Jamaica Honeymoon - Day 3
Apollo Fields Destination Wedding Photographers | Negril, Jamaica | Honeymoon Adventures
Jamaica – Day 3
Sunday, November 4th, 2018 ~7:35 am, local time
Another morning waking to the ebbs and flows of the Caribbean Sea. There’s something about the sound of waves crashing that lures your mind into the rhythm of nature, reminding you that everything that comes will also go. The whitewater that sprays into the air, jettisoning from the sharp rock face, shows no concern for my presence, or for any of the other creatures that cling to their cratered homes on this violently-formed beautiful façade. Yet it’s these wall-dwelling sea creatures — these Jamaican mussels and crabs — that taught me that we need to carve a small niche for ourselves, where we can brave the onslaught of life’s elements, if we want to survive in this otherwise unforgiving world.
We took a right out of Sundown Villa this morning for the first time on our Vespa, passing Rick’s Café among the other horribly named Americanized resorts like ‘The Palms’ and ‘Lover’s Paradise” as the wind whipped around our bodies on our way to a place called “Barney’s Hummingbird and Flower Sanctuary.” Heather clung to my back like a baby koala as we veered off the pavement onto a dirt road, her lips stammering through the worried words of her mind like mental pot holes. We passed a man walking down the road, sharpening a machete and were reminded of our cab driver who told us that all the goats that roam the island are owned by someone — and if you were to say, pick one up — you will find yourself on the wrong end of one of those blades. We swerved around the man and slowed as we approached two large, faded green doors that hung on rusted hinges.
“Hello!” Said a thin pale-skinned old man donning a worn trousers-and-suspenders outfit as he swung the gates open. “Welcome to my hummingbird and flower sanctuary. I am Barney, the proud German-Jamaican-English owner of this place,” he added. As he led us through the narrow walkways of his garden, the flutter of hummingbirds moved all around us, kind of like the sound of tiny handheld toy fans. Palms and large leaves hung down as geckos and other insects fed from the vibrant pink, red, and yellow flowers that boomed in contrast to the blue sky. Barney gave us all tiny bottles with punctured red caps that dripped with sugar water to lure the hummingbirds in. We held our outstretched arms in the air, mimicking the branches that reached over the garden’s pathways, hoping that the birds would come feed from our “flowers.” Patiently walking around, the birds began to trust us one at a time, holding fast in midair right in front of our faces, mother nature’s natural helicopters, hovering in place, wings effortlessly flapping seventy times a second. Barney grinned a grin that only a hummingbird expert could grin, or maybe it was because of the six-pack of Red Stripe.
Eager for local cuisine we stopped just up the road at a place called Just Natural Veggies. Simple enough, I thought. From there we ordered rum punch, a vegetable plate, lobster salad, sweet potato and plantain, and a bean and rice burrito. As we walked to the side of the restaurant we followed a path into the jungle, tables and chairs scattered about like a diner inside the woods. There were checker board tables that used plastic bottle caps and Red Stripe caps as checkers and each table had an orange bottle of locally made hot habanero hot sauce. We ate our freshly made dishes in the middle of the jungle, no one around but the smiling faces of the restaurant, who laughed and joked as they set down our plates. They could’ve been feeding us fried gecko for all we knew as we sat mesmerized in this restaurant that made rustic concepts back home look like four-star hotels. In the jungle and of the jungle, we walked out of there happy and full.
There are niches to be carved, if only we are wise enough to see them. These experiences will stick to my heart like the geckos on the flowers and the mussels on the rock wall. As the trip continues, I can only hope to unearth more things that I can learn from and grow closer to carving out my own crater I can call home.
Jamaica Honeymoon - Day 1
Westmoreland, Jamaica | Sundown Villa | Honeymooning | Apollo Fields Photojournalism | Blog
Jamaica, Day 1
Friday, November 2nd , ~ 8:09am, local time
I woke up several times to the luminescent glow in the sky of a Jamaican sunrise, stirring to the sounds of life’s reawakening to the smell of fresh fires and morning birds. Looking out onto the rigid horizon, my view was divided in two — the sky and the sea — one blue, darker and in constant motion, while the other floated in its own lightness. The semi-frequent car horn blared from the street, bringing me back to the march of civilization that we thought we left in New York.
Hungry, I waited as Heather ruminated on her back in a lounge chair. She stared at the same dialectic view, but I know her eyes told her a different story. She saw the way the light struck the different crests of the ocean, the way it played with the rocks, creating shadows and depth as geckos crawled between the dark and the light. She heard the birds and the cars but she reached another plane of mind by sheer will, wrestling her otherwise purposeful mind into a peaceful submission. It took a bit of effort, but she got there, perhaps reaching an even more placid mental state than my own.
Most things are competitions for us and why would relaxation be any different. I told her while I was reading Shantaram that it seemed a task for her to sit still, that she should go start breakfast because 1) I was hungry, and 2) I thought that it would provide her productive mind with something to do. She disagreed, saying that it wasn’t difficult, that she found no trouble or resistance in the open space of an unoccupied mind, but I could see the struggle. The struggle of a relentless spirit meeting no opponent, of a force pushing forward to find no resistance, where effort was not rewarded but yielded to. What does a warrior make of passivity on the battlefield where victory reveals nothingness? Where there is no one to fight and nowhere to go but inside one’s heart? I imagine the war is explosive and silent. I’m just happy to see her relax.
I don’t know what to expect from our time in Jamaica, safely tucked into our Airbnb on the cliffs at Sundown Villa, somewhat immersed in the culture while staying at an arms length. Before we arrived, dad and others preached caution, forewarning danger, but our host, Nadine, exudes nothing but the warmth Americans have come to expect from Rasta and Jamaican culture. Clouded in the smoke of ganja, I hope to brush shoulders with locals and eat from their authentic tradition, whether from the street or between the walls of celebrated staples. I hope to return to the States revitalized and hungry, rejuvenated yet ready to begin the search for our new home.
