Rainy Day Thoughts
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 07/Jun/2011 23:48, 34 days ago
It was a rainy day around Kingston. Actually it has been raining since Friday morning when I first got soaked and got sent over the brink towards getting a cold, but enough self-pity, it's time to think outside the box again.Rain is not all that bad. With Kingston's great collection of coastal hills and mountains it was possible to hear a single clap of thunder walking it's way around the hills this afternoon - fascinating.People do not appreciate Kingston as much as they should. Where else might one go visiting somebody (June's brother) and have the opportunity to go hang-gliding off a front lawn? We need to put things into perspective.In a perfect world, here are two of Kingston's competitors. There's Rio de Janeiro. It would have looked fairly boring and empty before the 1920's when the Christ the Redeemer statue was erected at the top of Corcovado Mountain, a mountain that's only about 800 meters high and Kingston has lots of hills that can beat that. Why doesn't Jamaica erect a 40 or more meter statue on top of one of its mountains to rival Rio's?Maybe one day aircraft pilots will say "Well I missed Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugar Loaf mountain near Rio but it sure was difficult navigating by the 50 meter statues of the Jamaican 4 x 100 meter gold medal Olympic relay team just outside Kingston"Rio de Janeiro photo per wildreed.blogspot.comThe keen eyed observer may see the Ipanema Beach in front of Rio, but in no time Kingston may have its own large beach along the Palisadoes using these environmentally friendly workers.Jamaica has parrot fish and each one of them can produce 90 kilograms of sand annually. In no time the Palisadoes will be sandy.Capetown is another so-called rival, but it only has one mountain, and where are the pointy bits at the top? This is a no contest for Kingston although Table Mountain is about 1,100 meters high which is more impressive than Rio's offering.Capetown photo per travel-funda.blogspot.comBut returning to the safety of the box, boring as it may be.Sometime soon I plan to go to Cinchona Gardens. The fussy people say the gardens aren't much to look at but the views are incredible. It's even higher up than the Hollywell Recreational Park that had an amazing view overlooking Kingston. Theoretically it should be easy to get to - head along the road into the Blue Mountains, go past the Newcastle army barracks, come to the community of Section, turn right, proceed through Silver then turn left, and the gardens are half an inch away on the map. I'm good at 3 point or 4 point or 5 point turns in case the straight road is more tricky than it looks, and there are big cliffs at its edge.I'd cut and pasted some thoughts here earlier, but they're not the greatest so I'll head directly towards the photos.Examples of rain at Valencia Apartments where I live in formerly sunny Liguanea:Interesting things can happen when you are a learner photographer. This one was shot at the other side of the apartment with exactly the same lighting as the previous two, but it looks like a solar eclipse quickly passed by.Some nameless gremlin has stuck in the banned photo from yesterday while my back was turned, and I can't find the computer's delete key.Well that's ending on a low note, but you did get a photo of Rio today. In November a number of South American airlines will be flying out of Jamaica apparently so we can go down south and explore. Also Nigerian Airlines is flying out of Kingston soon to Lagos (presumably) so Jamaica is on its way to being a world crossroads.Flying to Africa and other points in the southern hemisphere will be at least 4,000 kms closer than by going through North America and Europe. So the interesting thing is that you can head towards your holiday in South America, Africa or Australia and have a relatively free Jamaican holiday on the way.Good night everyone. It's still raining here but the apartment remains dry.