Day One

This is going to move backwards in blogworld terms. I'm not sure how else to do it.



First morning in Dominica. The trip in yesterday was interesting. Liat, a Caribbean airline, is comically inefficient. Like everything else in the Caribbean, I suppose. We left St. Thomas at 1:25pm and, after three short, uncrowded flights, landed in Melville Hall Airport.
The airplanes are funny in airlines like this. It's sort of like getting into your friend's older brother's beater car in high school. You know it passed inspection and emissions, but it makes strange noises and there are rusty bits and you are not totally sure that it's going to make it all the way.
The airport is about what you would expect. Tiny, a little grungy and bursting with people who would really love to take your bags and No, ma'am, there's no charge, but I do require a tip. But they're friendly, it seems, and we haven't felt at all threatened.
The Hibiscus Valley Inn cooked dinner for us last night. Mahi, West Indian sweet potatoes, plantains and chutney for dessert. We haven't found out if we are going to be charged for that yet, but breakfast will be served the same way tomorrow and I guess we'll find out when we leave.
We arrived in the dark last night, and had no idea the kind of tropical greenhouse we would wake up to. Maybe this is how Dorothy felt when she opened her door to Oz, black and white world behind her. We opened our door to a guard dog names Scottie and a jungle of green and purple and red.