The magic bus was prepped for the trip. A cooler up front had chilly Red Stripes waiting for us. I’m chatting with Ninja as we get on the bus and he is wearing this completely bad ass Red Stripe hat, all kind of beat up looking with what looks like a Stripe cap on the bill. “Dude.” This is my common greeting to any human I feel a connection to, a leftover from my hippie surf punk adolescence in Southern California. “Dude, I love that hat!” “Yeah, it’s cool,” says Ninja, “ I got it our last trip, check this out.” Ninja pops this smile, a little mischievous, a little excited, that I would see SO many times in the coming week. A Red Stripe comes out of the cooler and the cap comes off Ninja’s head. He holds the bottle to the brim of his cap and with a quick pop hands me a ready to consume beverage. “Bottle opener,” he says with a grin, holding up the brim of the cap to reveal just that on the underside, “And it always catches the cap!” He shows me the crown of the ball cap and there it is…
I shatzed myself.
We stop on the hip strip at Digicel to get our phone situation set up. I have never cared about having a phone in the Caribbean. One of the reasons I go there is to disconnect but this time I know I’m going to want to get a hold of folks at different places at different times. We now own a Jamaican cell phone and were very glad we got it for this trip. Saved us one night…
Tizzy got her phone before us and by the time we get out to the bus Tizzy has walked down the alley to some local vendor shops. First wayward turtle of the trip. (Thanks BeccaJ, this is now a permanent part of our vernacular!) We fend off a rush of vendors waiting for Tiz but EVENTUALLY get back under way.
The energy in this quarter filled commercial bus is stupid off the hook. We are probably lucky there weren’t any more of us, it was combustible as it was. It is a crazy thing to finally meet someone you already know. How is that possible? This right here MADE that right there.
Thank you Rob Graves, thank you VERY much.
