Petit Trou de Nippes. The road was slab concrete through the town and at the edge of the town was the end of the road. The pavement dropped off onto an unfinished road, clearly under construction. Driving on packed dirt and gravel pavement was not so bad. V&F Engineering is building the road to Baradères from Petit Trou de Nippes. We passed lots of construction equipment and dump trucks (not camion Mack but Isuzu) and drove over a couple of brand new bridges. There were sections of road that were being carved out of the hillside by these construction machines. It was real road building, not fixing up existing roads. It looked encouraging. Maybe there will be a road to Baradères someday soon. Then the construction work disappeared and the road got narrower and rougher until there was no road to speak of, only a trail leading off into the wilderness. And Lamothe kept driving.
No one was talking. The animated chatter from earlier this morning had ceased.
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| Broke-down charcoal truck |
We held on as best we could as the truck bounced along the impossibly bad road. We drove across four streams. The road was a never-ending series of ruts and mud and rocky outcroppings. It was barely wide enough for a single vehicle so we were fortunate that there was no traffic coming in the opposite direction. That observation also leads one to think that maybe the road is a dead end. But we were not alone. Up ahead we could see a truck. A broke-down charcoal truck was blocking the single lane trail. The truck had a flat tire. Lamothe stopped the Nissan, we all got out and Lamothe walked over to talk to the workers who were changing the tire. They pointed out a path on a small ridge just above the road that another truck was taking to get around their disabled truck. Lamothe got back in and drove the Nissan up and around the truck. We walked down the road, greeted the Haitians working on the truck and joined Lamothe and the Nissan. The broke-down truck had an unusual name. It was not the typical Christian religious name or phrase praising the Lord. The sign over the truck simply said “Yes Rasta” – the phrase spoken by true Rastafari when greeting each other.
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Lamothe and Madsen taking
pictures on the road |
The road was brutal but the views were breath taking. One by one, the beauty of the countryside seduced the team. Lamothe and I had been up in this part of Haiti before but not the others. They were astounded. It was green, lush, and sweeping. The sky was a clear, sharp blue and the mountains were painted in green. On a wide part of the road where they was a spectacular panoramic view of the mountains and valleys, Lamothe stopped the truck so that we could take pictures. The air was quiet; there was not a sound except for the occasional carrion bird screeching overhead. There were no other vehicles, no blaring horns. A young man walked down the road past us and we greeted him. I took pictures of the landscape and then turned around to find that there was a small house up on the ridge above the road. So people lived way out here. But there is no cell phone coverage. We were in a dead zone. That is one reason that some people are reluctant to take this route to Baradères. Better not break down (like Yes Rasta) or have an accident out here.
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| View from the road to Baradères |
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| A house on the ridge above the road |
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| The road narrows |
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| The road along the mountain ridge |
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| Close to the edge |
Sr. Denise was right. It was four-wheel drive time. Several times I thought we would get stuck in the mud on the road. The ruts were so deep I was afraid Lamothe would not be able to pull the Nissan through, but he did. Each time the mud got deep, Lamothe got us out. Then the road got dry, dusty, rocky. We had been driving along the ridgeline but now it was time to drive over the mountains. The road got really narrow and steep. With all the loose rocks, I was worried that we may lose traction and slide sideways. Lamothe kept the Nissan on the road. It was close. There was not much clearance on either side of the road. Slowly we climbed and then we reached the top of the mountain and there was the Bay of Baradères in the distance.
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| The Bay of Baradères |
We started downhill. The road was still very winding but a bit clearer. I breathed a sign of relief. I recognized the area now. It was Pede, St. Anne, one of the chapels (satellites of the main church in Baradères). I had been here in February. This part of the road had been cleared and leveled by women. They had been taught how to operate the construction equipment and they did the work. However, the road did not look like any more progress had been made since I was here 10 months ago.
We were very close to Baradères now. Soon there were houses and the small bridge across the Baradères River. We crossed over and felt the smooth concrete pavement under the tires of the Nissan. The road from the church square almost to Fr. Jacques’ house had been improved and was now a slab of concrete pavement as in the other villages we had driven through earlier.
Lamothe pulled the Nissan into the front yard of Fr. Jacques’ house and we all got out and stretched. Jacques came down to greet us. He had cold Prestige and water waiting for us. It was exactly 12 noon. We had made it, and on time!
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