Ty took us through the island back to the Mo Bay area (not as hilly as the last day trip we took, but just as picturesque) As we drove up into Anghovy he told us that we had now traveled every road in the parish of West Morland (well... ALMOST every road - more like every main route)
A house in the countryside
A large piece of property near the zipline area
The side road to the zipline place
Along the way through the orange fields we noticed this old building just off the road.
Getting into the ziplining place was a bit of a shot in the dark... Ty didn't have the new phone number for the place so he hadn't been able to call and make a specific reservation for us... but he kept saying it's no problem, he'd figure it out. As we rattled down the gravel road towards the place he stopped a truck coming from the other direction, got the current phone number, and called as we crawled up to the main building. At first they were telling us that the last of the current group was already heading out, and we'd have to wait for the next tour (about 2 hours away) but then we pulled into the parking lot and Ty saw that the girl working there was his cousin. They spoke rapidly in patois, and his cousin managed to stick us in at the end of the group just getting ready to leave. We had to strap in and go through the safety talk quickly, but within 5 minutes of parking we were on our way up the trail.
The first zipline goes just across this river
I'd sold G on the idea of ziplining by explaining to her that she'd be strapped in with me the entire time. This was the conclusion we'd come to based on reviews of the place, photos of other people ziplining with their kids, and that according to the zipline's website, she didn't weigh enough to zip on her own. As we went through getting strapped in, however, our tour guide Mika explained that no... she couldn't go with one of us because of safety issues... the kids had to ride either alone or with tour guides. G welled up a bit, frightened at the idea of going alone, but we kept talking to her all the way up and Mika did her best to calm her nerves. When we reached the first zipline, Mika had D lift G up to the line so she could be strapped on. G was still nervous, but as Mika assured her it would be a quick ride, and no problem, G took a deep breath and sat into the harness. Mika pushed her off and we heard G scream all the way across, being caught at the other end by our second tour guide, Gussy. D went immediately after her, and landed across the way to a smiling G who couldn't wait to get to the next line.
G rode across the longer and faster lines with either Gussy or Mika, but took the rest of the shorter lines on her own. All in all there were 9 ziplines, one of them being the longest in all of Jamaica, another being the fastest. D wore a helmet cam and has birds-eye-view video of each line, and we also bought a CD of photos of all of us zipping, however I have no way to read the CD here, and the video files are too big for this netbook, so I'll have to wait until I get home Sunday to share those.
For me... the ziplines were both terrifying and incredible, indescribable fun. I was the major screamer of the group, which caused Gussy to catch me at the other end by screaming and waving his arms every time I came at him. Every time, no matter how long or short the line, Mika would have me sit in the harness and I'd have to take a deep breath and every time I asked... "I just go now?" It was absolutely easier to sit into the harness first before shoving off (rather than walking off the platform, which I presume would have a sudden drop/stop) but my heart would still race and my body would shake with adrenaline and fear as my feet gently left the platform and I found myself flying over the jungle. On the longest zipline I had time to scream as I took off, mutter a string of obscenities as I cleared the trees, and then look around and say "wow... that view is incredible!", spinning right and left to see both sides of the river before re-entering the canopy and seeing Gussy on the platform, screaming at me and waving his arms to greet me at my landing point.
G held her own through the entire day, joking with the adults on the tour and giggling excitedly between ziplines. Sometimes we zipped across to a platform with stairs down to the ground... sometimes we zipped across to a platform high in the trees, where we'd stand and wait to get to the next line. At one point, we had to rappel down a tree to the ground... though they didn't have us put our feet on the tree trunk at all.. they hooked us to a rope, pushed us out from the platform, and dropped us, controlling the rope with a pully at the top. It was more of a free-fall than a rapell.
Gussy, getting ready to catch the next person.
D, G and S after rappelling.
By the end of the tour, G had pretty much started talking the way I expected she would... "can we please go again? Can we put a zipline in our yard? Is there a place we can go by our house for this?"
G and Mika on the last zipline
I cannot begin to express how proud I am of her, and how grateful I was to see her wide grin at the end of every line. One of the lines was 13 stories above the riverbed, and she glided into the end as easy as could be without a care in the world other than worrying that the day would come to an end too quickly.
Gussy, D, S, Me, Mika and G
I was so happy with how well Mika took care of G through the whole afternoon.
The price was more than we thought it would be, and being a tourist spot we had the idea that lunch would be overpriced and not all that great, so after procuring our photo CD we headed out to find a local restaurant. We put ourselves into Ty's hands, who drove slowly through Anchovy until he found a stretch of shops, then parked and popped out of the van to check it out. He asked a couple people a couple questions, then walked into a place, and came back out to wave us inside. The place was tiny - one 5 top and one 2 top, a counter that ran the length of the shop, and a wipe board for the menu. There were four items... fried chicken, brown stewed pork, brown stewed chicken, and stewed cowfoot. I opted for the pork.
When you go to Jamaica... eat at local places. This hefty portion was only 350J... something a little over 4 bucks American, and was to-die-for good.
Ty's van in front of the restaurant
Our next stop was the Rockland's Bird Sanctuary - my #2 goal of the entire trip. Here is a blurb from Jamaicatravelandculture.comRocklands was established by Lisa Salmon, one of Jamaica's first environmentalists. Miss Salmon or "the bird lady" as she was affectionately known purchased the Rocklands property in 1954. She spent her time writing, painting and feeding birds. It didn't take long for the house to attract a wide variety of birds and by 1962 Miss Salmon opened Rocklands to the public. Lisa sadly died in 2000 at the age of 96 but her legacy lives on. Rocklands is now run by Lisa's nephew and managed by Fritz. Fritz has been working at Rocklands for over 15 years and has a gift for spotting and beckoning the birds which dwell in the surrounding trees.Rocklands was as peaceful a place as you could ever hope to visit, and exactly what was needed after the excitement and energy of the ziplining. We went from extreme adrenaline to meditation, with a great lunch in between.
When you arrive at the sanctuary, Fritz greets you at the front driveway and walks you back to the patio next to the house, where the table has a bunch of those airplane size bottles of Appleton rum, cleaned out and filled with hummingbird food, and a little hole poked through the top. He shows you how to sit and hold the bottle with your finger out in front for the humming birds to come land on your finger and drink. He then, very peacefully and in a sing-song voice, calls the birds and sings instructions to us... "hold the bottle hiiiigher.... here birdy birdy birdy..." He also spreads some birdseed on everyone's knees to bring down the other finches and parakeet types to grab a snack and pose for photos.
I didn't feed any of the birds, I was so enthralled with shooting photos that my hands never left my camera. I would scan from feeder to feeder, adjusting the settings and zeroing in on birds. Fritz helped point out birds in the trees and would explain their names, which ones are hunted in some parishes, and which ones were males and females. D had the Canon point-and-shoot, which he used to take closeups and flash photos. I wandered the grounds with my SLR, shooting a total of 233 photos in the short hour we spent in the sanctuary.
The front sign.
Part of the garden path
Looking down to the entrance from the patio
Fritz, our host
It is really difficult to not post all the good in-focus shots, but soon enough I'll have them edited properly and on my site. Until then, here are a few of my absolute favorites shot my D and myself.
D took this of me while I was zeroing in on a doctor bird... this is what I look like when I'm just about at the happiest I can be.
After a wonderful late afternoon visit, I packed up my gear and we climbed back into the van for the ride back to Negril... making one more stop on the way. Ty took us to Lucea to see his house. Unfortunately I didn't think to stand back and get a shot of his whole house, it really is an amazingly solid thing. He's in the process of building it, so the downstairs (with a bedroom, bathroom, and entryway/mudroom that currently serves as a makeshift kitchen) is finished, however the upstairs is still under construction. The house is built into a hill, which was dug out to make room for the structure, so you enter on the bottom floor, but the top floor will be the main house, and is flush with his back yard. The walls are built from cinderblock, he hired people to come do the plumbing and wiring, but otherwise is doing the actual building himself, working a bit at a time. The walls and roof upstairs are built, and he is in the process of stuccoing the interior walls upstairs before he finishes with the floor. After showing us which room will be which, he walked us through his garden in the back.
His entire back yard is one large garden, where is he is growing a great deal of his own food. He showed us the three stages of a banana tree...
this is the "bullet" shooting out of the tree
Then the tree produces fruit - one large bunch of bananas per tree
Once the bananas are ripe the tree no longer produces fruit and is cut down. The main tree sends out shoots to grow new banana trees and more fruit. The larger shoot to the left of this trunk is only 1 month old and already 4 feet high.
Here we are in Ty's driveway in front of his entrance gate
After such a long day, we headed back to Idle Awhile, where we showered up and grabbed some dinner on the deck. We stayed up for a bit playing dominoes until the bar closed, then headed in for the night.
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