That Key West trek

 Big up Carolyn and her team at the Multi Cultural Activities Club of the Sunrise Lakes Phase 4 over 55 community, for organising the trek to Key West, the southernmost tip of the USA. 

Some one hundred excited seniors came on this bus trip. We had an excellent driver and a whale of a time.

Inna di bus

The day could hardly have gone better as the organizers thought of everything.

Carolyn,  president of the multi-cultural club, is on the extreme right

The only problem was that once we got to the tip of the USA, the line to get to the monument for a proper picture was so long and as my group was starving after an interesting bus tour of the cay,  we couldn't bother waiting for that photo opportunity, so I settled for a selfie.😊

I took a selfie from the other side😊.

Yup, it's indeed a long line!

Incidentally, the living quarters for fighter pilots is located right at the southernmost tip, just behind the monument.

  This is where the fighter pilots from the exciting movie Top Gun were the from.

This trip was a special treat for me as having been no further south than Marathon island. So, I had long wanted to travel to the Southernmost tip but had never had the opportunity before, as it's a four-hour drive from my home.

So, when Jasmine from Tamarac Senior center told me about the trip, wild horses couldn't stop me from signing up.

The Tamarac posse posing outside the Golden Coral restaurant where we stopped for breakfast. 

Their brunch is probably where the term greasy spoon originated. Not my cup of tea at all, but it filled a gap.

As I said, the organising team thought of everything to make this a fun trip.

We even had a race on the bus trip down.

This was like regular racing, except that the entrants were not alive! (They had 5 cardboard images of various creatures which were numbered and punters invited to place $2 bets on which would win. 

The dice was rolled, the race begun, the punters and observers had fun shouting support for their favorite creature. I believe the beetle won and the prize was $11.

 Enough to buy a margarita at a few bars in Key West!

As you probably know, Florida does not particularly have great landscape but the 165 mile journey down the archipelago via Key Largo, Islamadora, Marathon, Lower Keys, to Key West, was pleasant enough.

It's of course nothing but water, smaller cays, palms, and boats.

This little cay looks like it actually has homes!

The old causeway

According to Wikipedia,  "the Overseas Highway is a 113-mile (181.9 km)^[1][2] highway carrying U.S. Route 1 (US 1) through the Florida Keys to Key West. Large parts of it were built on the former right-of-way of the Overseas Railroad, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. "

Yup, we saw signs of the damage in lots of areas.

You know, once we got to Key West, it was far more interesting than I expected, considering it's only 4 miles by 2 miles. (They doubled the original size by dredging.)

I strongly recommend the Hop on hop off tours as they really impart a wealth of interesting information.

For example, I learned about Dr. Sandy Cornish, a former slave, who purchased his freedom and publicly maimed himself to prevent his return to slavery.

In Key West, he became an outstanding civil rights leader. 

We also learnt a bit about the activism in Key West of Jose Marti, the Cuban liberator.

Marti's and Cornish's outstanding contributions to our history is well documented in the Key West Historic Sculpture Garden in Mallory Square.

We concluded our interesting day in Key West with a big and delicious lunch at Two Friends Patio Restaurant. 

Apart from the great food, they had live music, which was quite good.

Sign behind the guitarist says Conch Republic.

According to our tour guide, there was an interesting incident in 1982 when Key West decided to secede from the USA and call themselves the Conch Republic. This was because of a dispute with the federal government over massive drug searches, which were causing traffic jams.

 The revolution lasted 11 hours! 😁

In Key West, it's about conch. 

We were told that they have some 28 methods of preparing conch. That delicious sea snail was first introduced to the Keys by Bahamians over a century ago. 

(Their well-known dessert is Key Lime Pie.)

Yummy.

Other memories in pics.

Eric was the sole male in the Tamarac group.

It was a long wait for lunch. But this is because the place was packed. Good food, good music, and we all had to request doggie bags.

Another performer at lunch

Carolyn was always working!

What would a bus trip be without a little incident?

Well, when the bus came to pick us up for the return journey, apparently a policeman really rattled the driver because he was causing a traffic problem. So when about a dozen of us arrived at the designated time at the designated spot, to our horror, we saw the back of the bus as it departed. 😟

We subsequently learnt that we were not being left behind but we had to wait for close to an hour for the driver to safely return and rescue us. 

When we boarded, we could see that he was still really scared.

We, however, boarded incident-free, and I had a well-deserved nap on the return journey.

All's well that ends well.✌

PS. Two days after this interesting trip, a wild fire erupted which caused the only route to and from Key West to be closed.

 I am thankful that we went when we did as it must have been horrific for those caught  while in Key West or  worse, on the way back, as there is no alternative route. 😲

F&T Wins Again.

Charles Simpson aka Charles the 1st, made an excellent choice. He had been insisting for almost a year now that we arrange and outing to Mountain River Cave, which is at Cudjoe Hill and which he had read about, but the powers that be had not been accommodating. Anyway, last Tuesday he finally got Charles 2nd, myself and Chuck to go with him to the location to make arrangements . So Sunday 5th March was the big day. And what a lovely day it was.

We of the A team, had decided to ride out early so we could get as much in before the sun started blazing, so departure from Charles 2nd's house was set for 5am. As usual they were late. I had ridden to Michelle's home at 5.15am so we could get to Dunrobin Avenue by 5.16am and meet the others. Chuck was there at the appointed time but the other members of the A team were missing until 5.30am.

A view of the plains below

It was a lovely ride on the flat Mandella highway and since Chris, the driver was in a fast driving mood, I decided to try and keep up with him to see how much I had improved. My original record was 9 km per hour but on Sunday, as I kept up with him, he said he was clocking 20 km per hour. 

Keep up the good work Joan!

We had a few stops here and there, the main one being by Jose Marti school where Pat brought out some goodies including a delicious piece of potato pudding which I enjoyed with much relish, happy in the thought that I would not put on an ounce, since the ride would consume it all.

All the way to the entrance of Dovecot, the road was flat and the ride easy. After that the gentle grades kept growing all the way to Guanabo Vale. On the way there, we were passed by David driving Howie's vehicle. He was on his way to get Grace who lives just above Dovecot. She joined the ride just outside of Kitson Town.

It was quite challenging up to Guanabo Vale but as it was a cool morning, no one complained. We stopped and hung around just by the Police station and just as we were ready to resume the ride, up rode Maurice RB. (RB means ride back for if were he alone, he would ride back to Kingston after all our fun jaunts!

The cave is grilled to prevent theft/vandalism

We got to Cudjoe Hill just before 9am after most of us conquered what had been aptly described as a "Bitch hill".

The view of the St. Catherine plains as you rode up the steep incline, was breathtaking. As steep as the hill appeared however, everyone but Fatman, Chuck and Charles the 2d, conquered it totally. Grace did get off to rest a little bit but got right on. Of course, she had the benefit of "fresh legs"!

The B team arrived about half an hour later, then we were joined by those who drove down, Desiree, Chris Dalrimple, Lisa, Barry and Karen.

Just as we gathered, a fudge man passed by and I think the tired troopers bought out his entire stock. 

The breakfast that followed was absolutely wonderful. (I had a blow up with the guide, see (Of yoga, Blackness and the Maroons) and the only reason why I did not write a formal complaint to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, was because she was instrumental in cooking that delicious meal!)

After breakfast we headed down a steep incline to the river. So treacherous was the pathway that the Jamaica Defence Force had installed iron railings to assist hikers.

Taino markings outside the cave

Most of us went up to the cave...about a mile hike along a well fruited area, but the cave itself but it was not at all impressive. What was really wonderful and very impressive was the swimming area by the waterfall. I am now re-assessing my impression that Big Dunn in Portland, is the best river swimming area that I have ever experienced, but that another matter.

Getting to it was not for the fainthearted as we had to climb down large, treacherous rocks to get there and both Michael and Howie demonstrated that gentlemen still exist, as they stayed by the rocks to help the women down .

What was great about the swimming area was the moss in the river bed which was easy on the feet and the fact that it had both deep and shallow areas so one could dive off the rocks and the non-swimmers need not have worried.

Theresa did create some excitement however by trying to drown herself, for after asking if a section was deep and told it was, she jumped in and when she couldn't stand up, started to yell in panic. She was pulled to safety by a young lady (I think it was Sparkes) who was sitting on the rock while Theresa continued to scream and carry on.

The water was also very buoyant which made floating easy, so I was able to just lie quietly and mediate away whatever residual anger had remained after cursing off the guide!

The waterfall had an area behind it where you could actually climb up and get behind the falls. After observing a local gentleman doing it, David succeeded in getting up there. The rocks surrounding the falls seem designed for rock climbing and Chuck tried his skills at it but did not succeed while a local lady did it without any difficulty.

Everybody seemed to have had a ball and when it was time to return, Chuck decided to follow dog which was supposed to know the way back and nearly ended up in LLudias
Vale!

We did not walk back up the steep rocks as those who came down later had discovered that if you had walked a little further down, it was much easier.

When it was time to return, most of the riders decided to join Maurice RB since it was all downhill to St. Johns road. Since I am allergic to riding after eating, I travelled back with David and Grace.

Kudos to Charles the 1st and Charles the 2nd for a wonderful location and excellent coordination.

For more photos, see my  fb post "Mountain River Cave etc"