1/15/17,
“Across the Island”
Cap-Haitien,
Haiti
As the sun
sets over Cap-Haitien, I finally have a chance to relax, after spending almost
the entire day on a bus ride across the island, from Santo Domingo to
Cap-Haiten. It was around 8 AM when I
left my hotel in Santo Domingo, and I did not get to my hotel in Cap-Haitien
until close to 4 PM, which was actually nine hours later, due to the time zone
difference. This was very much a dead
day, but it was necessary in order to complete my mission, and I’m sure my
reader will believe me when I said I considered every option.
In order to say, “Hispaniola Complete”, I
need to visit three places: the WHS and legislative building in Santo Domingo, which I did yesterday,
the WHS slightly south of here, which I will do tomorrow, and the legislative building in
Port-au-Prince, which I will do tomorrow or Tuesday. I considered four
different options in order to visit all three places, and this one turned out
to be the most elegant.
Tomorrow is now
suddenly up in the air, as my plan of taking a taxi from here to Port-au-Prince
seems not to be the best way of getting there, instead, perhaps, a flight would
be the better option, but I have plenty of time to figure that out before I go
to sleep tonight. On that note, I would
like to address a theme I have mentioned a few times, but I have not properly
illustrated it.
Reader, take a look at
that map here. On the westernmost side
is Baffin Island and Labrador, both part of Canada, clearly part of North
America. A little further east is
Greenland, which takes up the bulk of the frame. That is also clearly part of North America. Now, look at the westernmost side, and you
will see the British Isles with the Faroe Islands slightly to the north. Those islands are both clearly part of
Europe. Now, look at lonely Iceland, so
far from any other landmass in Europe and so close to its big brother of
Greenland. Based on this image, it
should seem quite intuitive that Iceland is part of North America, and my claim
is supported based on the positioning of the continental plates that I
mentioned on Friday night, the border between the North American and European
continental plates running through Iceland’s old parliament, west of
Reykjavik. Why did this come up, and why
is it so important?
Well, to answer
that, look at this map here. See the lower tip of that red dot? That represents a WHS called
Cocos Islands National Park. It is part
of the country of Costa Rica, a North American country, but look at where that
island is located. It so far south of
any North American landmass that surely it must considered part of South
America. It is only 5 degrees north of
the equator, and the southernmost city in Panama is over 8 degrees north of the
equator. Tectonic plates are of no use
in determining this one, since Cocos Plate is actually its own plate.
Okay, I had
to pause to relocate to get out of the rain, but here’s the crux of it. I could easily argue that Cocos Island was
part of South America, but, doing so, would require me to argue that Iceland
was part of North America. In order to
visit Cocos Island, it requires a two-week trip, including 9 days aboard a very
expensive diving boat. That is just for
that one WHS. Iceland could be done in a
weekend, or, as I am doing it, part of a 9-day trip that includes Greenland,
which I had to visit anyway, and it would have been criminal to omit Iceland
from my Greenland trip. Further, the
North draws far more than the Tropics do.
It is for those reasons that I chose to use the interpretation that put
Reykjavik in North America and Cocos Island in South America. This interpretation also puts Curacao, which
has its own World Heritage Site, in South America, as, though it is a Caribbean
Island, it is part of the South American Continental Shelf. That is why I will be waiting until I get to
Reykjavik in June to announce that I have been to every country in North
America.
However, as of writing this
entry, I have visited each of the 23 countries that most atlases list as being
the only countries in North America. I
will visit Curacao, sooner rather than later, possibly even this year if I can
figure out how to do it cheaply during a free weekend, and, it is at that point
that I will say, “West Indies Complete.”
This trip instead, my proclamation will need to be phrased “North
American portion of the West Indies Complete.”
Enough with the geography lesson.
I am now smoking my 2011 Christmas Pipe, and I can add Cap-Haitien to
the list of datelines that includes Quebec Hong Kong, West Palm Beach, Everest
and Sydney. Cap-Haitien is in good
company. Since this is a dead day, there
is not much to record, and it promises to be less interesting than the above
geography lesson.
After I closed, I
headed out to the cigar lounge where I found, to my delight, the #1 Cigar of
the Year, fittingly enough, a special edition La Flor Dominica, called the Andalusian
Bull. I paired that with a glass of
their finest Dominican rum, and I was in heaven. After the rum, I went back to my hotel with
the rest of my cigar, posted my photos, and soon went to sleep.
I woke up all-too-soon so that I could have
breakfast before I got on the road, opting for a fried yucca cracker topped
with eggs, ham, and cheese, along with coffee and a the Taquero cigar I had
bought after dinner. I got to the bus
station, and it was kind of hectic, but I had soon purchased my ticket, and,
not long after, we boarded the bus. I
had half the bus to myself, the other two or three passengers deciding to cram
in the front.
It was a boring bus ride,
like the rest of the day, and we stopped for lunch in Santiago and to onboard
some more passengers, all of whom also crammed in the front, so I continued to
have the back to myself. I had some
snacks, various combinations of starch and cheese. Around noon, we were off.
I slept until we reached the border, which
was an entirely perfunctory process, but there was a clear difference there
from what made Santo Domingo look like a modern city by comparison. I was clearly in Haiti. As we drove to Cap-Haitien, the visions I had
had of Haiti from pictures was reconfirmed.
Ruined by earthquakes and hurricanes, this was clearly a country where
man had failed to assert his dominion over nature, instead settling for finding
a place in nature. Everything about the
country, including the rudimentary construction of the buildings, confirmed
this. When we got to Cap-Haitien, it was
more developed, and the bus stop was literally a block away from my hotel, but
it was steep hill to get to the hotel.
I
checked in and resituated myself. I had
not had a proper lunch, so I planned my next hour or so. I had it all brilliantly planned. I would light up my Cuban, then have dinner,
which would allow me to claim Haiti as my 71st country, then I could
have my Christmas Pipe and begin my entry before sunset. I did exactly that. I lit up a Partagas and headed down to the
restaurant by the pool.
The menu looked
good, so I sat down for dinner. I opted
for some kind of fritter for my appetizer, and, for my main course, I chose
creole goat stew, figuring that was as traditional a Haitian food as
possible. I also got a local beer to
accompany it. The meal was delicious,
and that was my first Official meal in Haiti.
I then got a much-needed coffee as I finished my cigar.
After dinner, I went to reception to get the
Wi-Fi code, and I asked them about the statue I had seen of the WHS at their
front desk and where to purchase it. One
thing led to another, and they would later advise me that I should fly to
Port-au-Prince, instead of taking a taxi.
I am now booked on a 1 PM flight to Port-au-Prince, which will get me
there much quicker than the taxi would have.
There is also a later flight in case anything goes wrong, and, worse
case scenario, I can still take a taxi to Port-au-Prince at 1 PM.
I went back to my room and filled up my
Christmas Pipe before heading back to the pool area, stopping at reception on
the way to discuss logistics. It was
around sunset, and I sat down by the pool, in view of the bay, where I lit up
my 2011 Christmas Pipe and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close
so that I can publish and, later, post my photos before crashing, since I now
have to get up pretty early tomorrow, and I am quite tired already.
No comments:
Post a Comment