05 September 2004 22:50
Monday 17 Maynow the objective of this morning was to see the sunrise from the extreme eastern point of the island. Mom had been there once upon a time, to Morant Point Lighthouse (pic1, pic2, from wonkothesane.com), so we thought it'd be cool to go. now kyle duly informed us that sunrise would be at six. he sounded like he knew what he was talking about :). (actually, i'm not entirely sure that the time "six o'clock" came from him, it was probably just more of a general consenous. i've enjoyed bugging him about it though). so we left at four. first we had to drop off the extra car at the airport, then we headed east along the south coast.
interestingly enough, the sunrise occurred somewhereabouts of 0530 while we were still trucking along the coast. from the looks of it, it iddn't last too long before the sun was up above an overcast layer, so we didn't miss much. [since we never got around to seeing the sunset at negril (western end of the island) we thought it somehow fitting. but it wasn't too bad, we at least saw each corresponding point on a day where a sunset or sunrise had occured there.] when we found our way to the eastern end of things, we discovered that the paved roads really ddin't progress all that far onto the pennisula. so roland promptly begins wandering through cane fields in his toyota sprinter. we stopped and asked an elderly gentleman directions, which he gave, so we continued blithely on. the cane fields eventually petered to some sort of a savannah terrain, which was utilized as a cow pasture (as evidenced by the cattle guard that was somewhat interesting to cross in a toyota sprinter).
we made it to the lighthouse bright and early at 0645, with the sun already 10-15 degrees up from the horizon and shining humidly through the haze layer. stepping from airconditioning to 85 degrees and 100 percent humidity and salt spray was a shock. nobody was there, so we waltzed into the compound, gallavanted around for twenty-five minutes, and waltzed back out, stopping only to take our picture by the no trespassing sign. we retraced our steps, waving to all the cane workers comeing into the fields, and found ourselves back at roland apartment by 0920.
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the second half of the day commenced shortly after eleven, in our trip to maranatha. we took the main roads to maypen, but cut southwest across country to go around the south end of the santa cruz mountains instead of through mandeville and across the north end. this added an hour or hour and a half to our trip, but it was all for the purpose of seeing new territory, which we certaintly did. roland wasn't too impressed or thrilled with my skills as a navigator, or perhaps simply with my choice of directions, but kyle was of course used (and resigned) to my eccentricities.
after three hours of sitting in the car, our first exit was made at "lover's leap" a prominatory near maranatha. we didn't visit the actuall tourist location, we drove 150 feet down the road and into a public soccer field, climbed the chainlink fence and looked over the edge. it wasn't all that exciting, it's much more interesting to view the whole thing from a distance (ie, the santa cruz mountains) rather than one it, for there it is somewhat boring.
back in the car and over to maranatha, where we met danny and shirley. they were helping out at the school, so we stayed with them. it was actually my first time meeting them, though kyle knew them from church (while i was in texas). we immediately set to work on their '93 landrover which was having transmission issues. kyle and i managed to get the thing jacked and set on blocks so we could do some troubleshooting, but that was about as far as we got that evening. roland set off immediately for kingston, since he was to fly the following days.
hmm, here's the setup there. maranatha is a school for deaf children. danny and shirley taught a couple classes as well as maintained the grounds. philip taught computer classes, and played a large role in helping out in the local church with the youth. another american, jesse, was there as a gardener, and omar, a jamaican who helped with maintenance. the three guys stayed in an apartment under the dorms, while shirley and danny lived in a house further up the hill. we had supper there with the guys, and played some games afterwards. philip stayed even later as we spent some time catching up (he and i have been friends since high school).
then it was time to do battle with the mosquitos. that was always fun. usually it involved lots of bug spray, which was followed by gasps for clean air, which was probably followed by irreperable damage to my lungs and skin and liver.
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