8 hrs, 10 kms

Next day Cecille offers not only to join me, but offers to show me a great hiking trail . So next morning we're off together on a windy road high up the mountain, past many more upscale villas. From the top you get great view of the entire island... the Caribbean to the west... the Atlantic to the east... and Soufriere volcano to the north.
In between us and the volcano is a lush, green bowl valley, Mesopotamia. Here's where intense farming goes on, which is still the backbone of St Vincent's economy. After visiting two countries where agriculture has been been partially abandoned, this is a welcome sight. Also beautiful. colorful tin roof villages surrounded by small but lush farm plots, finally giving way to the unpenetrated forests of the mountain.
"Bananas used to be our main export," Cecille tells me "but St Vincent could compete with other countries."
That's understandable. After seeing the massive banana plantations of coastal Ecuador, I'm not surprised that tiny St Vincent can't compete with that. But St Vincent does export various fruits and vegetables to surrounding Caribbean nations.
Cecille parks her SUV, and we start our climb up the mountain, along a winding country road . Some of the young guys get a bit rowdy as we pass, but people are friendly, overall. One young women pretends to be an old "friend" of mine... even when I insist that we've never met before. I don't know if it's a scam to try to get money out of me, or if we white people just all look the same...
Cecille is very interested in plants, and collects some seedlings along the way. She explains some of what we see. I'm particularly interesting in the giant leafed plants grown on the steepest slopes which are used kind of like spinach.
I guess most folks would identify people of this area as "poor", especially compared, say, to folks in Trinidad. I don't know though. Being able to grow your own food and live off the land might make folks here the more fortunate ones, in the long run...
But not everything is fine and dandy. Later talking with a farmer he tells me that there's a problem of thievery. Young guys go into the fields and steal the harvest in the night. Some folks have to hire a night watchman for this reason .
"It didn't used to be this way... everyone was trustworthy... there was no crime"
"What changed?" I ask
"When young people immigrated to the United States, some of them got into trouble and developed criminal habits. When they were deported back here, they had gotten used to making money the easy way, bu stealing... so they continued to do the same thing here..."

This is a problem I've been hearing about from folks in Central America and even West Africa--criminals get deported back to their native countries, and become even worse criminals--thanks to inefficient police forces. I've heard that El Salvador, for example has pretty much been taken over by criminal thugs.
Turns out, emigration to America results in more than just moey from remittances...
Montreal Gardens.
Finally Cecille and I reach our goal: Montreal Gardens, right at the spot where the farmland ends and the jungle begins.
"Do people do anything up there in the jungle?" I ask
"Drugs are grown up there--so it's not recommended to go on your own"
Montreal Gardens is a project of an middle aged British guy . It's a large, jungle garden estate, with all sorts of variety, and trailways zigzagging about it. Although some of the flowers and bulbs are sold it seems to be mainly just a project of love.
Not that the fellow doesn't like making money. When Cecille asks if we can get a discount, he snaps back in a typical British way,
"And why should I give you a discount? How do you expect me to cover my expenses if I'm giving discounts?" We sheepishly pay full fair and go inside.
Inside I enjoy getting lost in the maze of paths. It has a mix of a jungle-y feel and a manicured garden feel, with beautiful dangling flowers, orchids, palms--every kind of jungle plant you could imagine.

And the weather here is different. The moist air from the Atlantic hits the side of the mountain, creating a shroud of mist and making it rain intermittently at any time.
"So this is what a jungle feels like"... I tell myself.
Finally after we feel we've fully explored it, Cecille catches a ride with a couple other visitors, and I hike on down on my own.
I enjoyed hiking with company for a change....