My first visual encounter with Dominica was through the paintings of the Italian-born artist Agostino Brunias, who made a career portraying the island in tame, stylised vignettes that glossed over the grim realities of colonial rule. But within minutes of my arrival there, from the first twist of its serpentine roads, it becomes clear there is nothing tame about this land that sits in the middle of the curve of the Lesser Antilles. It bristles with volcanic energy and glitters with the two-toned leaves of its bois canot trees, flipping from green to white as they waver in the wind.
It lulls with the uneven music of its many waterfalls; it throws random rainbows across its astonishing horizons; it bewitches from the depths with its technicolour coral reefs. And when hurricane season comes, it roars. Mastery of the lush tropical rainforest that covers more than 60 per cent of the island is how the native Kalinago people survived invasion by the French and British, who forced slavery on the Africans who now make up four-fifths of Dominica’s population, and left a linguistic legacy of English and French-based Creole.
If you go to Jamaica for jerk and Trinidad for roti, you go to Dominica for green stuff: flower teas, bush rums. The forest overflows with healing herbs. Perhaps recognising the futility of pushing against the earth’s generosity, the Jungle Bay hotel leans into nature instead, set bang in the middle of the forests of Soufrière.
I arrive late to find the kitchen.