Days 13-14: Travel and relaxation

On Saturday about half our group left Dominica for Union College. The rest of the group had some time to play tourist and relax. A few hung out at Springfield, a few went to find a cliff jumping spot, and a few went to walk on a nature trail.

Taryn, Abadie, Mazi, and I ventured off in search of Chaudiere Pool, which reviews on Trip Advisor claim is one of the best spots to visit in Dominica, with a waterfall and a 30 ft deep pool to jump of rocks into. It was described as being a distance from the road ranging from "right next to it" to "45 min hike". We found the village of Bense and parked when we were told the road was under construction and we had to walk. The walk was about 45 min and other than a minor detour down a driveway, was easy to follow and well marked once we were off the main road. Once we got to the river it took a little looking around to find the pool, which was smaller than we expected. We all enjoyed jumping in and took a total of 13 jumps from the high spot (12-15 ft above the water?) between us during the ~90 min we were there. We also saw two birds that we are pretty confident were parrots. They flew just over our heads across the river between two trees.

Abadie jumping in

Taryn's turn

Mazi takes a go

Amanda leaping in

Before we left Chaudiere Pool we tried to help Holli out by getting some of the andesite that the pool was made out of, but without a rock hammer, we were only able to collect some chips from a fire pit and they turned out not to be very useful. 

Holli took Marcus and Chloe to the Syndicate Nature Trail where they walked a short way up the Diablotin Trail to see if there was rock there. They then went to look for parrots and learn about the flora of the area. They also saw two birds that they think are parrots and definitely heard some parrot calls. Below are some pictures they took.

Sunday the group in Schenectady had a relaxing day visiting the Green Market and hanging out. The rest of us got up super early and spent all day traveling to Union. Now that the sample collection part of our trip is done, we are getting geared up for 2 weeks of lab work.