More From Dominica

Thought I would expand a bit on the information Griff gave you yesterday about our tour of the island. Besides the agricultural plants that Paul told us about and showed us, he also provided a wealth of information about the spices and plants used for medicinal purposes.

The first of these we saw were the Bay trees. These are used for cooking and for distilling into Bay Rum. They are not the same as the bay leaves we buy in Canada for cooking. The one here has a citrusy/spicy scent. For those of you who are unaware, Bay Rum is not used for drinking. It is used as a linament or after shave, or at least it used to be before all the male colognes came on the market. We visited a distillery which is no longer being used. What is used in the 'rum' is the oil which floats to the top in the distilling process.

On our walk to the cool 'boiling' volcanic pools we saw a tree whose bark has similar properties as Viagra and a plant that the Caribs used instead of soap. We also saw a cinammon tree (leaves and bark are used), lemon grass, and various plants that can be used to make teas and used for medicinal purposes such as headaches, wounds and arthritis.

The walk along the lava flow was interesting. Paul told us to be very careful walking along one area because there was a crack/crevasse that went a long way down. When we got closer to the edge you could see the crack better because it widened and you could see where you could walk down to the bottom and then walk into the crevasse - we chose not to do that. There was a cave either carved either naturally or by people that Paul said was used by 'honeymooners'. There were hearts etc. carved into the rock beside the cave so maybe he was right. The trees along the top of the rocks were definitely shaped by the elements.

On the way back to Plymouth we stopped at a viewpoint that also had a little souvenier shop which was closed. The interesting thing was the shop owner had created a little garden in the ditch along the edge of the road across from his shop. He was growing cabbages and tomatoes.

I find it interesting how the influence of both the French and the English can be seen on the island. The language used when dealing with non-Dominicans is English, but between themselves they use Creole or Patois which have a lot of French words. The names of towns and areas reflect the same - Portsmouth, Hamstead, Vieille Case, Concord, Thibaud, Dos D'Ane - to name a few. The other thing to mention is Paul's pronunciation of Canada. He pronounced it the same way we say Grenada (accent on second syllable rather than first) - cool way to talk!!

A couple of things of interest that don't really fit above - Martin had also told us on the river tour about some of the folk remedies as well as some of the birds, animals and other creatures. He mentioned that although there are no poisonous snakes, they do have boa constrictors that grow up to 9 ft and the interesting thing is the natives use the fat from the boas stomach as a remedy for arthritis. It is rubbed on and apparently works really well.