History of the name Slippery Coconuts
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
141
Trip End
Ongoing
Dominica,
Dominica
Friday, November 25, 2005
To say that driving in Dominica is harrowing is an understatement. All of the roads are as narrow as a bowling alley and as bumpy the surface of the moon. Just off the edges of the roads, you either have a man made drainage ditch or a cliff that seems to drop off the face of the earth. The pavement itself is lined with crater after crater followed by blind turns every 10 feet. To cope with the blind turns, the locals told us, and we learned by listening, you should honk the horn when going into one of the blind turns to warn the vehicles coming the other way. Over the course of five days, the horn of that poor rental sounded off more times than all the horns in all the cabs during rush hour in Manhattan. Oh and lest we forget, the steering wheel is on the right hand side of the car and you drive on the left side of the road. White knuckles all the way.
After a few days of driving the island and dodging the insane local drivers, my confidence behind the wheel started to climb. Our trips were getting quicker because I was driving faster and was not afraid when passing other vehicles.
The trip has now come to the point where we have to take the hour long drive across the island to airport and drop off the vehicle. Everything is going well and we are zipping along passing vehicle after vehicle with ease enjoying the lush scenery of the tropical island. We pass banana farms, cows grazing in fields and lots of coconut trees. About 30 minutes into our trip a car approaches and I move to the left so he can pass on the narrow road. As I move to the left the edge of the road turns out to be soft mud and then there is a bump, like I ran over something, and we start to slide into the draining ditch. Next thing you know we are stuck in the ditch and I have to crawl out the passenger door because I can't open mine due to the angle of the car in contrast to the ground. Not kidding. Kay and I look at each other and are like "Holy Crapola! Now what the heck do we do!?" We are nowhere near anything and have no phone. We both just stood there and stared at the silly little vehicle stuck in the ditch.
Well as it turns out most islanders are very friendly and the guy I just passed saw us go into the ditch and he came back to see if he could help. He gets out of his car and the first thing he says to me was "You got too far left man." NO S*** buddy.
As I look back at the tracks from the vehicle I see a half uncovered muddy coconut that we ran over and the muddy trail leading into the ditch. With the local guy behind the wheel he puts it in 4 wheel drive and starts to rock the vehicle as I push from behind. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised and lucky that I didn't get run over by our own rental while he was rocking the vehicle. Finally after a few stressed filled sweaty minutes we force the vehicle out of the ditch. We thank the guy and are on our way, albeit in 4 wheel drive because we could not get it out. Oh well, we were still heading forward and happy for it.
Safely out of the ditch, Kay and I continue on towards the airport. I look at her and half-laughing say it was that darn slippery coconut I hit that caused the skid. Kay looks at me strangely and says "What coconut?? Okay, Frank, sure". Oye..why didn't I take a picture!
And that is the origin of the name SLIPPERY COCONUTS! --Frank
