Trafalgar Falls lets you stand under an icy cascade and, a step away, lower yourself into a warm sulphur pool. Two waterfalls drop side by side into the same rainforest gorge on Dominica. Islanders call the taller one, around 40 metres high, the Father, and its shorter neighbour the Mother. Both pour cold mountain river water down into a jumble of boulders rather than into one clean plunge pool. What changes the water is what seeps up between those boulders: hot sulphur springs, which warm the pockets around them and stain the rock a rusty ochre. Guides know which pocket runs hot, which runs cold and which sits comfortably in between, and moving from one to the next is why people come up the valley from the village of Trafalgar.
A short, humid forest walk brings you to a wooden platform that frames both falls at once. Ferns and heliconias crowd the path, and the birds calling around it stay out of sight. To get closer you scramble over giant boulders slick with spray, which is where the walk stops being a walk. The falls sit on the flank of Morne Trois Pitons National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of steaming vents and boiling water, so the warm springs here are the mild end of something much larger. All of it lies about ten minutes from the road. That combination — genuine rainforest at the end of a very short walk — is why this is one of the most visited places on Dominica.