Day #5: Dominica

Easily my favorite island from our cruise, Dominica hosts mountains, multiple waterfalls and a dense rainforest. The island receives over 300 inches of rain a year (to put that in perspective, Seattle gets 142, Denver gets 15), and all those trees and plants and waterfalls just called out to be discovered. (Hmm, maybe all that exploring is why I liked it so much?)

Our first stop was to these waterfalls that had formed inside a cave. We had to wade into the cave, then swim once inside.

The next few pictures were taken from inside the cave - they aren't the best quality, but still manage to give a sense of what it was like. Once we got inside the cave, we had to climb up the first little waterfall to get to the second falls further into the cave. Very Indiana Jones. Very cool.

The second waterfall:

When you looked up from some spots inside of the cave, this stunning canopy was overhead. I could spent hours doing nothing but listening to the water and looking at these trees.

After our cave exploration we hiked into Tafalgar Falls. Our guide was pretty insistent that we shouldn't get too close to the falls, it was a slippery and kinda difficult hike, but I managed to talk him into taking us all the way in so that we could swim in the pool of the falls. It was AMAZING!!! Swimming around a waterfall, taking in the lush vegetation, and enjoying the massaging of the falling water goes into my all-time favorite adventures! (We brought the camera up, but the batteries accidentally fell out of the camera and we weren't able to record it - dang!)

Another waterfall we passed on the way to Trafalgar

Dominica's multiple mountains boasted some amazing vistas.

Look at all that GREEN!!! It is such a dense, lush island. Love it!