Windjammer Journal
Day Three:
Tuesday, June 30 1998
Side Trip: Nevis Rainforest and Sunshine's
Our arrival was a "wet landing", meaning our launch slid onto the sandy beach and we had to jump out into the surf. In seconds of setting foot on land, I was beseiged by a local selling cassette tapes out of a small suitcase. I was willing to hear some local music, but ten dollars a tape seemed rather steep. Regardless, I bought two tapes, probably since my wallet was full of 20 dollar bills from the ATM back home. I got a tape of pan music and a tape of calypso. The guy asked if I wanted to buy three tapes for thirty, but I drew the line there. I had no tape player with me, so I would have no idea what these tape held until I got back home. The calypso music turned out to be a lot wilder and electronic than I expected. [Editorial Note (10/00): once home, I was quite taken by the first song. It soon became my favorite, and, if interested, here's an MP3 copy of it. The tape contained no information on artists or track titles, but I tried to do research on this song. I learned that it had been sampled by Chuck Smooth but it took a while before I discovered the song was originally done by Anslem Douglas. More recently, I was surprised to find this same song, now redone by the Baha Men, had gained sudden popularity in the States. It's been two years since I first heard it, but now I'm hearing it everywhere from sports arenas to David Letterman's Late Show. I feel so hip.]
A small red SUV took us up the atrociously rutted path to the start of our hike, passing a wandering burro and an off-putting sign for "Crappy's Bar & Grill".
The usual guide, Jim, was replaced by his wife today. I unfortunately did not catch her name. She provided us with bracelets of jombi weed, told us of the entrepreneur who tried to bring camels to the Caribbean (they died), and led us further into the hills where we got to see the "guts": deep rock rivulets through which rain water runs down to feed the lower parts of the island when it rains. In a rock amphitheater, she passed out several native berries and juices for our appreciation; and then we headed back down to our taxis, which took us back down to the beach.
It was around five now. I felt rushed, but we still managed to linger on the beach and sample a Killer Bee. In the hour I was there I had three. A certain unnamed cousin had six. Sunshine's was a cross between a tent and a shack -- decorated with bikini tops, strung along its rafters.
There was such a relaxed feeling on the beach that I wished I'd spent more time there. This was how I'd imagined it (give or take fifty pounds!): watching children play in the water, watching the horses run in the surf, watching the sun set behind the Polynesia. My second cousins frolicked in the surf, still dressed in shorts and t-shirts, retrieving seashells which rivaled those being sold on a blanket nearby. A coconut dropped down nearby and a local offered to open it for us. "This is a job" for him, he added, expecting to be paid. He cracked the coconut against the cement bottom of a post, and poured out the coconut water for us to share.
Take the launch back to the Ship
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