Roseau, Dominica February 4, 2009

Awake at 6:25, docked at 7:15, breakfast

Loaded on bus for tour at 7:50 in Roseau (Row-Zoe)
Info about Dominica:
Ø 365 rivers
Ø Very poor
Ø Bad roads
Ø Mountainous

Along our route, some houses were so close to the road, residents could have reached out and touched the busses from their front doors.

Saw bananas, pineapples, oranges, grapefruit, and watermelon growing. Bananas often covered in blue bags (called condoms) to control the ripening process. Banana grow in “hands” and “fingers”.

At Jaco (Jacko) Falls, we took the long steep trek down 55 steps to the falls. The legend is that dipping in the water at the foot of the falls would take 10 years off your age. Only two of us got in – me only to my knees; the other lady up to waist.

At botanical gardens, we saw sausage trees, cannonball trees, parrots, owls, cricket field where many celebrities have visited (including Queen of Eng.)

We stopped at a mountaintop area called “President’s ???” and had a magnificent view of the ship and a cricket stadium. There were lots of the same type of tourist “shops.”

Back to the ship for lunch and a nap. Jim went to movie and I spent some time in the internet café.

Evening entertainer was Hernandez, hypnotist. He bombed badly! I got really ticked off with a waitress. It is fairly common for the waitstaff in the performance venues to ignore requests for soft drinks, since they don’t make as much money on those; but most servers are not as obvious as Oleana was. She didn’t bring coke ordered; kept ignoring us. I finally made an issue of finding out her name. Another lady saw my irritation and came over and told me that she had the same experience with this waitress and had made a complaint.

We went to the late-night outside movie on Deck 15 “Ghost Town”.