Up in smoke

He was at least two spliffs in and I didn't want to look out the window. We were traversing up narrow, broken-asphalt roads and I was afraid that if I looked down over the precipice only feet from my seat, he would look over too (perhaps to point out a quaint English style cottage across the valley or a tall tree with flaming red flowers clinging to the verdant hillside) and off we would go. We would drop thousands of feet, perhaps taking out some banana trees and coffee shrubs on the way down, before settling in a tangled metal heap next to the cool clear river snaking through the valley from Catherine's Peak. Why didn't I smoke the ganja too? I'd be able to look out the open window past the colorful flowers lining the shoulderless road, up at the billowy masses of white clouds mingling with gray smoke from cook fires and trash heaps, down at the terraced hillsides covered with modest houses built from the mahogany and other hardwoods of the island. I may even giggle as the wheels careened off the pavement onto the crumbling dirt for a moment before regaining traction on the curves and dips of this mountainside path. Only in Jamaica would I get into a car after watching the driver smoke two joints, just like the song, knowing that that ain't nothing in a day and probably helped his driving. If nothing else, the conversation flowed punctuated with deep belly laughs and the slightly pungent smell that clung to the carseats was mildly comforting.
"This used to be the only way to get to Kingston," my tour guide David said. "Can you imagine those old buses making this journey?" I pictured the old 60s diesel buses chugging up and whipping down these mountain roads scattering goats and dogs, villagers with baskets of vegetables, kids playing in the street. I thought of a long ago trip I had on a bus exactly like the one I saw down by the water, like the one David is talking about, but instead of Jamaica it was Nepal and I rode on the top screaming and laughing down switch backs, the Himalayas reaching up behind me.
"Yes," I said, smiling. "That must of been pretty intense."

He honked his horn as we rounded another blind corner.
The air was cooler and damp the farther up the mountain we went. My hands were sticky from the soursop we had shared, bumpy green misshapen mass ripped in half, honeyed white flesh dripping down my chin, seeds spit out the window into the valley below. I wish we had eaten this before the waterfall stop, I thought, but I was still quite happy, residual stickiness reminding me of the sweet.

At the top of the ridge we stopped and got out. My legs were shaky from hours in the car but I was soon wandering ably above the coffee beans and brassicas growing on the steep slopes. Camera clicking, fingers rubbing together coffee cherries and mustard flowers, I was close to heaven. The clouds below the level of my feet confirmed this.

On the late afternoon when I visit, the village of Section consisted of a few visible houses, a coffee tasting room, and a truck loaded with enormous black speakers blaring reggae and dancehall next to a DJ table. A quiet mountain village it was not, but the mood was festive. David leads me to a small open shack on the edge of the ridge. Here a tall coffee farmer with dreads and an everlasting doobie stokes a fire where a kettle full of home roasted coffee resides. We sip at our brew, my guide has another spliff or two, we talk about the progression of fruit into beverage, I buy two bags of beans to take home.
We walk around the town (street) talking farming. "It's the only way out [of economic crisis and back to self-sufficiency," David says. He and the coffee farmer lead me up a hill where we pick Old Mans's Beard and Leaf of Life (herbs), uglies (bumpy lemons), and limes. David pulls off a pineapple sucker to transplant at his own farm down by the sea.
He snuffs out his joint, stuffs the fruit and herbs into the backseat, we shuffle back into the car.
Down the mountain we go, darkness descending as we do.

Back at sea level I marvel at the magical day in the blue haze of the mountains: smoke, smoke, steam, and clouds.