Kapayisyen [1]

[the_siobhan]

bcholmes told me, "We're flying to Kapayisen. That may very well be the most dangerous thing we do while we are in Haiti".

The plane had 18 seats. I could watch the cockpit from where I was sitting. So you know, I could keep an eye on things.

Kapayisen (Cap Haitian) itself is even poorer than Pòtoprenz (Port au Prince) and the roads are even worse - I hadn't realized that was even possible. At one point the taxi was wading through a sea of thick red mud. Our hotel was on the northern-most part of the city and for our big expedition of the day we hiked up into the hills to a trio of ruined forts from the period of French rule.

Oh. My. God. Was it ever cool.

Fort Etienne Magny consists mostly of a couple of ruined walls and a trio of squat rusted canons pointing directly at the houses across the road. You can still see some of the outlines of the old structure; a stone staircase trailing down the cliff between the houses, a raised area carved out of the mountain where the kids are playing soccer. The shanty town that hangs precariously over the ocean has anchored itself to the remnants of the stone walls. We could see fishing boats below us, and in the rocky cliffs above the town there were chickens and dozens of goats grazing.

Fort St Joseph is also in ruins. There are a few more walls standing, but all access has been blocked off. We could see the walls hanging over the ocean by peering through a stone wall with a locked iron gate.

Fort Picolet is the last and the hardest to reach. The path runs out and we had to hike half a kilometre across jagged rocks and piles of shifting trash. There are areas where the rocks are impassable and so stone steps have been laid over them, but the steps themselves are broken and worn from time and weather. We passed a rusted boat body stranded in the cove and inched our way around boulders where the stairs had broken off too high to climb.

Finally we got to the base of a set of stairs that climbed up. From the bottom all we could see was the overgrowth. By the time we climbed to the top we could see the ruined walls of the body of the fort. Winding stone passageways led to blank cliff walls or to to high lookouts where the ocean crashed below. We found a curved balcony full of rusting canons and overgrown with a riot of wildflowers and colourful butterflies. A large enclosed area had signs of recent voudun ceremonies.

It was gorgeous, remote, and completely worth the trip.

And man are my legs sore.


[1] I figure using the Kreyòl is more respectful.

Comments

[eciklb.livejournal.com]

*envy*

all I can say

[theevilchemist.livejournal.com]

is AWESOME!

Glad you are enjoying the world!
jv