So, Ross offers several free trips during the breaks between semesters. We decided to sign up for one on New Year's Eve. It turned out to be a lot more excitement than we had anticipated.
First we went to Syndicate Falls. After a 20-minute drive we began our trek through the jungle.
It had rained for several hours that morning, so to say the trail was muddy would be an understatement. I almost fell down about 72 times, and I was wearing my Keens. I don't know how people in flip flops (Chris) did it.
To get to the falls we had to cross over the river a couple times.
Then we got to the waterfall. Yay!
It's behind a fence to discourage swimmers. The locals use this as a water source.
After a muddy walk back out of the jungle, we went to the Syndicate Trail.
It rained a lot while we were walking the trail, and since we were on the top of a mountain the temperature was a lot lower. I was freeeezing. Then I thought about the current weather back home. Not so freezing anymore.
The best part of the trail was the parrot we saw!
Can you find him? Here's a close up (although it's blurry... stupid camera). This type of parrot is called a Jaco, and it's found only in Dominica.
I took a video of it making parrot noises, but it got lost somewhere between my camera and my computer. Boo.
While we were walking back to the welcome center we had a bit of an adventure. A local guy wandered out of nowhere yelling for help, and Chris and I happened to be the only people around that portion of the trail. He told us he had fallen while climbing on the side of the mountain, and landed on his cutlass (machete). His wrist was bleeding profusely and his arm and clothes were totally blood-soaked. I have never seen that much blood in real life before. It was very... bright red. Chris tied a tourniquet around his arm and helped walk him back to the welcome center. A few of the students had worked in the ER and were used to this sort of thing, so they bandaged him up and sent him on his way to the hospital in Roseau.
Some of the first semester kids looked pretty green when they saw this guy and what shape he was in... which I found amusing. Welcome to medicine!
Here's the aftermath:
My boyfriend, the hero! Haha.
So, it was a pretty weird ending to a fun trip.
Also, in case you were wondering, we didn't really celebrate on New Year's Eve. We had to get up early for the trip so I got about 3 hours of sleep, and after all this excitement and then working at welcome meals, I could barely stay up until midnight. We drank a little moscato (no cheap champagne to be found) and I zombied around on the couch for a while since Chris wanted to watch the ball drop in America. That was it.... I felt old.
More adventures to come in 2012!
