Flamboyant

Dominica – There seemed to be 3 ways to leave the dock area into the town and there were barriers up to stop the taxis and their drivers. SWMBO and I seemed to find the one that didn’t have dozens of drivers hanging over them touting for business and we were able to walk out relatively unhindered. Having said that, when we were asked a simple ‘No Thank You’ was all it took and there was no continued hounding – a much more civil bunch here I think.

We were just having a quiet wander round town today. One of the places we went into was the graveyard. They can be so fascinating. It was also a nice quiet spot for the homeless guy who was sleeping between some graves with all his goods and chattels.

There is a very nice botanical garden with some wonderful big trees – one of which had been blown over in a hurricane in 1979 and crushed a school bus (empty I am glad to say) and is now happily growing horizontally with a flat rusty bus under it. There was also some sort of tree with big dark brown gourds hanging off it which looked and (when you knocked on them) sounded like rusty metal fishing net floats. Very strange.

From there we went up ‘Jack’s Walk’ – a really steep, hot and fairly hard climb to a viewpoint high above the town where we had a well earned beer and got a bit cheesed off with the folk who insisted on standing in front of the camera when I was trying to get a picture ..... all Brits I have to say. Poor show chaps (and chapesses) – poor show.

The walk back down with easier but no less an adventure – a very steep road with crazy locals who seem to have no regard for safety – theirs or others and who just abandon vehicles to rot wherever they break down or crash. There was also some lunatic on a bike who appeared to have no brakes and would leave the riders in the Tour De France for dead! He must have passed us about 4 times which was a bit confusing as it was always going down and we never passed him that we were aware of. I can only assume he was turning off into driveways etc. But we did see him going up later on ....... hanging on to a pickup truck which was going hell for leather up the hill. I’m not sure if that was his usual way of driving or he was trying to shake the cyclist off.

As usual I was taking pictures of all sorts of weird and wonderful wee details which was really confusing a bloke who was also walking back to the ship and had been the main pain in neck for getting in the way when I was trying to take shots at the top of the hill (if you have ever seen the comedy TV programme “Benidorm” he has a complete carbon copy of the old fart Mel .... accent, speech patterns, mannerisms and even looks. If the actor hadn’t recently died I would have sworn it was actually him). At one point I was taking a snap of an old boot nailed to a gate post and all I heard was “What is he photographing now”?. I pointed out what it was and got the response “You will photograph any old rubbish wont you?”. Mind you he did stop after I had taken a view with the comment “I might as well take a picture of this”

I suspect my collection of pictures will bring back more detailed memories of the holiday than his though.

It was another formal ‘Black Tie’ night and the women were getting a lot of admiring comments for their choices of dresses (Okay – technically A was in kilt) – and quite rightly too.
They looked stunning.