I went to Jérémie with Defi Miche last week for the last of the advocacy seminars. After Aux Cayes, Route National #7 winds up into the mountains. This road sign seems innocuous enough ("How nice of them to warn us," I think):
(Attention: collision possible)
Soon, we start seeing these:
(Attention: big machinery at work)
(Rocks on the road; Slow down)
And these:
Still, we remain blissfully unaware of what is in store for us...
Explosions? Sure enough, an hour outside of Jérémie we come to a line of stopped traffic (meaning 2 tap-taps, a Medecins Sans Frontieres vehicle and a white pick-up truck). It is 3:00.
At 5:00, we start moving again. Less than a mile later, we are across the valley from this:
Almost two hours and 3 bulldozers later, we are back on the road! It's dark and the road is totally sketchy, but Margot's unassailable driving skills get us safely to our hotel.
It only took us 12 1/2 hours to drive back to Port-Au-Prince after:
- a 1-hour wait for the road to be cleared (no dynamite this time) near Camp Perrin
- a brief delay due to a flooded detour in Grand Goave so that traffic had to cross a dubious-looking bridge instead
- an inexplicable traffic jam in Mariani
The good news is that road to Jérémie is being fixed. Also, the department of Grand Anse is a beautiful place to be stuck for hours:
1 comment:
Oh, Sweetie! The things that you both go through in order to do what you do! I'm glad that you were with friends and that you had such a great view. (Did you have your embroidery with you, too?)
Post a Comment