After escaping from the law in Moneague, we continued climbing the mountains & then soon began our descent toward the southern half of the island.
As day began to break, we were pointed down hill, traversing a small town whose ramshackle buildings clung precariously to the mountainside. Over & around these buildings, we had an expansive view of a town in the valley below. At this time of day, with only the sky lightening & the valley still shrouded in darkness, the comparison that came to mind was Frodo & Sam's first glimpse into Mordor. The landscape looked black & ominous, with several columns of smoke steaming into the air here & there. The place looked like it had been bombed flat.
It was now 6 am. In the poor mountain town we were passing thru, tho, life was burgeoning. People were everywhere, (already!), getting out their pushcarts filled with fruits, unlocking all their barred doors, meandering up & down hills. Seemed that this small town was still being ruled by the appearance of daylight, rather than whatever the "official" time was. I wondered how the inhabitants could sleep at night, knowing that at any moment their homes, which looked to be half on/half off the cliff sides, could come crashing down, perched as they were upon towers of cinder blocks. Aside from all that, tho, I liked the look of this town, which may or may not have been called Ewarton. Here in Jamaica I have discovered the most accurate way to determine the name of a town is to find the school - the school is usually named after the town. I did not find a school in this town - I figure it may have already tumbled down the mountainside.
Switch-backing down the mountain into Mordor (which may or may not have been called Linstead), the land flattened out & shook off its forbidding look. Soon after that, we found ourselves in a gorge alongside the Rio Cobre. I was happy at this point that it was not raining, as the famous Flat Bridge, which crosses this river, usually becomes impassable during heavy rains. It is a one lane bridge, with each direction taking its turn via stoplight. It is reported to be one of the oldest structures in Jamaica, thought to have been constructed by the Spanish in the early 1700's. (I think the stoplight came later...).
Next came Spanish Town, the oldest European settlement in Jamaica - dates back to the 1500's. More about that & Kingston itself, in a moment.
Anyhow, we arrived in Kingston around 7am, in plenty of time to get a quick coffee at the Juici Patties (where they hand you a packet of condensed milk with your coffee) before my son had to be at the testing site. The testing site was a school in a good neighborhood (tho still gated, of course) in Kingston. We had the driver, Mr. Henry, drop us off. My son went off to test & I sat down to wait.
Five hours, several chapters of my book, one granola bar, one apple, one packet of peanut butter, one Tool album, one bottle of water & one hour long conversation with other impatient parents later, the test was over & we were on our way again. Mr. Henry decided to leave town a different way so we could see some new sights.
First we went thru up-town, which seemed to be home to newer buildings - several stories high! - & roads with 3 lanes in each direction - what a sight for us country bumpkins.
Next we headed close to the coast, in what Mr. Henry informed us was down-town Kingston. As we drove along the coast, in the beginning rain storm, what crossed my mind was this - how very ugly man's contributions to the landscape can be. Streets cracked & potholed, buildings crumbling & tired, windows broken & covered with plywood, or tarps, or sheets, roofs sagging & patched, & trash just about everywhere. Nothing looked as if it had been built, or cleaned, within the last 50 years. A friend of mine asked me later about the damage Kingston had received from the hurricane. My initial response would be - which hurricane? Because I don't think anything was ever repaired from whenever the FIRST hurricane came to Jamaica. Down-town Kingston is a dump, I thought. Just then, we drove past an actual dump, so now I can tell you the DIFFERENCE between down-town Kingston & a trash dump: windows. The trash dump doesn't have windows. Other than that, the two places look identical.
After that, we had a short highway drive back to Spanish Town. Along the way at traffic lights there were the ubiquitous windshield-washer men. Where in Montego Bay it is common to encounter one windshield-washer man, here on the road to Spanish Town I counted SIX windshield-washer men haunting ONE intersection. As I watched, a woman in a Toyota pulled up to the light & the windshield-washer men descended upon her car like locusts upon a field.
Spanish Town - would you believe it could be worse? I have looked up some pictures of Spanish Town on the internet, & I have to say that wherever those pictures were taken, it was not from the part of Spanish Town I saw. It had been raining for some while (I hope), because everywhere were puddles the size of ponds. People's houses - shacks of bamboo, plywood & tin, sat right in the puddles & looked as if sitting in such puddles was their natural state. Their doors were all open (assuming they HAD doors) & people in rags sat dangling their feet in the puddles which came up & over their stoops.
Here is where I show my - what - "rich white upbringing?". Because I don't understand. I don't understand how people can live like this. I don't understand why they don't move their little shacks just up the hills a bit, so maybe the water would run away from their doorsteps. I mean, it doesn't seem that there would be much tying these people to this particular spot. They don't seem to have jobs in the area, as they are all just sitting around with their feet in the puddles. What do they do with their lives? What do they do each day? I do not know. I can not imagine.
Thankfully, as the storm begins in earnest, we feel ourselves rising from the muck, headed to the Flat Bridge before it is underwater. Headed for the town which might be Ewarton, which I originally considered to be a poor town. Now I feel like it is a paradise on earth, whose citizens are a cut above their Spanish Town compatriots, if only in the fact that they had the brains (or the luck) to make their homes on higher ground.
Away, away we went, thru the rain which chased us all thru the mountains, til we returned to the north coast; our coast. The sun blinked at us, & stayed in our eyes for the rest of our trip west along the highway.
Home again.
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