Volume No. 2 Issue No. 41 - Monday June 2, 2008
Dominica: the Caribbean's lost world
 Gavin Bell - Telegraph News (http://telegraph.co.uk)
Spectacular waterfalls are hidden within the dense jungle.
|
There is a "model village" elsewhere in the Carib Territory, popular with cruise ship passengers, but a visit to Touna is a more authentic experience. It ends with an optional five-minute "tubing" ride on a shallow river that runs through the village. Spinning down a river flowing from a live volcano on a rubber tyre with one of the last Indians of the Caribbean is as memorable as eco-tourism gets.
"I am happy we can do this," Irvince says. "I have had this dream for many years." But as he points out, "agro-tourism" is not new to the Kalinago: "We have been in the tourism business since the 1400s. We have been tour guides since the arrival of Columbus."
A more recent eco-resort on the island is winning friends and awards with a community-based approach that is paying dividends for its developer and local villages.
Tucked discreetly in a forested hillside above the sea at Point Mulatre, the 35 timber cottages of the Jungle Bay Resort and Spa were hand-built by local labour, and all but one of the permanent staff of 59 come from nearby villages. This has been a boon to communities whose livelihoods were threatened by a collapse of the banana economy.
The resort was the brainchild of Sam Raphael, son of a Dominican farmer, and its success bodes well for similar ventures under discussion. His latest scheme is to build a "House of Hope" in the adjacent village of Delices for up to 10 orphan children with severe disabilities, funded mostly by the resort, its staff and guests. The foundations have been laid, and if funds keep flowing in it should be open in a year. "We are building, as my mother would say, by faith," Sam says.
Jungle Bay is as close to nature as one can get without pitching a tent. On my first morning, I was woken by the rustling of rainforest and the booming of Atlantic surf to see what appeared to be a sachet of sugar flying through my room. It was attached to the beak of a Lesser Antillean bullfinch, en route to a sweet breakfast.
In the days that followed, a half coconut shell by the hammock on my veranda proved a rendezvous for an array of exotic plumed birds and geckos. Nature and "wellness" are keynotes, with pre-breakfast yoga sessions, spa treatment rooms, and delicious cuisine from local produce served in a restaurant without walls above a swimming pool of volcanic stone.
The main attraction is the island itself, a Jurassic Park with the highest concentration of live volcanoes in the world and enough birds and bugs to keep David Attenborough happy for another television series � at the last count there were 55 species of butterflies alone.
The volcanoes have been simmering peacefully for centuries, allowing hikers to experience visions of heaven and hell in a day. On a fairly strenuous trail to a boiling lake, there is a gorge where visitors can swim to a cascade of warm water, and imagine Johnny Depp fleeing from hostile natives in scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean that were filmed in the forest above.
My guide, Jeffrey, was a walking encyclopedia of the flora and fauna, explaining the life-cycles of bromeliads and pointing out the Lords of the Forest, towering gommier and chatagnier trees more than 100ft high.
One of the more interesting species is a tree known locally as bwa bander, which is said to produce a powerful aphrodisiac when its bark is dried and suffused in rum. "The market in Guadeloupe is very lucrative, they buy it by the ton," Jeffrey informed us. Guadeloupe is, of course, French.
From a chaotic Garden of Eden the trail descends abruptly into a noxious wilderness known as the Valley of Desolation, where volcanic vents hiss and steam and a sure-footed guide is essential. It then rises to a promontory above a huge cavity, shrouded in steam and low clouds.
When winds clear the air, there are glimpses of a cauldron seething in the centre of a lake in the crater below, a hellish apparition of the forces stirring beneath it. "Don't go too close to the edge," Jeffrey advised, unnecessarily. "If you fall in you must die. There is no way back."
Happily there was a way back, and that evening I soothed weary limbs in a hot mineral spring at Papillote Wilderness Retreat, five miles from Roseau, one of the older established eco-resorts in mature botanical gardens. As I lay in the darkness, a firefly emerged from the forest and drifted around me, a moving pinprick of golden light. In an instant the hot pool was a magic grotto, the firefly was Tinker Bell and I was Peter Pan.
There are less arduous hikes to waterfalls and hot springs that offer Indiana Jones adventures without the cutlass-wielding baddies, and Chief Irvince is always happy to show how his people have survived for so long without microwaves.
An American guest at Jungle Bay summed up the appeal of this "nature island": "When I die, this is where I wanna come." She should be so lucky.
� Further information: Discover Dominica (0800 0121467, www.discoverdominica.com)
How to get there
British Airways' return flights to St Lucia cost from �659 (0844 4930787,www.ba.com)
Carib Aviation flies from St Lucia to Dominica from �80 return (001 268 481 2403, www.carib-aviation.com)
Where to stay
Jungle Bay Resort & Spa has b & b from �86pp, and packages with excursions and spa treatments from �106p?p (00 1 767)
446 1789, www.junglebaydominica.com)
Papillote Wilderness Retreat has double rooms from �56 (001 767 448 2287, www.papillote.dm )
In Roseau, the Fort Young Hotel has doubles from �56 (00 1 767 448 5000).
Package deals
Responsible Travel (01273 600030, www.responsibletravel.com) sells 16-day packages with flights from �1,595.
Carib territory
See www.kalinagopeople.com
Full-day tours of Touna for about �40, including lunch and activities, from JTAS Tours (001 767 440 5827, www.experiencescaribbean.com)
 E-mail to a friend
|
|
