3-in-one Jamaica trip report

[mountaingal]

i saw the guest kitchen so i thought i'd cook my own meal - especially since Shanique said no food cooked that day for guests. I asked her to direct me to the town where i could shop. She took me to the veranda, pointed to a yellow building in the distant hills - that was the supermarket. can i walk or should i take a taxi? i could walk.

mi walk, mi walk, mi walk. mi sweat, mi sweat, mi sweat.

mi come to a crossroads. mi ask somebody if a supermarket was around here, caw all now mi can't see no yellow building. the man point me to a non-yellow shop, said that's the supermarket. cho, mi wi gwaan wid dis. went in and bought 3 tiny romas, 3 tiny cabbage, onion, packaged fish soup, bun and cheese and some water. meant to get chicken, but i forgot.

was tired when i got back, between the all day travel and the walking to the shop.

EDITED: my first night's meal was bun and cheese.
DSCN0249.jpg

later ordered a red stripe, chilled and then went to bed.
DSCN0246.jpg

[mountaingal]

woke up next morning to the sound of workers in the yard. one had a distinctly canadian accent. intrigued, i went to look.

DSCN0250.jpg

Said hello to both, then asked the white fellow if he was Canadian. Yes, he said. from British Columbia. His legs were so pale

[mountaingal]

the owner - actually, the wife - came by and offered coffee. french press, in a blue and white cup. the whole place had a blue and white theme to reflect the owners' bavarian heritage.

Shanique came to ask if i wanted breakfast. I ordered a cheese omelet. She wanted to know what cheese i wanted.
"What do you have?"
"The yellow and the white," she said.



it was okay. a bit salty to my taste.

DSCN0252.jpg

[mountaingal]

pre-ordered a fish dinner with Shanique, and went to make acquaintance with the guys in the yard. they were helping out the b&b's owner by clearing the bush from the yard.

white guy is a retired lumberjack, owned his own sawmill. the black guy, a young man originally from Trelawny. they were taking up guinea grass and chopping down inconvenient trees.

they stopped frequently as they worked as a way of dealing with the heat. breaks under a julie mango tree, where they'd "smoke". the white guy, i'll call him D had a lot to say. he keeps his hair long as he is prone to melanoma - it killed his dad. his hair protects his neckback and tops of ears from heat and cold (apparently frostbite is as much a danger as sunburn). he liked the idea of chopping down trees in Jamaica, and praised the young guy I'll call K for showing him how to cut down a royal palm. he rolled me a smoke that i accepted but declined to use - a long time mi no do dem ting deh, and the last time was not pleasant.

D left after a while and i hung out with K. noticed a mango tree loaded with some huuuge fruit, they were beefy mangos.

DSCN0258.jpg

picked a couple, then on the way back to house heard K say, "look pan da big nansi deh". couldnt spot it at first, then did. it's web was on the ground bushes. great camouflage. this is a shot of its underside.

DSCN0259.jpg

for the life of me could not get a focussed close up of the top of the spider. even went back the next day. ended up contorting myself to get this shot of this against the sky. still not focussed but...

DSCN0302.jpg

anyway, for the arachnophiles among us, it's a silver spider, argiope argentata, known for the spirals it weaves, called stabilimentum. scientists still unsure of the purpose of the spirals, may be to make the spider appear larger so it's seen by larger animals, though that never worked for me. see a real close up one here off the internet:

[mountaingal]

DSCN0241.jpg


Rosie the cat
DSCN0243.jpg

Max the dog, keeping me company in the house while i cooked my lunch, fish soup and cabbage.
DSCN0274.jpg

Max is not really allowed inside, cuz he searched out and killed Rosie's kittens while they were newborn, and still is trying to hunt Rosie, who doesn't go outside. Nikola, the owner, says sometimes Rosie still cries for her dead babies

[mountaingal]

the packaged fish soup was old and brown i drank some anyway. had mangos and guineps for dessert.
DSCN0284.jpg

[CeaBee]

[mountaingal]

slept after lunch, then woke and went for a short walk with K to check some property. We stopped to overlook the beach that B&B Oracabessa's guests could access through a private gateway that led you down the cliff.

DSCN0287.jpg

later chatted with Nikola, the owner-wife. they had only owned the B&B for about three years. she talked about the difficulties of accessing her German bank account from Jamaica, and the general trials of trying to run a business far from home. she seemed lonesome, but it could be me projecting. I didnt ask where her husband was, cuz I noticed he was not around.

Because Shanique leaves at 4 pm, Nikola ended up serving my dinner. She brought me the fish in a bowl of broth, no utensils or napkins. I added some of my leftover cabbage and a couple slices of Santa Cruz pear on the side. had a very delicious dinner, with more mango for dessert.
DSCN0292.jpg

hung out on the couch and read about Aristotle in the late evening. heard a minivan approach the gate - more guests! a young couple from Canada. More Canadians! Oracabessa seems to attract them.

it turned dark, i read a bit more under the veranda light, then struck up conversation with the couple who were cooling out after dinner. the were professional musicians from Winnipeg, of all places. turns out one of the husband's relatives is an old friend of mine.

[mountaingal]

i know eh Rosie kept scarce while I was there.

[mountaingal]

the geckos come out at night and hang around the ceiling to catch bugs attracted to the light. i thought this little fellow was cute, very different from the ugly croaking ones that hang out in Kingston.

DSCN0294.jpg

[remo]

Very nice Mountaingal
sorry for your loss

[kia027]

Condolences to you and your family on the loss of your grand aunt, mountaingal

enjoying the St E pictures. My mother says she enjoys them too even if they are not from her part of ST E

following along

[mountaingal]

Very nice Mountaingal
sorry for your loss

thanks, remo. you're a santa cruz man as well, don't?

[mountaingal]

Condolences to you and your family on the loss of your grand aunt, mountaingal

enjoying the St E pictures. My mother says she enjoys them too even if they are not from her part of ST E

following along

thank you, kia. so glad your mommy is enjoying the pictures of st. bess. it's a special part of jamaica. even nikola in oracabessa knew that it was "the breadbasket of jamaica."

[mountaingal]

Wednesday was a momentous day at Oracabessa. visited the compound where k lived, ended the day with baby turtles.

first, breakfast. scrambled eggs. salty.
DSCN0298.jpg

mi tell Shanique next time i order eggs to leave out the salt, but i never did order eggs again.