6-17-16
On small private bus, waiting, in Papine to travel to Mavis Bank to start hike up into the Blue Mountains with Blue Mountain Peak as ultimate goal and back to Kingston by the 19th to be there overnight and fly out the 20th.
Sweltering. Not taking hostel ride up bad roads from Mavis Bank, instead doing the hike on own without recommended guide. Starting with another member of the hostel stayers… We’re gonna just hike and see which place has hostel space when we choose to shut down.
I want to get up to Whitfield House, if possible, so that a night hike up to the peak is doable to hike in the cool and dark wilderness and then see the sunrise and hike back down during the daylight. It’s the highest mountain in Jamaica at (insert here) feet high and is said to have amazing views of air is clear enough.
Also hope to have time to do a coffee plantation and company tour, plus see if I can score some Blue Mountain coffee straight from source for my coffee loving friends.
So it’s high adventure time, to include at least one river crossing they say you *should* be okay in sneakers with if you’re someone going without a guide lol.
We’re following written directions, from others who have gone, off the internet.
Woot! Adventure and uncertainty and newness!
10:16am
[yt4wp-video video_id=”h3BbHrd8Szo”]
Now on way up to Mavis Bank. Very fast/reckless driver over very bumpy regular road. It’s awesome.
I’ve a young kid next to me, a girl, who has asked why I’m taking pictures and I explained that it’s because it’s pretty. She responded that she goes this way every day to school so she’s used just used to it, she guesses.
I told her I’m the same way about where I grew up… People find it very pretty but I was just used to it a lot of the time.
She pointed out her school to me a little later. Getting some pics and a video that I think really just shows sorts how bumpy it is lol.
I’m having a good time.
10:25
We’ve reached the point of having to almost stop and carefully crawl across gravel gaps in the pavement where gullies and turns have ruined the road. 😀
11:17
Hiking now, down the road to the mountain trail!
11:40
Bizarrely, am getting mass I’ve rub hot spots on both pinky toes and had to get local in-jungle taxi guy to drive me to hostel. Wtf? These Are the same shoes as I used in Appalachian Mountains. And here all have done so far is walk downhill on a road for 25 minutes.
But fuck it, this is an adventure and spontaneous on its own. Random car called a taxi locally is fun doing!
Hope can get some tape at hostel to tape toes and make peak hike. Do not want to have that not happen 🙁
11:51
Belated funny I noticed earlier. My taxi picked up two other people going my way…
…that same little girl and her father or something hahah. We said hi.
And just now came by my window and grabbed my hand as she walked away and said bye.
Annnnddd back to talk while I wait for taxi to take me out of this village up to hostels area. I think she’s now getting a little in trouble for chatting to me.
12:19
Ears both just popped
12:44
Reached Wildflower Hostel. Is pretty.
15:03
Was epicly and thoroughly ripped off on a coffee plant nation tour.
Anyhow, so far have this room to myself with the lovely balcony viewable in pics. Was hottish earlier but the breeze has helped the entire time here and now it’s starting to get cool enough that I’ve chosen to cover myself with a sarong while laying down reading and have been tempted before that to use the blanket provided but am pushing that back til it starts really getting chilly.
Glad I thought to and know to bring a cold temp outfit up in mountains rather than being assured fine because it’s roasting down lower or here even during main heat.
Need to go home to main hostel tomorrow as it didn’t fully sink in, for real, that today is the 17th.
The son(?) of the owner who is 18 has been obliquely hitting on me. I think I politely shut it down.
God I want to pass out for a nap.
Need to get meds from the Emersons’, need to get my med delivery issue fixed, Ned to solidify an NYC couch surfer and/or sublet to get my things straightened out there before going overseas.
19:05
Napped hard and well. Woke up with the temperature dropping and the wind picking up, darkness seeping in. Mountains at it started getting dusk at about 6.
The air is lovely, the sites just as much or more from my balcony as in the daytime. The breeze across my skin shakes the fringes for leaves the tree to my left has and feels a bit chill and damp, raises bumps on my arms a little.
In the last 15 minutes, as it goes always in hills and mountains, the light has started dropping quickly. It’s gorgeous.
As typing this little bit one of the younger boys here, roughly 7-8 came in twice and sat next to me. First time he introduced himself and asked me what I was doing and a bit else, second time he just sat sort of quietly after a question about what was I doing and I explained writing for my journal.
Then enters a little boy of maybe 5 and sits next to him, just says hi.
After a few more moments a girl of about 9 popped in and said hello, poked the older boy and told him she was gonna go play outside. He was neutral acting, younger boy jumped up and was ready to go. 7-8 year old finally after a moment got up and they all chatted a second and then said bye to me.
Now I’m on my own again and relieved haha. Nice children, just Surprise, Here’s a Kid Next to You! And Now More!
But very nice kids.
The owner is a very nice lady, too, checked in on me at a short few moments after I woke and asked if I wanted the light on or not and if I was okay.
Oh, as expected also, the bathroom is rustic but quite less so that I could be so far up out of a town and into the woods. Other than being multi-stall and not as gussied up as the one I had before my parents went and did the first major (and needed) overhaul of the house it’s much the same…
In fact, toilet works better. The rain water barrel, as it was for us, is a barrel inside that I saw being filled by hose earlier today. So more running water and the bathing-water barrel used is in here.
Wish I’d gotten more indoor pictures of this place before it became dark. It’s really comfortable and nice here. Wish I’d arranged for more time up here. Maybe I’ll come back and just enjoy lazy in the mountains sometime in the future here. Jamaica continues to be beautiful.
What amazes me here is I realized off to the left, down on the yard, a raised roughly put together box that looked like maybe a defunct kids raised fort or such holds rabbits. This amazes me due to owning both a small one I’ve s rough and positive memory of as a child, then my sister and I large ones as pre-teens, and interactions with the small types as pets since…
…there is nothing keeping them in or keeping other things out. The entire “enclosure” on this side is a plank side that comes halfway up a bunny’s body in its height.
I was too young to recall what we did with my earliest and very tame bunny, but the older ones and pet store ones and one one a friend had I played with… Christ, we had to have those suckers inside heavyish wire hutches with warm boxes for beds to keep them from running away or getting eaten.
Mind you, they were eaten later anyways, if what my parents showed me of empty cages and a few bits of fur was real… Maybe I got a reverse “they went to live with grandma”, who knows, as there wasn’t gore involved.
Ditto for other semi-tamed pet and farm animals.
How and why do the bunnies live there like they’re safe and can’t make a run for it, either or both?
Maybe mesh that I couldn’t see from this distance and angle? They’re not that far, so I don’t think so.
They’re also little bunnies.
I’m sure I’ll leave tomorrow and she’ll ask or wonder why I came up for a day and then stayed in my room and slept a bunch of it, too. This embarrasses and sets off some of my anxiety – which I had an anxiety back spasm earlier today at one point while standing on the balcony that changed its location a few times in the about rotten 39 seconds it took me to breathe and lean and relax them.
I’ll just have to tell the truth: I counted my days wrong and then just loved relaxing in the comfort and beauty of my room and hope to come back sometime for longer.
Anyway, time to stop typing.
[yt4wp-video video_id=”nkzag-X__iA”]
20:21
Okay, was gonna leave this for the night but went to the bathroom and sure enough the lights changing and buzzing, generator issues.
Pump either isn’t running or lost priming. Had to use water bucket in barrel to grab water and manually flush.
Came out and many – looks like late arrivals – are in the hallway at the other end and in the foyer making sounds about the lights and such.
At first by tones and gathered glob I thought there might be an actual problem of worrisome type. Turns out just people new here checking in and stuff from that.
Buckets of water walked across the bathroom to flush. Woot!
Never had to do that as I recall growing up lol but we always (I assume still) have rules on toilet flushing and wrong lineups on showers could mean getting in trouble and running dry for a bit or needing to go down to the basement to re-prime the well pump (usually stepfather or parents did on own, a coupla times I was called for lol).
Enjoying self.