools of scalding water are creating an eerie atmosphere, vapour hanging like fog, dancing in the wind. Some of the streams we pass are quite hot. The last ascent brings us to the boiling lake and what a view that is when the wind finally blows the vapour away. It is just amazing to watch this huge cauldron bubbling away. I spent the whole of our lunch break gazing at it mesmerised. Apparently, it stopped boiling for 4 days last year and people could swim in it as the water grew cold. Some landslide had blocked up the vents preventing the boiling water to fill the crater.
The way back down is a bit easier although the rain starts, obliterating all but the nearest features of the landscape. Conversation has died down, even the birds have stop singing; we all need to concentrate on our steps which have now become extremely slippery. Waterfalls have sprouted up everywhere. Very different feeling from the trek up. Yolene is the first to jump in the hot pool, never missing an opportunity to get wet, Ian jumps after her. We are all soaking wet, but I don’t fancy being cold when we get out of the pool, so I pass on the experience and watch them both gently steam as they got out.
After 7 hours we finally reach end of the hike. We had a brilliant time and despite sore feet I am extremely pleased that we have done it. Glad we done it with Yolene & Jean, les cousins Quebecois and Matthew, excellent company!
The return trip to Portsmouth is all very quiet…I think all of us nodded off at some point of the journey… except for Ian who fell asleep as soon as he got in the dry and never woke up until the van stopped. Nothing new there!