Two nights in Wotten Waven

March 10-12, 2021

Due to Corona we were only allowed to stay with the boat in Portsmouth on the northern part of Dominica. As there is a lot of attractions up in the mountains close to Roseau, in the southern part of Dominica, we decided that we would stay 2 nights in a village, Wotten Waven. We found a very cheap guesthouse were we could sleep in a simple hammock schack. The price was 28 XCD (East Caribbean dollars) per night.

We also managed to time this trip to Roseau with the exit PCR test we had to do. Leaving Dominica turned out to be quite hard, actually. When we entered Dominica we could do the entry tests in Portsmouth, close to the boat and we had agents organizing everything else. But when we were going to leave we had to go to Roseau to take the tests (and then also go back to Roseau to get the results). It takes about 1-1 1/2 hour with the minibus to Roseau. It was also really hard to get a testing time and first time we tried to get it arranged we got answer that there were no available times for 3 weeks. But when we tried another day we managed to get a time when we had already planned to do the trip to Wotten Waven, which was really lucky! We felt that we were quite finished with Dominica and didn’t want to stay another 3 weeks. So we took the minibus early in morning to Roseau to take our tests before we continued up to Wotten Waven.

After we had taken the tests we took a minibus up to Wotten Waven to check out our accommodation for the following two nights.

After we were fed up with Rude Boy and a couple of beers we went to see a waterfall, Middleham Falls.

Wotten Waven is famous for all the natural hot spas they have and in the afternoon/evening we went to visit one of them, Ti Chen Hot Springs.

We went back to the hammock schack warm and had a good night sleep in order to prepare for our big hike the following day, to the Boiling Lake. The Boiling lake in Dominica is the second largest lake of that kind in the world and is said to be one of the top hikes in Dominica. Everywhere it says that you should do the Boiling Lake with a guide, but we did it without. At some part it was quite hard to find the path but most of the way it was really easy, and if we would have spent a lot of money on a guide we probably would have been quite disappointed. But we also like to hike and look for the path, and we thought this website about hiking Boiling Lake without a guide was quite helpful, link HERE.

We started early in the morning for the hike. The first part was through the jungle and the path was really easy to follow. On the second part of the trip you walk on top of a ridge, with steep cliffs on both sides. Really cool!

But the coolest part of the hike was when you reached down to the Valley of Desolation. In this valley there is a lot of streams with both hot water and cold water, smoke rising from the ground and small water pools that are boiling. A very cool place!

In the Valley of Desolation we followed a river for a while, and it is in this part it might be hard to find the path again. But if you look closely when you walk you find the path that leads to the Boiling Lake. We reached the Boiling Lake and it really is a huge boiling lake, like a massive pot! We ate lunch by the lake and headed back on the same path we came from.

The hike to the Boiling Lake starts and ends by the Ti Tou Gorge so when we got back there we took a swim through the gorge, which was really cool! No photos from it though, will show the inside of the gorge in an upcoming YouTube video instead, for our Swedish speaking followers.

After the hike we visited another natural spa in Wotten Waven, this time Screws Spa. The structures and the pools of this spa was really cool and they played some music. But it was located next to the road and didn’t have the amazing views as Ti Chen had.

We went back to our hamocks and the day after we headed back to Roseau. We picked up our test results (negative) and took a drink at a bar, visited the supermarket to buy some food and bought some Dominica souvenirs before we headed back to Portsmouth and our boats.

SWEDISH: Vi har precis lagt upp Del Ett från vår Atlanten överfart, alla Youtube videos vi lägger upp försöker vi samla under länken HÄR.