by Simon Lee
Besides its 365 rivers, Dominica 'the Nature Island' of the
Caribbean can also boast the largest boiling lake in the Western
Hemisphere. Cupped in a volcanic crater, this bubbling cauldron of
translucent silver grey water wreathed in steam, lies to the
southeast of the island in the Mornes Trois Pitons National Park,
above and beyond the moonscape of the Valley of Desolation.
For those with strong legs and an even more pronounced sense of
adventure, the Boiling Lake can be reached after what a sign warns is
'a strenuous two and a half to three and a half hour hike'. Of course
once you've arrived, there's the minor problem of returning, which
tactfully the sign omits to mention.
The warning is no exaggeration. The six and a half mile climb would
be a challenge to the hardiest orienteer, let alone a jaded hack,
whose idea of exercise is a walk to the nearest shop for cigarettes,
or the raising of beer bottle to mouth! My lone ascent of
Martinique's volcano, Mont Pelee two years back, seemed like a gentle
excursion in comparison.
My tour guide had arranged to pick me up at 7.30am "for an early
start." At 7am I dutifully shook a head still clouded with the Kubuli
beers of the previous night's extended Happy Hours and donned my
hiking gear.
Although May is the hottest month in Dominica, the Rainy Season not
due till late June or July, my walking shoes were still sodden from
the previous day's jaunt through the rain forest ("Well it's a
rainforest and here's the rain," my guide had taunted me).
No problem. I laced up the sturdy English shoes I'd bartered for at a
little shop opposite the synagogue in Willemstad, Curacao. I'd make
my great grandfather the Rabbi proud of me, a wandering Jew in the
New World. In my distant youth I'd scaled mountains in the Scottish
Highlands mid winter with blizzards blowing, what was a six mile hike
to a veteran mountaineer like me?
A twenty minute four wheel drive took us through the village of
Laudat to the beginning of the trail; the air permeated with the same
unidentifiable spicy aroma (nutmeg?cinnamon?) I'd noticed in the
rainforest the previous day.
My guide was Stanley Deqwental, a young Rasta with locks hanging from
the back of his red baseball cap. I noted his professional hiking
boots with mild apprehension. At 8.45am we strode off, passing Titou
Gorge where hot water from the far off lake gushed a 100 feet below.
Stanley plucked a shoot of lemon grass and crushing it, filled my
nostrils with a refreshing citrus scent.
For the next hour my eyes are glued to Stanley's heels as we plunge
upwards through the rainforest, careful to step on the planks cut
from the tangled fine black roots of the female Fugier or Flambeau
tree, which afford muddy boots good purchase. When I miss my footing,
I'm ankle deep in mud. The only sound is the call of the 'sifle
moutayn' (mountain whistler), practising a minor scale, like a rusty
gate swinging slowly on its unoiled hinges. Stanley with more breath
to spare than me calls back and the whistler answers him, the gate
still unoiled.
Soon we enter the Morne Trois Pitons National Park and my breathing
has adjusted sufficiently enough to ask Stanley whether the large
buttress root trees along the trail are Mang trees. My recent
rainforest researches are paying off: there's 'Mang Wouj' and 'Mang
Blan' - red and white Mang with surface tentacles like those of the
giant Chatagnier or even the swamp dwelling mangrove (which is no
relation to any Mang).
A fine rain provides welcome relief and just an hour from Titou Gorge
the air is already tinged with Hydrogen Sulphide fumes borne on the
wind from Lake Boeri. Our first rest comes as we descend from the
forest to the cold waters of Ravine Dejeuner (Breakfast River). On
the banks livid red and yellow heliconias wave us on.
From here it's a near vertical ascent to the Viewpoint, a peak
perched 3,000ft above sea level between Rat Mountain and Monkey Hill.
Roseau is visible, a toytown on the coast, while before us lies the
Valley of Desolation. Beyond the valley, ringed by hills, our final
destination the Boiling Lake declares its presence with a coil of
steam.
Elated at our progress and brain vacant from altitude, I'm stupid
enough to join Stanley in smoking a Hillsborough Special. The
Minister of Health should have warned me hiking and nicotine don't
mix! We've passed the half way point but Stanley warns the hardest
stage is next: the treacherous climb down through the mud into the
Valley of Desolation.
The descent is via a series of three foot deep steps cut into the
hillside, or across outcrops of slippery rocks. Stanley is the expert
who could do the whole hike blindfolded. He guides me like a dancing
instructor three steps at a time, often pointing to an invisible yet
stable rock to tread on below the morass. I survive but nearly pitch
off the track on several occasions, grabbing at a life saving root or
fern before crashing to the rocks below.
Vegetation in the valley has been destroyed by acidic chemicals
released through volcanic fumeroles or vents. The landscape is extra
terrestrial, as fellow hiker Paul from Seattle remarks "the colours
are atonal." Against the white of the oxidised pumice the other
chemicals assume a luminosity: yellow sulphur; green copper oxide;
brown iron oxide; black carbon; orange alkaline and grey lava
rocks.
Through this post-modern abstract runs the cold apparently silver
grey stream which derives its colour from the oxidised white rocks
along its bed. There are hot bubbling pools and Stanley points out
one where he usually poaches eggs. A hot oil black stream, coloured
by iron sulphide seeps from the bare rock to trickle through the
eerie valley. The unreal quality of the landscape is heightened by
the oppressive Hydrogen Sulphide, the Valley of Desolation assaulting
all senses.
Just before noon we reach the lip of the crater whose green, orange
and brown banks sheer down forty and more feet to the opaque blue
grey waters of the Boiling Lake. The narrow shores are lined with
pastel green copper oxide rocks. The lake forms a near perfect circle
60 yards across, its seething epicentre swirls at a constant rolling,
turbulent boil. One moment the entire lake disappears in steam, its
surface enticingly obscured only for a breeze to sweep the cover
aside and reveal the boiling centre once again.
The eastern end of the crater is punctured, the distant sea
sometimes appearing through the steam, above the boiling water which
pours over the lip and down into the Valley of Desolation. The
western end is fed by two waterfalls, the fresh cold water running
down from the Boeri and Freshwater lakes.
At the other three cardinal points rise the mountains, the lower
slopes vulnerable to the acidic fumes sparsely dotted with hardy
mountain wild pineapple, a thick leaved grass able to survive the
suphurous atmosphere.
Higher up thick vegetation resumes: para grass gives way to mountain
cactus and wild star apple; water moss grows between clusters of tree
and Christmas ferns.
I collapse gratefully, removing my steamed up glasses. When Raymond,
my friend Paul's guide, produces a cold Kubuli beer from his rucksack
I can only shake my head wearily. Stanley laughs and delving into his
own copious backpack, dishes out a hearty meal of fish, pumpkin and
ground provisions, fresh Dominican grapefruits.
He tells me I'll need to eat to rebuild energy for the long haul
back, if I don't the sulphur fumes are going to give me gas! But it's
the Hydrogen Sulphide which has killed my appetite and I nibble half
heartedly at a cheese sandwich.
All too soon it's time to leave if we're to make Laudat by nightfall.
I space out in the Valley of Desolation, marvelling at the hot black
ink water trickling past rust red moss and over white pumice.
Climbing up the foot cloying mud steps out of the valley I feel like
a veteran of the Somme, my knees buckling, dragging lead heavy legs.
Stanley frequently has to reach out and steady me.
When we finally reach Titou Gorge three hours later I have aches in
muscles I never knew existed. Splattered from head to foot in mud, I
must appear like some strange creature from the volcano to the fresh
faced immaculately tropically attired group of tourists from
Martinique.
By nightime I'm sufficiently recovered to toast Paul aboard his
yacht, shake my waist to some soca onshore and walk the mile back up
the road to my hotel in Roseau.
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