ohliz, I just ate em straight, occasionally with a few drops of hot sauce. The only seasoning we added to the pot was a bit of salt. They were still amazing enough that I had a dream about them last night.
Day 8 to Belmont
The day began with an obligatory swim in the sea. The morning proved to be hot and hazy. My host asked me if I was leaving that day, and I said I was headed on to Belmont. He offered to take me as far as Sav, as he was headed that way shortly, and recommended a nice place to stay in Belmont. I headed out to take care of some business, and my friend from London offered to pick up my breakfast at a place down the road. As it turned out, there was no food ready yet, so we declined the wait, and headed back over to the Rastas with the roadside stall. I said goodbye to my friends there, exchanged contact info, made a few trades, and bought a small painting. The fresh, strong roots drink I took in there hit the lining of my empty stomach and soaked in a bit, then quickly became an emetic. While this was a bit of an inconvenience, it did seem, for some reason, to be an appropriate way to start this day. I hurried back to pack up my things, apologized to my host for keeping him waiting, and we headed down the road to Sav, with the Londoner hitching a ride there, as well.
As it was Peter Tosh's birthday, Irie FM was playing nothing but his music all day. My host continued his sardonic comments about peoples' behavior on the road. When we arrived in Sav-la-mar, he suggested that I seek out a bus to whitehouse or bluefields, as there was no need to catch a bus going all the way to Black River. A few guys approached me and asked where I was headed before I had chance to enter the bus park- this was just as well, as they instructed me to stand right there on the street, next to a large poster advertising a show, and watch for a bus. After just a few minutes, a bus came by, with a man leaning out the window of the passenger seat yelling "whitehouse." I asked if they passed by Belmont, and they stopped to let me in.
I asked them to let me off at the Peter Tosh house, and asked at a neighboring bar there where Shades Cottage was. The guy there told me I needed to walk back up the road a few hundred meters, at which point I inquired at yet another bar. The girl there was not sure if she knew where I was talking about until we established the name and physical description of the proprietor (helpfully provided by my previous host). She then directed me to walk straight through an adjoining yard, duck under the clotheslines there, and head up the hill a bit.
Once I arrived at Shades, I was surprised to find that I had an entire 2-bedroom house to myself. I chatted with my host about the area, Peter Tosh's Mausoleum, the dispute which prevented his birthday celebration from going forward, and the bizarre image of Jamaica that many tourists end up with after visiting the biggest hotspots. I aimed to counteract the excesses of my trip thus far by fasting a bit and drinking tea, so I inquired about the possibility of heating water and so forth in my house. There was no gas cylinder in the house at the time, so I was offered a thermos with hot water instead. Once the thermos arrived, I found it to be truly bottomless- every couple of hours, while I was sitting on the front porch of the house, somebody would come by with a pan of boiling water to top it off.
The afternoon proved to be dark and rainy, and this weather pattern held for the next couple of days. I walked down the road in the drizzle to pay my respects at Peter Tosh's tomb. I then stopped by the adjacent bar and talked to the guy working there for a bit. Finally, I made my way back to the house to watch the rain, drink fevergrass tea, and read the book I had brought along for this trip.
A Bend In The River, by V.S. Naipaul. I had picked this book up just before my trip, and thought it appropriate and interesting because it had been written by a Trini of East Indian descent. As it turned out, the entire book took place in an unnamed town in an unnamed country in Africa in the 1970's. The themes of Colonialism, African civilization, the Big Man form of government, and the uncertain life of foreign traders in Africa intertwined in a narrative which covered few events, but many ideas.
My fast for the day was broken when my host asked what I was doing for dinner, and offered me a plate of what they had eaten. I sat at the outdoor bar and tucked into a vegetarian feast of cabbage, breadfruit, bananas, and dumplings, all washed down with a tasty lime-ade.
I retired early that night. While I untied the mosquito net and settled in, I was acutely aware that end-of-trip depression was already creeping in.
