GPzMike Abroad

Ony hired the local trinket peddler, Peterson, to drive to Jakmal today. Pat and I and Ony took the ride up and over the mountains to the (south??). It was great to get out of the city of Leogane and see something of the country although there was still plenty of earthquake evidence including a section of road that's pretty tore up - over 1' rips in the roadway. Can you imagine what it might have been like to be standing right there on the roadway? (In talking with Berlyn, our compound interpreter, I discovered that her cousin survived the first tremors while in the shower - she ran to the street and people started laughing at her so she ran back inside as the second round of more powerful tremors hit that brought her home down killing her)

The hill country here is very steep and abrupt. No time for rolling hills as a 'warmup' like we are used to in the states. Flatlands to mountains in 0.05 seconds flat. While still covered in vegetation most of it is terraced and growing something of use for the population, the mountain faces are angular, long, and steep (hmm...nice try at complex sentence structure but something's a tad off...)

Jacmal has a nice hotel that we visited long enough for the girls to have a glass of white wine while Peterson, the driver, and myself had freshly made fruit juice. I must admit, sitting there made me want to come back for my mental health break rather than try to camp on the beach. Civilization, even on that level, was nice as hell to experience.

The beach at Jakmal was nice but quite the buzz of activity. You pay to park, then you go to the food vendors and order food. Fresh from the sea, we had huge lobster and parrot fish. From there we head across the way to the beach where we had to sit in chairs 'owned' by that vendor. Once seated quite a few peddlers came by to sell their wares though never in an unkind or intrusive manner. It does, however, get tiresome. There were people everywhere - not exactly the beach experience I was anticipating. I walked out into the small surf (3' max) and just stood out there upper waist high for nearly 20 minutes. I tried to explain to a Haitian fellow that came up to practice his English (he clearly wanted 'something' from me...sigh...so ultimately I just wondered back in once I tired of the needling) that where I come from it's impossible to stand in the surf for 20 minutes without turning blue. For all the craziness, including a fight that broke out between some teenagers (boys will be boys!), the food was absolutely top notch. The spices they use here are just wonderful and coupled with the food's freshness it makes for finger lickin' good eats. Fresh plantains rounded out the meal and sprite and Prestige Beer washed it all down. Lobsters and fish were grilled and we needed not one drop of butter for the lobsters....tail and all. It was a much needed quickie respite, but was a nearly a push until the food turned it all around for me (well, company and vistas while crossing the mountains were great, but you get my drift methinks).

Here's the long/lat for the beach:

 18°13'35.03"N
 72°24'56.00"W