Indigo Art Café and Tree Cottage

The sign to Indigo is tiny, but there is something about it, something telling you, you should go check the place out. We saw the sign the first time we passed, on our way from Portsmouth to the small village of Paix Bouche in northeastern Dominica, and decided to visit, next time. Next time, it happened, my husband passed by on his own and he did go check the place out. Today, Indigo is one of our absolute favorite spots on the island.

Some restaurants and hotels just sell a meal or a room. Some others try to sell you an experience, they sell eco or luxury, or maybe the unspoilt or even the true and authentic. Indigo, I think, just gives away a little space in time, a brief moment to breathe and to spare. It looks like nothing else, it looks like the visualization of a dream.

The place is run by the Dominican-French couple Marie and Clem Frederick, Marie being a “roots” artist with a truly own expressionist style and Clem more of a sculptor, responsible for the construction of the buildings, carved directly out of the remote, forested mountainside. And for all the organic, almost alive, wooden furniture.

For our wedding anniversary, we decide to spend the night at Indigos tree cottage guest room. It is the only room, and for dinner, we are the only guests. When we arrive in the afternoon, Marie is already busy, preparing for everything. We sit down in the garden. Sipping on fresh passionfruit and ginger-lime juices, we exchange latest news from our villages and try to find out who we actually are talking about, mixing everything and everyone up. We pet the puppies that have grown a lot, just since our last visit, Marie has got a problem with her computer, my husband promises to come back during the week, on his way from work, to have a look.

The tree cottage is full of fresh flowers, from the garden and surroundings. As it only have three walls, birds fly in and out, waiting for us to prepare the do it yourself welcome rum punch. Grapefruits and mango, brown sugar, a little bottle of rum and glasses have been carefully placed on an old metal tray. The coconut mobile is specially made for pieces of fruit left over, for the small black and yellow banana quit, for the black and red bullfinch, and for all the other birds I don’t know the names of. The rum punch is excellent, and the one we have later, just before dinner, even better.

For dinner Marie serves crab terrine with beets and tomato salad and later pasta with freshwater crayfish, the catch of the day from a nearby river. We have some of Marie’s wonderful bread, a lot more for breakfast next day, and we have bush tea and the best candied ginger I have had for years. We don’t have no space in our stomachs for dessert. I would have loved one of the homemade sorbets or ice creams.

Later, we walk up the stairs and the short path that takes us from the main building to the cottage with a lantern leading our way. The cottage has no electricity but there are plenty of candles, all different kinds of candleholders, and a large oil lamp that lights up the entire cottage. The breeze comes in from the mountains, there are no mosquitoes, we sleep without a mosquito net. It feels like we are in heaven.

At Indigo, there are so many details, so much sense for details, so many efforts made to help you rest all your senses. Nothing disturbs you, everything seem to be in harmony. The air smells of fresh flowers and herbs, the jazz music is low enough not to compete with the birds singing and the whole place is art, not only the many pieces of art work. Even the food is art. And the shower. And the toilet. There I read a National Geographic from 1979. I thought so much had changed since then. In the world, very little have changed since then.

Oh, there is one thing about the toilet. And actually about the cottage as well. And maybe about the open space that serves as restaurant, gallery, bar, a little bit of everything, too. Everyone on the island seem to know that Indigo turned out to be some kind of favorite spot or hang out for the “Pirates of the Caribbean”, for Johnny Depp and those, while filming the second and third of the Pirates films in Dominica. I am glad, of course, they discovered the place, but I could actually manage without pictures of them here and there, or with plasticized extracts on Orlando Blooms experience, placed on the table and in the cottage. But. To know that something is perfect, you need something to compare with. These tiny, tiny sources of irritation are probably placed there for you to remember that few things come closer to perfection than Indigo.

When you enter, there is this sign. It says “No photos. Memories are in your mind”. It is great. We put back our digital cameras and enjoy the moment as it is. The place is full of Clem’s wisdom and in the open space that serves as restaurant, café and gallery, there is another. It says

Nothing makes man happy. Happiness is in your mind.





On the web: Amongst Marie’s paintings, there are some photos on the tree cottage on the website. If you cant wait until you get there, have a look: http://indigo.wetpaint.com/page/Tree+Cottage

How to get there: From Portsmouth, take the road that leads you towards Melville Hall Airport and Marigot. It is about a fifteen minutes drive, and you will see a small sign on the left hand side, just after a sharp curve, just before the village of Bornes.

Rainforest Mushrooms

When we first come to Brother Mathew Luke and his wife Christine’s small mushroom farm and café, it is for a yoga retreat organized by Rainbow Yoga.

On the right, just after the Pond Cassé junction, on your way to the Melville Hall airport, coming from Roseau, you see the sign. And the place – it is hard to tell if it is a café, a mushroom farm, an art studio or their home, all of it wonderfully mixed up, I think – is just like the colorful and flourishing sign: Welcoming, friendly and homemade.

At the outdoor veranda we are served a delicious fruit juice and have some time to chat with the other participants in this “Yoga in the Rainforest” retreat. Including our son, who just turned one and just learned to walk, there are six of us from Roseau, and another four or five from Ross University in Portsmouth.

During a brief tour through the Mushroom farm, the only one in the Caribbean, we learn a great deal on growing mushrooms. Which turn out being more of a science than farming. And as I immediately understand I can not do this at home, I concentrate on the surroundings, on the sounds and the smells, on the intense beauty of this fully organic “production site”, in the middle of the rainforest. And on when we get to taste those indigenous gourmet oyster mushrooms that grow everywhere and in all different sizes, in the “greenhouse”. We do, of course, and there is little comparison.

The mushrooms are cultured first out of spawn and then multiplied in sawdust or grain. Today the majority of the mushrooms are cultivated in bagasse (pressed sugar cane from the rum industry) mixed with sawdust and coffee husks. After inoculation the mix is put in sterile containers and left in the dark for ten days before being put in strong light and high humidity conditions. Harvesting can then start after another ten days, in ten-day-intervals. The mushrooms we get to taste directly from the cultivations are the oyster mushrooms, and they are exquisite, juicy and soft, full of flavor, perfect in texture. One of the participants tells us she got sick when she first discovered the Rainforest Mushroom farm. Not because of the mushrooms, she explains, but because “I just couldn’t stop eating.”

One of the reasons for our visit is to do a yoga class in the middle of the forest. So we find our spots and the strongest memory is when it towards the end of the class starts to rain. It takes, of course, a while for the raindrops to trickle their way down to us on the ground. But standing in the middle of the forest, looking up towards the treetops and seeing the perfectly shaped drops slowly, slowly – at least that is what it feels like – fall down towards you, and finally land on your cheeks or forehead, is amazing. Now, this look up at raindrop thing can be done almost everywhere, as Dominica is almost completely covered with easy accessible, lush rainforest, and a day seldom passes by without a little rain.

Brother Mathew’s lunch is outstanding. It is local, it is organic, it is vegetarian and full of mushrooms, it is abundant and it is delicious. If you want to come, to be on the safe side, making a reservation is highly recommended.

The oyster mushroom also grow wild on Dominica, and mushroom gathering has long been a tradition. Eating the islands mushrooms is said to be one of the reasons the island can boast of a higher percentage of centenarians than any other country on earth.

Behind the café veranda is the arts and music studio. One by one we all enter, wander along, look at completed and not so completed art works. Incense, oils, crafts, hand painted t-shirts, paintings, posters, musical instruments, bush teas and more are carefully arranged in a chaotically esthetic disorder, all for sale. Then, the music is turned on and the instruments are taken out, both the ones we brought and the ones in the house. Guitar, drums, thumb piano, maracas, hand clapping, wonderful singing and a whole lot of laughing is mixed with the reggae beats from the music equipment. Brother Mathew is a great dancer.

How to do this: For info on the Rainforest Mushrooms café, on lunches and guided farm tours, see their web page. For info on Rainbow Yoga retreats, see their web page.

How to get there: While coming from Roseau, you drive towards Marigot and Melville Hall airport, Just when you pass the Fond Cassé junction, look out to your right. There you see the sign. Get of the bus or park your car and walk the short path to the place.

Welcome

to a blog about Dominica. About nature, culture, arts and other things you may not find on other pages about the island.
Enjoy.