dharbigt

Chaguaramas used to be the site of a U.S. Military base — it is the safest harbor on the island. As such, it is now home to the most marinas and there are huge numbers of cruisers and sailors from everywhere in the world here stopping for haul-outs, cheap repairs and rest.

CHAGUARAMASby Pavel Chichikov

Thirty-eight years is a lifetime there —
The profligate mountains and the bay
Green as cats’ eyes, the spare
Red soil above the sleeve of the sea
At rest the ship, at rest the water, the palm frond —
Even here some win some pay
In the camp a pig and a swollen child spend
Into the camera lucida of memory
Africa was brought here, India begun -
To eat and cut the sugar weed
Men let go as fertilizing dung
Women as the slow dropped fertile seed
Drop them all in a lake of pitch
Let them be used as cover for the road
The bones of swollen children catch
Between the grinders — the brains and the head
That’s the truth — cannibals drink sweet coffee,
Cake bound with egg and blood,
There is no obscure mystery
About how the lucky ones are fed
Green island, bullocks blacker than shadows,
Trinidad of the stiff wind and the widows
Covered harbor of the Holy Trinity
Chaguaramas asleep in their lee

Some of the worst memories I have were made in Jupiter. But that’s not Jupiter’s fault.

I traveled U.S. 52 from Ohio to Virginia along the Big Sandy River through many of the river coal towns of West Virgina. Others may well find this road boring, but it was amazing to me to see how this hollows are dying and to reflect on the economy of West Virginia. Seeing these one-horse towns was an education in itself.

This is the valley where the Matewan massacre happened. This is the valley where the Hatfields and the McCoys had their infamous family feud.

The reason the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy is called “Tug” is because that’s what they called the boiled shoe leather that 1756 expeditioners were forced to eat when their rations ran out.

Not a fun place, but a more edifying drive than some interstate.

When the New York music infrastructure invaded Nashville to chown the Country Music scene and bring it to the big time some fifteen or twenty years ago, there was some hope that perhaps all of the cosmopolitanism, the artistic discrimination and the style of New York would somehow merge with the friendliness, down-hominess, and politesse of this southern capital.

Unfortunately, the result was that all the snobbery, avarice, and chicanery of New York was infused with the ignorance, xenophobia, and apathy of the American south.

The result is a city with delusions of grandeur that is too big for its britches and rarely washes them.

I expected more benevolent spirits and a certain vibration of dark harmony. Instead, it felt like spirits were chained and pained at every turn. The city has a lot of wonderful architecture and it’s nice to see Spanish and French influences in the same city. Just the same, what it’s become to Teen America make it rather a sad place to go. City turned theme park. And now it’s city turned water park.

One hears that Eugene is a bastion of liberalism and free hippies, but somehow I got the idea that it would be … moreso. In a way, it felt like most college towns and there wasn’t any more or less patchouli and hemp that many of the other places I’ve been. On top of that, it gets colder than I care for.

If you’re looking for paradise, I have other recommendations.

It’s bad enough that I have to have the evils of capitalism shoved in my face in the big cities of the United States, but when I get into a sleepy little town in the desert I expected something like the rest of the sleepy towns in the US.

Instead, there’s all these attempts to suckle off of the gambling industry … in every hotel and gas station. The folks there seemed nice enough, but I think Nevada is a good example of a good idea gone bad.

It reminded me a bit of California, but, of course, there’s the whole adobe motif. Oh, boy! Lots of adobe. I don’t mind adobe, but with the steer skulls it gets kind of Georgia O’Keefey out there.

I think it was a hold-over from Arizona’s high deserts, but there’s something about Arizona/New Mexico that’s unsettling for me. At first I thought it was the ghosts of slaughtered Native Americans, but you’ve got those everywhere. Maybe the air is just too dry for my tastes. I’m more of a forest person.

Sleepy little town composed of 1/3 retirees, 1/3 immigrants and 1/3 military personnel. The first two suit me fine, but the last I could do without. Anyway, there’s not much to do unless you like karaoke or driving around. It’s not even close to a border crossing, so regardless of how close it is to Mexico, it takes a while to actually get there.

Compared to the rest of the Caribbean, it just felt like I was in Florida. Not really what I look for in a vacation spot.