Trip Report Continued
I took Daisy's hands in to mine, looked into her deep brown eyes and gave her a big long kiss. Her lips tasted of sunshine and crystal clear water. Then I picked up my backpack and rummaged for a replacement battery for my camera. I was excited. All these experiences we had already had at YS Falls and Pelican Bar was still to come. I needed that camera battery!
The bus stopped unexpectedly. I looked outside the window, but found nothing that indicated why we were here.
“What's happening? Why are we stopped?”, I asked.
“Food, honey, we are stopping for lunch!” Daisy enlightened me. I felt like the kid in class, who hadn't paid attention.
“Ha, food, I had forgotten all about that! I can eat! Let's do it.”
We stepped out onto the dirt road and found ourselves in front of a large structure, made of crude bricks, with glassless windows and a corrugated iron roof. Piles of timber of all sizes leaned against the outside wall, as well as a fiber-glass Jacuzzi-shell and other abandoned bathroom hardware. Fixer-uppers?
Following the pack, we entered a large mostly empty hall, with a few tables and benches. Graffiti-like artwork, depicting Jamaican subject matter like Bob Marley, lions and African scenes, covered parts of the wall where ever it hadn't peeled of with the plaster.
Several doors let further into the structure and out to the other side. The group splintered as everyone passed through the doorway they found most promising. Daisy and I took the longest route of course, but eventually ended up with every one else on the other side of the building.
As I exited the door-less opening and looked to the right I almost fell over backwards. Stretched out before me was an industrial scene that seemed to present itself unchanged from the iron age, as if it had come a straight from a display case of the Natural history Museum.
A long flat structure had been erected from bricks, above which a grid of metal pipes was raised. Pots had been placed on the grid and a wood fire was lit beneath them. Everything from the stone structure to the cooks was thoroughly covered in soot, giving the whole scene an appearance of having been made of one and the same continuous blob of black and white material.
A line had formed, but beside the turtles there were no other customers, far or wide. And yet, food for a whole army was simmering in the endless row of pots. It was indeed a baffling thing to behold, here in the middle of not really anything.
Daisy clutched my arm from behind, stood on her tippy toes and laid her chin on my shoulder, like she does, when she is excited about a situation, but unfamiliar with the 'customs' of it.
“What's in those pots?”, she asked.
I looked for a menu and found a blackboard with faded marks under a cover of more soot.
“Mmh, not sure, honey, I think it says 'curried goat', 'jerk pork', 'festival',... I can't make out more.”. There were about 20 more unreadable items.
“What did you get?”, I asked someone.
“I am not sure!”, was the answer, “But it's good!”
We ordered some curried goat with callaloo and festival. Three different chef's sprung to life. Despite the missing range and gas burner, the kitchen operated like a modern kitchen-line. A plate was passed, each cook added the ingredient of their station and in no time the food was passed to the 'window'. Slap, slap slap.
