In Kenscoff, there is something like a legend: The hike to Jacmel. Almost everyone I’ve met who knows anything about Kenscoff is familiar with the hike, but not very many have actually completed it because this is no ordinary hike. Kenscoff is located roughly 5200 feet above sea level, which is pretty high! Jacmel is a beautiful city located on the coast. One of the largest mountain ranges in Haiti runs just past Kenscoff. In order to get to Jacmel by foot, you must cross a portion of this mountain range. Long ago, there used to be a road that was passable by car, but over the years, the road has been virtually washed away and it is no longer passable by vehicle. Short portions of the road are still passable by motorcycle, but really the only way to do it is by foot. As the crow flies, the distance is not too far. When you are walking though, it is much farther because the road is up, down, and winding. Legend has it that the walk from Kenscoff to Jacmel takes two days. You walk for 6-8 hours the first day, depending on how fast you walk. There is a little town about halfway called Seguin where they have what would be about the equivalent of a Haitian bed and breakfast, where supposedly you are able to spend the night. Then the second day, you walk for approximately another 6 hours to arrive in Jacmel. And that’s all I knew.
One evening at the beginning of April, I was sitting in the kitchen with my fellow volunteers Liz and Stefanie after a long day of work, and the topic of “the hike” came up. (Once again someone we had met a few days prior had asked us if we’d ever walked to Jacmel after they heard that we were currently living in Kenscoff.) Anyway, we all looked at each other and decided that we were going to do it. If others could do it, we sure couldn’t live here for a year and not do it. I must say, when you stand out on the porch of the retreat house, which is located on the back of the orphanage property, and look out over the mountains in the direction of Jacmel, the thought of walking seems pretty ominous. But we were bound and determined at that point to make it happen.
We decided to go over the weekend of Easter because it was a time when all three of us would be able to get off work. We arranged our work schedules in April, so that we could take a five-day weekend over Easter. That was about the extent of our planning.
The night before we left, we had packed up enough food and water to last us for one day because we planned on staying in Seguin for the night. Everyone asked us if we were going to leave before sunrise. Of course we said no, seeing as it was our day off and we figured that we only had 6-8 hours to walk on that first day, so there was no point in leaving so early. Also, we made the decision to do it on our own, without a Haitian guide. At that point in time, we had been living here for 7 months and knew enough Creole to get by. Plus, according everyone we talked to, told us that you stayed on the same road the whole way there, so it was easy to find the way. On the morning of Wednesday, April 20th at 7:30am, we set off for Jacmel. We took motorcycles for the first 30 minutes of the journey. They picked us up at the orphanage and dropped us off at the beginning of the road to Jacmel, where you can no longer pass by motorcycle or vehicle. The hike began. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen in my life, let alone in Haiti. The view was absolutely stunning! The never-ending expanse of mountains beyond mountains was breathtaking!! The pictures don’t even do it justice, but here’s a small glimpse:
So we walked, and we walked, and we took a few breaks, and we walked some more. The first part of the hike was difficult, but tolerable. After lunch, we arrived at a portion of the path that literally went straight up a mountain. It took us a long time and a lot of breaks, but finally we arrived at the top of the mountain. We figured that we would be arriving in Seguin (the halfway point) at any time because everyone had told us that Seguin was located at the top of the mountain. Instead of reaching a town though, it looked like we stepped out right into a scene from the Wizard of Oz. All of a sudden the clouds started rolling in and it got really foggy. The road straightened out and we were walking across the plateau at the top of the mountain. The road was lined on either side with HUGE pine trees. We were walking and all we could see was fog straight ahead and dense pine forest on either side of the road. We kept thinking, oh we must be close; I mean how big can the top of the mountain be? Well, let me tell you, it can be huge. The flat plateau of the top of the mountain went on for miles and so did the pine forest.
We met many local Haitians along the way and they kept pointing us in the right direction. Finally, we made it to the end of the pine forest and found Winnie’s house (the closest thing to a Haitian B&B). By this time, it was around 3:00 pm. The house was small, but nice by Haitian standards and was located in the middle of nowhere. There were tents set up all throughout the yard, which we were told were for the local Haitians who traveled very far by foot to go to the market and needed a place to stay overnight. We found out when we arrived that Winnie, the owner of the house, was not there and that they didn’t think that they had any rooms available in the house. No rooms available??!! There was nobody around that we could see. The place was like a ghost town, and they had no rooms?! Of course, after some negotiation, they decided that they had one room available in the house. The room had one double bed and a mat on the floor, so we would have to share. That was fine with us, we said, “how much?” Only $60 U.S. per person. WHAT??!! One hundred and eighty dollars was a little out of our price range. Ok, we said, “How about a tent”. “Oh, they are all occupied,” they said. But there was nobody in sight??!! Finally they agreed to put us up in a small tent, but we were told that we might have to share with someone. Ok, fine, we said, it’s better than nothing. “How much for the tent?” The man responded, “$ 50 U.S. per night.” Well, $150 was a little out of our price range too let alone to sleep in a tent, with strangers, in a town on the top of a mountain, in the middle of nowhere. I said to the man “that’s crazy! It only costs $45 per person to stay in Jacmel, on the beach for a night” and he said to me “yes, but this isn’t Jacmel.” That was my point, this wasn’t Jacmel. Before I could try to bargain more, Liz was out the door and halfway down the driveway with Stefanie right behind her. I had about a 30 second fleeting thought of: oh shit, what are we going to do? Then I took off after Liz and Stefanie.
We had no clue what we were going to do. It was going on 4:00 pm and we knew there was no way we could make it to Jacmel before dark, at least not at the rate we were going. But, there was no turning back at that point. So we kept on walking. We figured that if we could just get to the town of Seguin, we could take a tap tap (large truck that carries lots of people and serves as the only form of public transportation) and still arrive in Jacmel before dark. We thought that we were really close to the town of Seguin, but as it turned out, we still had about an hour walk ahead of us. The landscape completely changed again and it looked like we stepped out onto the planet mars. The soil was nothing but red dust and there were large gray pointy rocks sticking up all around us. There was hardly an animal in sight and almost no vegetation growing. We had arrived at the ends of the earth.
The people lived in small wooden shacks. They were extremely poor, and after seeing the conditions and the landscape, I could see why. They directed us into “town”. Downtown Seguin was nothing more than a dirt street with a couple of small privately owned shops. There were no cars, let alone tap taps in sight. So much for that idea. The people told us that the nearest tap tap station was just down the mountain in a town called Parado. Now we just had to get down the mountain! We found some guys on motorcycles and asked them if they could take us to Parado. By now it was after 5:00pm (and it gets dark around 6:30). After a lot of haggling, they agreed to take us for one thousand gourdes (the equivalent of $25 U.S.) total for all three of us. We thought we were getting ripped off because we figured that Parado was fairly close. Never trust a Haitian when it comes to estimating distance. One person may tell you 10 minutes, another may say 30 minutes, and you may find out that it takes an hour. In this case, it took us 1 ½ hours on the back of a motorcycle to finally reach Parado. The motorcycle ride was breathtaking. We were heading straight down the mountain and there were thick, jungle-like trees and flowers on both sides of the road and we had the most amazing view of the coast! We finally arrived in Parado, a town with a paved road, stores, and tap taps! Welcome back to civilization! We were able to find a tap tap driver who agreed to drop us off at our hotel. We crowded into the back seat of the extended cab pickup truck (the bed of the truck was already full of people), but after the day that we had, we were willing to pay a few gourdes extra to sit inside. Only about 10 minutes after we started driving toward town, it started raining. Not just a little rain, but a torrential downpour. Talk about being grateful!! We were grateful that we weren’t still walking, grateful that we weren’t on the back of a motorcycle, and grateful to be so near to our destination. We arrived at out hotel at 7:30pm. The whole journey completed in 12 hours!! Mission accomplished. Now we had the rest of the weekend to relax in Jacmel. Little did we know, there was more excitement to come!
TO BE CONTINUED……
