Dreams are easily forgotten

So, those who know me well (or even those who just know me on facebook) are probably aware that I recently did something quite out of the ordinary (for me) and boarded a plane to a small tropical island to ride my bike and relax for a couple of weeks. This was mentioned in passing in my previous blog post (which mostly centered around a broken six year old bicycle part). Maybe the optimists among you thought that a more detailed summary of this trip might be forthcoming. Such a summary has been delivered to the 7 or so people I actually maintain verbal contact with in real life. But I feel like attempting to condense a 13-day journey into even a couple of thousand words on my blog would be doing a disservice to the experience, to the country of Jamaica, and to myself.

To the experience, because there is simply no way I could expand or condense all of my impressions and experiences into anything resembling a manageable, readable blog post.

To the country, because even if I could expand or condense all of my impressions and experiences into a blog post, for chrissakes I am a foreigner who spent less than two weeks there, approximately half of that in a tourist bubble and the other half under the careful guidance of some very experienced and knowledgable ex-pats with decades of experience living and riding there. I hardly 'discovered' Jamaica, and would probably make a fool of myself acting like I did.

And to myself, because I would have to write the damn thing.

So I will try to boil the essence of the entire trip down to one small, but touching event; a sensory experience that brought me back to one of my earliest childhood memories. And of course this early childhood memory, almost completely obliterated from my consciousness (saved by this trigger on a beautiful day, hours into an incredible ride, detouring to an isolated, hidden beach) came from Sesame Street:



As we were slogging our bikes through some increasingly sandy terrain, my friend Marshall from Toronto (and experienced Jamaica-phile) noticed that we had some company; a grizzled looking Rasta carrying a sack and wielding a machete. Had this been a couple days earlier I may have been perturbed by such a sight, as I was the first time we encountered a machete wielding local in the forest. But now I was a weathered veteran of this nation and realized that people don't walk around with 18" blades in the jungle because they mean to intimidate or harm foreigners on guided mountain bike trips, they walk around with 18" blades because they are in the freaking jungle.

Marshall introduced me to Bongo as we made our way toward a dilapidated old hut-structure just off of the beach. Here he produced a coconut from his sack, lopped off the top, and I looked on enviously as Marshall took down the water. Luckily one or both of them must have noticed the look on my face (it may have also been the look of dehydration and exhaustion) and I was soon offered a coconut of my own. I graciously accepted and snapped a pic of Bongo as he was taking the top off of mine:



Insert whatever cliche you like here about things that taste amazing or refreshing or revitalizing ("tasted better than Doritos at a Crank the Shield aid station" might be a good one), but more incredible was that the whole experience immediately transported me back 24 years in time. I was able to remember being four years old and wanting, yearning for, needing to have that coconut, imagining how good the milk must taste, and wondering how the hell that little kid was able to husk it on a wooden stake, especially after my parents gave in and bought me a rock hard coconut from a Cdn. grocery, then wrestled with it using a hammer and punch to extract a pittance of liquid from its belly.

I thought I was enjoying a coconut in 1986.

I know I experienced a coconut in 2010.

And I hope as my life goes on, I continue to realize and experience childhood dreams I long ago forgot I had.