A stop at the ATM and we’re underway. That’s two consecutive interactions with the financial system here with nary a hint of an issue. The streak ends here but only because of a funny quirk tomorrow.
We head out the Sav road and I slip into the wayback machine again, roadtripping to Sav, YS and the bamboo avenue with the family. Good times, they were. We have great conversation with Chris about his wife and family, his wedding in December, his business with Percy who is his older brother. As we turn north at Sav and head into the cane fields Chris says, “Things gonna get a little slower now”. He’s not kidding. At points we are crawling through lunar crater fields. He negotiates them with ease. We pass through several villages. These are old sugar cane villages but Chris says people go from here to work in Negril. “That’s a long ride every day,” I say. “Yah, mon, but the work in the cane fields is rough.” He lists the problems – heat, sun, long hours, hard labor, low pay, injury, constantly being cut and sliced by the cane leaves – but worst he says is that all of that together ages you physically at a rapid rate. “You can tell right away if someone works the cane,” he says.
We pass a lot of empty small roadside establishments but in one small village there is a somewhat bigger bar that has maybe half a dozen folks hanging out as we roll bye. They wave, hoot and holler as we pass. We catch glimpses of the mountains we’re heading into through the cane fields. As we get closer it is very obvious that they shoot straight up from the alluvial plain. They seem to be too steep to hold vegetation yet they are covered completely in a wide variety of flora.
As we ascend we ask Chris if he makes this trip often. “No, not too often,” he says, “It’s been a while since I’ve been up here. A lot of drivers won’t go because their worried about damaging their car.” I watch him carefully in the tough spots as I drive 4x4’s off-road at home. He is an excellent driver. The entire day on some wild patches of road he never bellies on anything, never bottoms out a shock, never even spins a wheel! The landscape is wild, straight up to your left, straight down to your right. At one point you cross a saddle between two peaks and it is straight down both ways just beyond the edge of the road. And the road ain’t wide! At different spots along the road are small communities literally clinging to the sides of the hill. Some amazing rudimentary engineering has taken place to support the structures in these villages. Every structure we see has some form of bamboo or lumber post holding it up.
We are awed. “Do you think you would want to live here?” asks Chris. “As beautiful as it is, probably not,” we say. “Yah, mon,” he says, ”One good rain and you can lose your house!” We come around a big curve that circles the hillside of a small hanging valley. On the peak of the spur that shoots out to create this valley sits the small village of Mayfield. It is very picturesque so, of course, we shoot no pictures! Chris gets higgled by a couple of roadside establishments as we roll through town. The craziest part of the road is the last little bit into the parking lot. Chris handles it beautifully. He spends more time navigating the lot for a good shaded parking spot than he does any of the washouts today. “Not gonna park under that mango tree,” he says pointing to his windshield, “made that mistake before!”
We are greeted by a lovely lady who runs a little bar next to the parking lot. “Come have a cold drink after your hot drive,” she says. Chris has run into an old friend he hasn’t seen in a long time and they are excited to see each other. He waves us to the bar, “I’ll be waiting.” We grab a cold Stripe and chat with the lady. “You’re going to love it,” she says, “I guarantee you’ll be amazed.” As we head out she says, ”Come back and have another when you’re done and tell me what you think. If you don’t love it I’ll buy your drink.” That’s a good pitch.
