Monday, 18 July 2011

Gardens and waterfalls

This is going to be the last post about my time in St. Vincent. I know it is overdue, but at least now it is here. The last couple of weeks in the Caribbean, Kristina and I did some sightseeing, so that I could experience the must-dos of the island.

One day, we went to Kingstown to visit the botanical garden and Montreal garden. It was wonderful. The botanical garden had a wonderful alley, see picture. At the top of the alley, there was a space where you could get married. How amazing would that be? It was very well kept, and it was lovely.

From the botanical garden we took an overpriced taxi to the Montreal garden. It is a privately owned garden, and it was absolutely enchanting. There were wonderful flowers everywhere you looked, and cute walkways to experience it all. Most of it was pretty jungle-like, but some parts were manicured and beautiful in that sense. I absolutely loved it and went wild taking pictures of all the wonders of nature.

My last weekend, I decided to visit some waterfalls in the area where I was staying. I went with some friends to a waterfall called Trinity falls. It was quite a long hike, but we found provisions along the way. There were a lot of ripe fruits growing along our route. We found oranges, grapefruit, and mango, and we also bought a pineapple from a farmer we met along the way. The picture shows me holding the almost invisible (or almost eaten) pineapple. It was a bit smaller than I give the impression of, but it was very nice and juicy.

I find water very interesting. We are dependent upon it to survive - our bodies are mostly made up of water. It also makes for interesting visual experiences, and there is something attractive about water falling down a hill or a cliff. It is almost dreamlike to capture in a photograph, but it is the basis of life on this planet. It is everywhere, but at the same time, it captures our interest and draws us to the places where it behaves unusually (i.e. falls down vertically). Clean water is beautiful, not only when it falls down a sheer drop, but when it comes out of our taps or when it saves a baby from dying.

But there are people who don't have access to clean water. In East Africa, there is a drought right now. And instead of just sitting at home enjoying the fact that we can drink the water that comes out of our taps (and the fact that we have water coming out of taps in our homes), we can do something to help other people to enjoy these privileges. If you want to donate to help in the East Africa crisis, you can go here. If you want to help creating a stable and safe water source for communities in developing countries, go here. This organisation works to help children, and therefore also works on creating clean water sources. Water is vital for our survival, and everyone should have access to it.

The day after I had visited Trinity falls, I visited Dark View falls. This is closer to where I was staying, and a wonderful quiet haven. The falling water seemed dreamlike and magical when captured with a camera. It seemed like a beautiful veil, fit for the princess of the forest, from a forgotten fairy tale.

I have a feeling most of you didn't understand last week's blog post. I made a promise to myself that when I finished my challenge of reading 30 books between Christmas 2010 and Christmas 2011, I would write a very silly story incorporating all the titles of the books I had read. So that was last week's blog post, and you can check it out here. Now that I have completed my challenge, I think it is time to reveal to you all that I have had another reading challenge going for a while. I want to join many other people in trying to read 50 books in 2011. So I will be removing the book I read in 2010 from my list, and I will count books and pages read from January 1, 2011.

Books read: 29
Pages read: 7824

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