I get a sluggish start to the day—decided to sleep in due to last night’s goddamn jellyfish sneak attack.
Breakfast: fresh mango-ginger juice, plantains (which Dane later tells me is pronounced “plant’ns”), saltfish, jo’ney cakes, papaya/mango/pineapple/banana, and toast. And, I'm feeling so crushed that I don't even photograph the food.
While the Ts are off to deal with fam, V and Dane start a card game of War, then attempt to transition to Spit, which I try to facilitate by looking up the rules online. My brain immediately goes haywire trying to comprehend card placement and rules of engagement, so I retire to my room to chew the cud and cat nap.
Knockknockknockknockknock comes the rapping, rapping at my chamber door. It’s Dane on the other side of the glass, and ever-silent, he gives me the hang ten signal. Pushing the door open, “you want to go swimming? Kayaking?”
“Kayak,” he says.
“To the Blue Hole?”
No, he shakes his head vigorously. “Scared.” Then, points to Monkey Island.
“Okay, let me get my stuff. I’ll swim there while you and V kayak.”
Cut to me shivering in the water—it stormed earlier this morning—so I make a quick change of plans, kick off my fins and hop into a two-man kayak. Proprietorially, I drag 'em a spot where I’d snorkeled before—a bulbous-looking coral that serves as underwater condo for many variety of fish, including a fluorescent blue trio. We peer contemplatively at sea urchins, which Dane calls “sea eggs.” Then, after a moment, Dane says, “let’s go to the Blue Hole.”
FUCK, YEAH! And we’re off, past our next door villa—the one that costs $1500 a night, then the one that costs $2500 a night and once housed the likes of Denzel, then the villa that allegedly housed Dudus Coke while on the run (a politician by the name of Voss hid him? Allegedly!).
And into the sheltered area of the Blue Hole. According to Speedy, “White people go in there. Black people don’t go in there. It’s creepy. You don’t know how deep it is.” The story goes that the likes of Jacques Cousteau couldn’t get to the bottom of (literally and figuratively) the Blue Hole, but I think this piece of apocrypha has been refuted.
The lagoon is terribly clear, up until the drop off, after which, nada. Nothing but an inscrutable blue-green (the day’s cloudy). It kinda gives me the creeps, the silence, the gray day, the opaque water, imagining what isn't, but could be, lurking in the depths. A shark, an even more monstrous sea creature, some bad juju.
Then we’re back and the fam’s back and we’re to leave “immediately,” but in Jamaica time it means we’re not out the door ‘til two hours later, at which point we’re finally on the road to St. Thomas Parish, and the town of Bath? For some hot springs? Shiyit, I'm just along for the ride, y'all.
On the way, we stop by a rum shop/clothing store, and I make a pit-stop at Jah West.Fish.Bowl (??), parked in front, for a “Rasta mon’s” fried chicken with gravy. 
And then, yet another pit-stop by Nicky or Micky’s Jerk Centre (sign unclear) for t to get jerk pork, and pour moi? A jelly coconut.
The way there is all winding, poorly paved roads, our van slowing to dive into a ditch, then painfully climbing back out of it, sugar cane plantations and goats and cacao and guava and adorable children peeking curiously at us from the side of the road.
Once there we’re immediately surrounded by dudes tryna to hustle, strange men grabbing you by the hand, and I can't help feeling like I'm a mark. This is yet another moment where we can be grateful for S’s company, and I can see S's hackles rising, and he starts to brusquely rebuff the offers to guide us to the hot springs.
And while I wasn't imagining fluffy white robes and cucumber slices, it's not what I'm expecting, this trudging through muddy gravel, gingerly climbing up and down wet stone stairs, a steep drop to my right, then a fruit seller with her wares on a cloth. A coterie of attentive men who just wanna make a goddamn buck forcing politeness and chivalric concern. Me, all Beyonce-Independent-Woman tryna simultaneously leap gracefully over muddy ditches and refuse a helping hand (from a stranger) while attempting to be polite and not a colonizing-evil-Western-tourist-bitch.
And, then? Finally?
It’s a little anti-climactic:
a tiny, but relatively fast-flowing, ice-cold brook,
but only two streams of the hot sulfur spring, one dribbling half-heartedly out of of the rock face, the other splashing onto a bamboo to scatter in something approximating a shower formation. A scalding, rotten egg shower.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
But, shit, I'm here...and I hear sulfur is good for the skin, so I clamber into the stream, picking my way across the boulders with my trusty Vibram all-terrain shoes, then decide to lie down and let the frigid water run over me. Which is more fun than it sounds.
Then, though I’m still a little iffy on the healing benefits of sulfur water/toxic run-off, I head over to the sulfur shower. Because the alternative is being slathered in green mud by a dude wearing a Philly basketball jersey.
Which is only sexy if you want to bone the dude.
I content myself with chatting under the bamboo shower with the lady I'd previously helped as she teetered over the rocks, Jamaican-Canadian, and her...son? Then, a small man, all knotted muscle, and twisted, arthritic-lookin' joins us. We move aside for him to take his turn, and he shifts the bamboo slightly so that the stream comes cascading down on him. We all marvel at his fortitude. Shit is hot. But he's participating in this ablution with such intensity of purpose that I imagine he's doing it for some salutary, health-giving reasons.
On the return, we purchase a ’tinkin’ toe (supposed to smell rilly bad, sort of like the durian of Jamaica) and jackfruit:
Back at the villa, I’m keeping us on schedule for our reservations at Dickie's Best Kept Secret by barking out the time at regular intervals. I’m already "dressed" and "ready"—I figure if I just endured a four hour drive for sulfuric/radioactive water, I’m gonna fucking let that shit simmer, so I forgo the shower that it appears everyone else is taking.
The exterior of Best Kept Secret—
apparently all the stars have eaten here. I would say, the atmosphere = good, the place is essentially an overgrown tree house overlooking the water, bursting with tcotchkes, and a little uncanny in the darkness. But the food? I'd had better stuff throughout the island... Maybe it was cuz we weren't movie stars.
Starter of fruit (oranges, pineapple, papaya, banana),
a vegetable soup,
a vegetable omelette,
lettuce and tomato salad with Thousand Island,
shrimp in bell peppers,
rice and potatoes,
fried chicken with gravy,
steamed cod,
rum cake,
Ting,
and an after dinner "coffee."
My fave? The rum cake and Ting.
We round out the night visiting with family, climbing dimly concrete steps up to the top floor of a house that reminds me of the one I lived in when in Taiwan, at the age of ten, purely functional, and no consideration of form. Exhausted from the day, I gather a very large baby/toddler into my arms. He has Down's. He's a nice excuse to not have to participate in conversation, and I listen vaguely to the chatter around me.
And when I've begun to frantically cast around for a reason to politely put the baby down--my arms are screaming from the weight, and I've been nervously watching baby drool gathering, glistening on his lower lip--we're homeward bound.
0 comments:
Post a Comment