November 8, 2009

We had another early morning and were on the road for Bassein Bleu by 8am. I had French toast for breakfast and fruit. Cyril was unable to arrange for horse transportation due to the short notice so we were back aboard the rache pwel and headed up the mountain. At the section where they were constructing the cement runways (no workers there today because it is Sunday) we walked up but the truck was able to drive over it so we got to drive all the way to the start of the hiking trail this time. Too bad we werent able to do that yesterday! Our driver Toto blames the road wash-out for Karen's accident. We stopped at the spot where Karen fell, and ToTo got out and was pointing at the ground saying she fell exactly here! We took pictures and tried to measure it, my tape was too short but it was longer than 2 of them so we guess 13-14 feet. When we got up to the tourist bureau, yeah I said it, there was a small building up the mountain for tourists! At this area there was a group of guys who just wait for people to come looking to hike up to bassein bleu and they act as our tour guide and we pay them at the end. The hike was pretty decent, some good hills but nothing we couldn’t handle. There are 3 basseins, and we were headed for the third one. From what I remember the first one was bassein yes, then bassein providence and then bassein bleu where the water fall is the largest. Right before you get to the last pool you have to rope climb down and then cross the stream. One of our guides wanted to be our photographer, it was funny. He was super impressed that my camera could go in the water! As we crossed the stream he would keep saying no slipping ok, no slipping. They all had a bit of English. The water was amazing, clear blue and just cool enough to be refreshing (although they referred to it as ice cold, it most certainly was not) The guide Joseph, who is known as the stunt man, brought us over to the waterfall and had us climb up under the water fall and then scale up through the rushing water and dive into the water. It was quite the rush! I didn’t even hesitate for long to jump as I would usually, since there was such an audience :P When I hit the water though and was rushing to the water I felt that my bathing suit had shifted, luckily I noticed and was able to re-adjust before coming to the surface. I must have gone pretty deep because it felt like it took a long time to come up, I was kicking and kicking. I really loved bassein bleu, definitely a place Chris would have wanted to be. As we started our hike back we felt probably our best of the trip because we were all cooled off, but it didn’t take too long for that refreshed feeling to fade and the sticky sweat feeling to replace it. Along our hike we saw avocado trees, coffee trees, coco trees and of course palm and mango. We stopped at the craft shop in the area where we parked and we tried the coco bean, well they told us just to suck on the white slimy stuff, and we had a fresh mandarin orange off a tree and then a lady had cooked us a breadfruit, right in the coals and made a spicy water to dip it in; it was really good! At the craft shop I bought a mask painted on a carrabasse and a drum made out of goats skin and I believe a carrabasse. It was really dim lit in the shop so I didn’t examine the drum as closely as I should’ve, even though I thought enough to ask about what the skin was…long story short when we got down the mountain and really looked at it we saw that there were tiny ants crawling around the skin. Driving down the mountain we had some rum punch and we were picking up people like a real tap-tap, a father and son were taking their grain to the mill. And another guy was headed to the market in town. Whenever little kids would run along side the truck to ask for money, Cyril would turn right around and ask them to give him money! It was funny. When we got back to the Cyvadier I took the drum down to the beach and found Karen and Nath sprawled out on their beach chairs surrounded by a mini market. I took the drum for a swim to drown the ants, but they were resilient little buggers and the skin started to get soggy so I just went up to the people selling things and asked for a knife to cut off the skin, because otherwise I would never get it past customs. The woman started cutting it and she was saying she would’ve kept it, and she even drummed a good beat with her hand and the knife…but then she saw the ants and understood, it was funny because she seemed insulted that someone would even make that drum and sell it! She kept tsk’ing and showing the other merchants, she said they didn’t dry it enough and put it on too fresh so it attracted bugs. I still need to get out a knife and make sure I get each piece off around the rim incase it starts to smell. Nath said she could send me leather to replace it.
We had a lunch before leaving the hotel, Jolyane and I split a salad with fish, carrots, egg, beets, eggplant etc. We tried again to find coffee, but the cooperative was closed because it was Sunday. We got back to the guesthouse at about 5 maybe and had supper before the rest of the team arrived. It was fried chicken, white rice with a sauce and very very hot tabouli, then fruit salad for dessert.
The team members arrived just as I was getting out of the shower, we now have 8 new people. We had to have a mini team meeting to organize people, which was odd, to have new people show up and then start telling people what to do. I am missing both a trip to Notre Maison and Mephiboshet that they are doing tomorrow. I got a chance to explain the kids to the people going though, I hope I get to see them. We were all trying to get on the internet, but no such luck. It would let you get so far as to type in your password, but then would just stop functioning. Fairly frustrating since it had been working well enough before we left for Jacmel.
Karen emailed Colleen to let them know about the accident, they seemed calm about the situation.
I went to bed a little early to prepare for an early rise and a day full of travel.