Dominica-Part 3 of 3 -Boiling Lake or "To Hell and Back"

We sailed down to the southwest side of the island to the Port of Roseau.

Jeff had read that "Boiling Lake" is a definite "must see" and Roseau was the place to schedule a guided hike. Our "boy" Alexis had warned me that a lot

of travelers never complete the hike... too difficult... hmmmm ...  Intrigued, I read further and saw that the hike was considered "advanced" and  I was not even a beginning hiker...admittedly daunted I still decided to try it.

We were fortunate enough to get Peter Green "Bushman" as our guide, a colorful character to match his colorful van

On our way to Boiling Lake, Peter pointed out this bus that was crushed by a tree limb during category 5 hurricane David, 34 years ago. 

Peter hikes this trip at least three times a week.  Considering the hike is about 12 miles round trip through gorges and over mountains that is quite impressive! This guy will live until he's 150! Oh did I mention that the unofficial oldest person in the world, Ma Pampo, lived in Dominica her whole life. She died at age 128 in 2003.

So anyway we started out with our walking sticks. All was well. I was keeping up with the boys... no problem...piece of cake.

 Video of Peter and Jeff playing Tarzan

 Come to find out we hadn't even entered the Morne Trois Pitons National Park yet. That's where the fun begins...

While we had spectacularly surreal views I really couldn't enjoy them as the incline became steeper and steeper and at this point I was fully focused on negotiating the climb.  

This was our first view of Valley of Desolation.  Yup, pretty pretty desolate...

 We finally arrived at the highest elevation of approximately 3000 feet elevation. The lake has to be just around the corner, right? Nope, we were only about HALFWAY THERE!

Next we had to climb down and through the Valley of Desolation...  This is where the trail gets REALLY steep.

Some of it was so steep Jeff and I had to slide down on our bums!

 At this point I seriously considered not going the rest of the way. Hey I could just sit there and wait...probably even sleep. But no, I plowed on while wondering how the heck I was going to climb back up this thing...

I am hot, exhausted and breathing in sulphur from the ubiquitous small pools and streams of hot bubbling clay rich liquid ... At this point I'm literally feeling as if I'm journeying through the nine circles of hell in Dante's Inferno.

Black mud is carbon rich

The water is hot enough that you can hard boil eggs!

Meanwhile, Peter was great at lightening up the mood. He took warm clay from a pool and painted our faces.

 Now with Jeff and Peter's encouragement and the clay facial I was revived and ready to move on...

Sulphur rich stone

Whew! We made it through the very aptly named Valley of Desolation. Next we entered this gorge where we had to traverse streams on some pretty small and widely spaced rocks...

Some of  the rocks underwater in the stream are so thickly covered in sulphur crystals that Peter "Bushman" was able to clearly write this...AW!

 We had a few minutes of r&r before we had to negotiate the final extra steep leg to the lake.

At last we arrived at Boiling Lake! The sulphur steam was so thick you could barely see it.  But you could see from the blurry outline that the lake, which is actually a flooded fumarole, was about 200 feet across. And the water is not just bubbling, it's boiling to temperatures of 197 degrees Fahrenheit.

 So we spent about 30 minutes here resting on our laurels... personally I was  comatose and seriously wishing for a helicopter.

 We began the trip back...

Yup, of course we had to climb that rock we had previously slid down on ... YIKES!!!! Peter said I literally crawled up the rock like a spider. I disagree, in my opinion I was hugging that rock for dear life more like a crab. Anyway I'm proud to say that Peter told Jeff that in all his twenty years guiding hikes he had never seen anything like it! Personally I think he was worried he'd have to carry me the rest of the way.

'Til we finally made it back down the mountain. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I somehow crawled into the van

And just sat there in a blissful stupor while Peter, still playing tour guide, took us back to Roseau ...

 Until Peter made me crawl out of the van for a photo-op.

Jeff kept saying during the hike that I would thank him later. Well it's taken me a while to get to that point but... I pushed my physical limit to a point I never thought possible. Pretty cool for an old bat. Later, on our way to the Grenadines, when we were sailing in high winds and waves, heeled way way over and bouncing to beat the band, instead of being my usual nervous nelly, I was as cool as a cucumber. I guess it's all relative! ... Thank you Jeff!

 A wondrous journey to all,

Pam