Saturday 6/11/2016

A journal entry:

"Today we woke up early, ate breakfast, and drove on a bumpy road for two hours to get to St. Mary's, the parish where we are hiking.  The road was long and bumpy and we drove deep into rural Jamaica.  We arrived at a guesthouse where we stopped for the bathroom and got our packed lunches (sandwiches with turkey, lettuce, and Velveeta cheese--extremely common here).  Then, we started the hike.

We hiked through the jungle with our guides.  Our main guide, Lion (a Rastafarian with long dreadlocks), knew every single plant and its uses, as well as all the fruit trees.  He walked with his machete (everyone here carries a machete) and cleared the path while pointing out all the different plants and trees.  He showed us antidotes for drawing out poison, anti-itch leaves for bug bites, and burn bush (burns off your skin if you have warts).  My favorite food we tried was the meat inside of chocolate plants.  We reached inside the shell to pull out a bit of white, gooey meat that tasted sweet and fruity with a bit of tang.  Inside the meat was a pit (cocoa beans) which we had to spit out.  By the end, I could taste the tiniest bit of chocolate.

The hike was fun, and was through a lot of difficult terrain.  Lion did not wear shoes--he had a callous covering his entire food.  I asked him if he ever wore shoes before and he said no.  He gets his energy from the ground and if he wore shoes, how would he get his energy?

There were a lot of beautiful look-outs.  When we reached the black sand beach in the middle of the hike, we ate lunch under a hut.  When the break was over, we hiked about another mile to the falls.  It was tricky getting there, but the falls were indescribably beautiful.  The falls themselves looked like cascades of snow coming off the rocky cliff.  The pool under the falls was a clear, pristine blue.  We waded in right away and swam out to the falls, under them, and behind them.

We explored a bit, and just tried to internalize the beauty of the place and keep it in our memories.  My favorite view of the falls was laying on my back and looking up at the falls upside down.

Passionfruit by the falls

When we got out, we ate fresh fruit--watermelon, papaya, and passionfruit (my favorite, it was yellow and very tangy) that Lion picked on the way and chopped up with his machete.  We ate the fruit and sat watching the falls for a little while longer.  The hike back wasn't as long as the way there, but it was still pretty.  By the end, we were extremely hot and sweaty.  We hiked a total of nine miles.  Most of us slept on the ride home.

We went straight to dinner (our very first pasta dish!) and it tasted incredibly good after the hike.  The training sessions at night were even more fun than the first day now that we know each other and know the basics.  Later, we all met up to chat and hangout until bed.  The group on the trip is so nice and I cannot wait to begin working with them!"