Thanksgiving Weekend - carving and caving
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 10/Oct/2010 20:50, 34 days ago
Luckily we chose an indoor venue for our Thanksgiving dinner because Saturday brought another day of torrential rain and flash flooding. It was too wet to walk, so we phoned for a taxi to Candas and Alaistairs who opened up their home and cooked the turkey, stuffing and vegetables. Everyone else brought a tasty dish so there was lots to be thankful for and the vegetarians amongst us were well satisfied.Sunday was to be our first planned trip out of the city in about three weeks. We agreed to meet 3 or 4 other volunteers at the Half Way Tree bus terminal for a bus leaving at 10:00 to go to the Two Sisters Caves (the aborted destination the day I broke my shoulder) followed by a swim and fish feast at lunch at Hellshire Beach. So that we weren't late, George and I hopped into a route taxi because the buses were on a reduced Sunday schedule. We picked up another couple of passengers filling up the car and then all of a sudden our driver stopped short of Half Way Tree and kicked us all out. When everyone protested he showed us the flat tire which had quite obviously been there throughout the duration of our ride but he was now refusing to drive any further.But still, we arrived at the bus terminal about 40 minutes early where we waited by the ticket booth for the others to show up. While lurking about we checked the Bus Destination boards to make certain of our bus number and platform. This attracted the attention of an employee who came to make sure we weren't lost. When the bus pulled in, she came and told us so we wouldn't miss it but we told her we had to wait for our friends. That's when she told us that the next bus was not for 2 hours. We continued to wait and a few minutes later she brought the driver to us! The driver said she'd wait for the others so we made another quick call to find out their whereabouts. We learned that they were still too far away to hold up the bus so again we dithered as to whether to get on the bus. Finally we took the step and boarded. I thought I'd rather wait for the others in the countryside than in the city terminal with no seats. As soon as we got on the bus we discovered that Robert was not far behind and we probably could have held the bus for him. Too bad.We had a wonderful ride in one of the new big green and yellow buses. It was my first time on one of them. The driver was a young woman who drove carefully and after awhile in true Jamaican style the other passengers started singing along with the music and I found myself joining in. That's definitely the first time I've ever sung in a public bus. I've sung out loud in a chartered bus among friends, but not with random commuters.Arriving at the cave we were handed hair nets which I stuck on like I was a food server before I realized it was just to protect us from possible germs in the helmets we were issued. All I needed to do was pop the net on the top of my head so that it was hidden by the helmet. George never tells me when I look silly!Two Sisters Cave was very interesting but photography in the caves was forbidden. What we did see were lots of bats flying about and two owls, one in a tree and a second in a hole in the rock with her two babies so that was really cool. I want to return just to get better photos of the owls. It's still difficult holding the camera steady with my telephoto lens because its too heavy for me right now.The caves are named after two sisters whose names are unknown who drowned themselves down there instead of returning to slavery so there's lots of duppy stories (duppy is Patois for ghost). Our guide said she had seen and felt the duppies from time to time. Apparently it was common for the slaves to hide out in the many caves of the Hellshire area which were also used by the privateers to hide amunition and treasure. Meesha our guide told us there is a huge network of caves between Two Sisters and Clarendon which is where we were when I fell. We were oh so close.Walking from the caves back to the bus. We had been able to grab a taxi from the bus to the caves but it was a nice walk back and the driver wasn't available anyway.In the end we skipped the beach and fresh fish lunch because the skies were black and the buses two hours apart, but most of all we missed the comraderie of our friends. We'll go with you next time!