Pirates of the Carribean, waterfallshowers and pe

English only

Yesterday was our second day off, and we went touring again with a minibus. We visited the set of Port Royal from the first Pirates of the Carribean movie on Walliabou beach , it was really cool to see. Most of the old looking stone buildings were actually fakes and had a plastic/epoxy cover---it was really well made and can fool you from even close by until you knock on it. I couldn’t get to the platform from where captain Jack Sparrow ‘landed’and slided from to the other side—because you needed to get there by boat and we didn’t have a lot of time. People were still living there, and one building of the former set seemed to be used as some kind of storage for a lot of strange mismash of pottery, old telephones, old telephone-connectingmachine(when your call still had to be put trough), a sewingmachine and bats, who were fluttering nervously over our heads.
After this we went to the Dark View waterfalls near Chateaubelair and baded a little. I can now say I had an actual waterfall shower, it was very refreshing,
We were being guided by some guy of the National Trust who was a little goofy,(thought he was really cool talking with a bit of a ‘flat’accent)at one point he had to stop somewhere in his hometown Chateaubelair and got a joint at a local supermarket/bar/shed, which he was smoking (whilst singing) on the way over to the waterfalls. We also had to cross a bamboe rope-bridge, and climb some rocks to get to the waterfalls—very Indiana Jones:)
After that we had lunch at a locals house in Chateaubelair---her sense of decorating was very kitsch, with lots of porcelain and pink ruffles, but it was so much that it was almost beautiful again, and the cooking was exquisite. There were several potatolike oven dishes---one made with breadfruit not with potatoe, however it had the same consistency. Apparantly it depends on how you make it, it can also taste like bread.
Also I’ve been eating typical local fruits here…you can see banana’s, mango’s and breadfruit on trees…but there als o things like plum rose or wax apples. The first looks about the same as the second, but tastes like roses. Wax Apple tastes very refeshing, juicy with a bit of a lemon/appletaste and a little spicy It is delicious---I’m sorry I cannot takei t with me trough customs.
Also, you can literally either pick mango’s from a tree of pick them of from the floor. In Chateaubelair I was given a mango and a Wax Apple, after which we went to the petroglyps in Layou. It was a bit in a foresty spot, really rather beautiful with a rapid close by (which I also climbed over:) I had to )… On the floor in the woods I picked up another couple of mango’s that still seemed to be o .k(which I just ate and were delicious).
The petroglyphs were rather cute and apparantly the best known on St. Vincent, I have to wait for other peoples pictures since my own camera was out of batteries since the waterfall.
Oh yeah, I’ve also been called a tampon today by a local while driving past;)(this was on the way home), they yelled bloodcloth at us, which is slang for tampon. Not everyone likes ‘white people’here, which is understandeble with the slavery past . Also there is a form of Sextourism here that involves white women who come here and ‘steal’the local men, paying things for them and taking them to hotels.
But most people are really nice. I must say, I find the St. Vincentians beautiful people. They are very religous though and our cooks Sheila and Keisha have been trying to subtly convert us by laying down the latest issue of The Watchtower and a bible. We seem to use the Watchtower mostly as a coaster, they must think we are reading it rigourously by the state of it.
Also they treat us to some live gospel (play gospel songs really loud that it is almost anti-social, and sing along:)).
Not to spite their religion, but I don’t need a conversion.
Christianity here seems to be intermingled with (shamanistic)practices of the past-Obeah for example—and Jesus was just a really great magician/medicineman:)
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