Justin’s Place

Justin’s Place

For our couple days off, we decided to go back into “Da Bush” on a hike to the north coast. After finishing up our chores of cleaning the house, running errands around town, and of course the game, we packed up our backpacks and headed out on the 12 mile trail down to the ocean.

We left from Brasso Seco, a little town not far from here where our boss lives. I went with Meredith, and the two newer interns John and Jen, and our cool manager Brian and his girlfriend Brie. We met Max and Lev who had set out a day ahead of us down there. The hike was beautiful. It was a much easier and nicer trail than the ones we use to get to the work streams, and we took our time looking at butterflies, fungus and the landscape. Imagine how long it takes a bunch of science nerds to get down a mountain through a jungle of cool stuff… a long time.

It was about 8 miles down to a beautiful Paria Waterfall where we took a relaxing swim. Then we set out along the coast, weaving down to the beach and then up through the jungle to the next beautiful bay. All along the sandy beaches there were little huts up on the shore where people were living. Each shanty was built out of wood and bamboo from the area and sheet metal brought in on boats I suppose. They were inhabited by mostly older rasta men who clearly all knew each other and had created their own community out there. There were men with boats and they carried people and good, helping everyone out in trade for things like fruit.

We made it to Justin’s place just in time for a dip in the ocean before dark. Justin is an old man who is one of the few remaining descendents of the native Karina tribe. He has lived on the north coast for 19 years and when asked if he would be there in a few years he responded, “boy, I gonna die here.” He had built a number of little shelters next to his own, which he lets people come and stay in. Mostly it is other friends and family from around Trinidad but the project made a connection with him in the past and so we know and visit him every couple months. He spends his time cleaning up around his land, collecting fruit and cooking while singing to loudly playing Reggae. In fact the music was on constantly, I figure it keeps him from getting lonely.

We spent two nights at Justin’s and they were very relaxing. The ocean was rough and it rained off and on so we spent most of our time on his kitchen/porch chatting playing cards and reflecting. I am very bad at doing nothing but it was a great place for me because it forced me to slow down and stay still. He made delicious jungle pot dishes out of things that he had and that we had brought, combinations you would not image to taste good together but were delicious!

After a couple nights we arranged for one of his friends to pick us up in a boat and take us along the coast to the nearest town. We were to rendezvous at 9 in the morning at one of the points that jutted out into the ocean. He couldn’t come into the beach because the seas were too high. We got up, thanked Justin and headed out. Through large jesters with the two men on the boat we realized that we were to creep out along a rocky cliff, dodging waves and time our drop into the boat with our packs on. Ready for some adventure we went one by one all clearing the lurching hull of the boat and only getting a little wet. It was very exciting. There was no real danger.

In town we found a little guest house to stay in where we could take a shower and nurse the many sand fly bites we had sustained at Justin’s rustic retreat. We spend a day on this beautiful beach that had just enough breeze to keep the bugs off and plenty of sun to dry out our soggy bodies and clothes. We found a friendly local women who had lived in PA for many years who offered to make us lunch AND dinner. It was delicious and just what we needed. We checked out the local Rec Club to see what the Saturday night life was like. We found many people of many ages drinking Carib and Stag beers chatting over blaring popular Soca tunes such as whistle song (ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dga-mQOg8LY). I chatted with some of the younger people around and soaked up the cultural experience. I learned about where they went to school and what they were planning to do with their lives. It was a fun night as the older folks left us youngins to dance late into the night.

We had another day on the beach before we got a maxi to drive us home back to the other side of the mountains where we would soon begin work again.