I am absolutely sure that Dominica would be dazzling in the sunshine but, unfortunately, there was not a lot of that to be had during our visit.

The best part about a rainy day in the Caribbean is that it is more like a nice warm shower, not too much in the way of spitting ice shards blasting us from the North Sea. Quite a shame really, as this was our ship’s first ever stop here. Join me as I find out about the cocktail that offers a natural remedy for migraines which also replicates the attributes of Viagra.

It was a peculiar start to the day. As we exited the Roseau port gates, we were greeted by I don’t know how many hundreds of tour guides touting for our business. We were approached by one jolly chap, Peter, as we withdrew cash in US dollars from an ATM. I feared he was going to rob us. US$25 each for a two-hour excursion around the island. He escorted us to his van, put us inside whilst he went off to seek some more passengers. Ten minutes passed, then another ten minutes went by, before a final ten minutes disappeared. At least he did not leave us sitting in sauna-like conditions, allowing a relieving flow of air.

We were accosted by many other guides offering to match Peter’s deal or better it. Not for us — why on earth would we wish to start this charade all over again? In the end, he came back. He did well to find his own vehicle, for it had been moved a couple of times by total strangers, but he had snared three more clients. They were a trio from Barbados: a mother, Suki, and her two daughters. We were off.

He drove us up a hill or two until we reached the dead centre of Dominica’s capital. In fact, there were two dead centres. The one on the left was the Catholic cemetery whilst, on the right, was the Protestant graveyard. Catholicism is the biggest religion here, amounting to 60% of worshippers, mid-30s for Anglican, with just a handful of Muslims. They were Peter’s words, not mine.

Just after the cemeteries we came across the botanic gardens where, among other produce, we discovered pineapple, nutmeg and guava. It is truly outstanding to us folk from northern climes to wander in and out of these acres of exotic wonder and marvel at the fruits and spices that the locals take for granted, like we would think of apples and pears. We did not get the chance to have a good snout around the gardens — one for another time — but we did stand at the fence and stare down to the port where the Queen Victoria was parked up for the day.

From that vantage point the party could also take in the international cricket stadium. This surprised me. I have heard of the grounds in Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua and Guyana, but never Dominica. Because I hadn’t heard of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, so I needed to check it out a bit more. It is the 12,000-capacity Windsor Park Stadium. The small nation certainly gets good use out of it. Whilst cricket is the main reason for opening the turnstiles, it is also used for football, calypso championships and the Miss Dominica beauty pageant. I never realised there was still a need for the latter. Surely they don’t fill it to overflowing on these occasions.

“Yes, they do,” said Peter. “It gets more than the cricket sometimes, depending on who’s in town. Sometimes the cattle market gets more than the cricket.”

I couldn’t really interpret the last comment. I hope he wasn’t suggesting that parading a prize heifer is similar to a parade of women. I slunk back to my seat on the minibus and cogitated over his remarks.

History, Hurricanes and Island Curiosities

Not long to cogitate, for we were very soon stopping at a double attraction — a real two-birds-with-one-stone situation. To our left was a statue of an old lady. And when I say old, I mean old. She was reputed to have been 128 when she died in October 2003.

In the main, Elizabeth Israel, also known as Ma Pampo, ate a very healthy diet. I can’t find Big Macs or Greggs sausage rolls listed among her likes — nor, to be fair, among her dislikes.

There is some dispute over her claim to be the oldest person on the planet when she died. According to the Guinness Book of Records, who seem to be the sole arbiter of such claims, the record of her birth is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Whilst her local Baptist church alludes to her arrival in 1875, this cannot be substantiated; it appears there aren’t any living witnesses to verify her boast.

Let us take her word for it for a moment, shall we? When she was born there were no cars, no planes, probably no trains in Dominica — although I can’t be certain of that — and no Coronation Street. Ulysses S Grant was the then US equivalent of Donald J Trump, although I can’t vouch for his fake tan. Queen Victoria was the actual Queen and not a cruise ship, Benjamin Disraeli was Prime Minister of the UK and, get this, Winston Churchill wasn’t even two months old.

I wondered what Grant’s middle name was. I looked it up and, as is often the case, went down many rabbit holes. I was really hoping the S might stand for Stuart or Steve or Stan. It turns out it doesn’t stand for anything. It was a mistake on his papers when he enrolled at West Point. As it happens, his middle name is actually Ulysses; his given first name is Hiram. Don’t say you never learn anything from reading this!

When you die at 128, don’t you think you should have the right to claim you passed away from old age? Oh no — we can’t have that. The official reason given for her demise was complications due to influenza. It does make me wonder whether she would still be with us if she hadn’t caught the flu. Realistically, probably not, because coronavirus would have sorted her out and, if not, hantavirus would soon be lurking in the wings.

One stat, whether Guinness agrees with it or not, is truly mind-boggling: she was actually the daughter of enslaved parents. What a woman!

We didn’t need to reboard the bus for the next stop; it was just across the road. You must take a look at the picture — it beggars belief. What happened here, then? Basically, it goes like this. In 1979 it got a bit windy — not unusual in these parts — and a tree blew down. Hurricane David came to visit, targeting this African baobab tree and blowing it over onto a school bus. Fortunately, it was night-time when the tree was so viciously uprooted, so no one was on the bus.

It gives the lifespan of Ma Pampo some perspective: she was only 104 when this weather event happened, yet she still lived into the next century. All these years later, despite the tree’s traumatic night, it is still alive and continues to grow to this day. It serves as an incredible reminder that we should never take benign weather for granted. Tragedy could be hiding in any meteorological event. Nature is all-powerful and is messed with at our peril.

Precipitation — that’s weather, isn’t it? — is never far away in the West Indies. As we drove to our next destination, raindrops the size of pear drops bombarded the van, exploding into a myriad of smaller droplets, catching the occasional sunray like diamonds bursting all around us. It was torrential by the time we arrived at the start of a path that would take us down to a secluded waterfall. When Peter offered us this excursion we all declined. Why see a waterfall when we were already caught up in such a cascade?

The next diversion was another waterfall — Trafalgar Falls. It had stopped raining by the time we arrived, but it was still slightly damp underfoot and overhead, as we discovered when huge tropical fronds brushed our hair. It was the stench that caught our attention here. From the moment we slid the doors back, the smell of rotten eggs — worse than school smoke bombs — assaulted our senses. These were sulphuric springs and, not to put too fine a point on it, held the allure of being trapped in a space suit with someone else’s fart.

Mamajuana, Umbrellas and Island Reflections

The sun managed to shine intermittently here, so we all alighted to take in the vista. Like all our previous Caribbean islands, market stalls seemed able to pop up out of nowhere. Here was no different. We met a stallholder named Sabrina — not the witch, but I am sure you will work out why I made that unworthy connection.

She was selling all sorts of potions extracted from native plants, claiming many and varied medicinal benefits for all parts of the anatomy.

I was particularly intrigued by the Mamajuana concoction, extracted from tree bark and herbs and mixed with a bit of rum — everything seems to come back to rum in this part of the world; life can’t seem to operate without it. A small dose of this, according to Sabrina, is good for treating migraines. She also added that it is a brilliant alternative to Viagra. I said I could do with a bucket load of that.

All the women around me laughed.

I blushed and tried to qualify my statement, saying that I suffered from migraines. I must admit this is a self-diagnosis based only on the fact that my father had them.
They were then apologetic.

A nickname for the mix is El para palo, which translates to “Stand the stick.” Every day’s a school day!

All of a sudden, without warning, the pear-drop-like intensity of the rainfall returned. Jane had gone off with Sabrina, protected by the latter’s umbrella. Now I am lucky enough, as a visually impaired person, to have driven off-road Land Rovers, ridden on the back of tandem bikes and even taken the tiller of a sailing dinghy. I am not allowed, however, to drive an umbrella for fear of having someone’s eye out. Not to worry, though. Whilst “I’m Alright, Jane” was safely sheltered with Sabrina and I was getting a soaking, along came Suki, her daughters sharing one as well.

She sort of sidled up to me and we found ourselves in close proximity under her umbrella, almost inadvertently snuggling up.

“I keep you dry, man,” she said. “Your woman keeping dry all right.”
“Yes, thank you,” I replied.

“You must come to Barbados one day. I have plenty of that tree bark and dem herbs in my garden and rum’s not hard to get hold of. We have good time.”

I felt myself blushing again. “That’s very kind, but I don’t get that many headaches.”

She simply smiled, her white teeth a brilliant contrast to her tawny face. Even I could see that.
Seriously though, as I have started getting these dreadful headaches at such an advanced age, some of that gloop might prove most useful. That one side effect is a bit of a challenge, isn’t it? Still, I reckon it might stop me rolling out of bed when taking my medicine.

Before I forget, as with other nations we have encountered on this trip, I need to fill you in with some basic facts about the place. First things first: the name. As we learned, many of the islands bear the name of the saint of the day on which they were discovered. We must remember that most of these lands already had occupants who, not unreasonably, gave them names. I nearly said christened but that, in effect, is what Columbus and his cronies did — naming them for the Christian hierarchy.

Columbus first spied Dominica on a Sunday, so rather than bothering to look up the saint of the day, he decided to name it in honour of the day of the week on which it was discovered. Domingo is Spanish for Sunday, hence Dominica. Of course, people already occupied the place but that didn’t matter a jot — they weren’t Christians, so they didn’t count. For the record, the indigenous Kalinago peoples called it Wai’tu Kubuli, meaning “Tall is Her Body”, referencing the mountainous terrain of the island. I rather like that.

The Commonwealth of Dominica, its official name, takes up 757 square kilometres of prime Caribbean Sea and is roughly 47 × 26 km. Its highest point, Morne Diablotin, from the Creole for black-capped petrel, clocks in at an impressive 1,447 m high which, when compared with the titchy Mount Snowdon at 1,085 m, demonstrates just how precipitous it is when one considers the size of Wales — let alone Great Britain.

Now, I thought this must be related to the Spanish word for devil, diablo, but I couldn’t find out what the link was. As I was about to give up, I discovered I was right: it means “little devil”. I know all you ornithologists out there in blogland will know what a petrel is. Well, I am fessing up — I had no idea. I thought it had something to do with chest muscles, but I think that’s pectoral. Apparently, it is a small to medium-sized seabird, also known as a tubenose. Who knew? If I were one, I should prefer petrel to tubenose.

Finally, how many call this lovely island home? There are around 65,000 residents here. It is, however, a reducing population as natives migrate abroad for a perceived better life. One interesting gem — it was to me anyway — the Prime Minister is Roosevelt Skerrit. I guess if anyone was going to go into politics it would be someone with the given name of Roosevelt. I wonder if anyone is contemplating calling their unborn child Starmer? Reminds me of the Johnny Cash hit, A Boy Named Sue! Give you that name and you’d have to get tough or have it rough. I wonder if I might just have started a trend?

Next time we will call at the island linked to Norfolk and Nelson. Find out in a week.