165 The pearl of the antilles? 



and there found transportation to Jimini, at the western tip of 

 Lago de Enriquillo. The vehicle was a broken-down Plymouth 

 that carried mail and passengers over the dusty 97 kilometers, 

 through Cabral, around the south shore of Laguna del Rincon, 

 through La Salinas and Duverge to the south shore of Enriquillo, 

 and finally to the border town of Jimini. There were two other 

 passengers to begin with, and as we stopped at native villages 

 along the route, more piled in until there were eventually eight of 

 us, in addition to the driver. No one spoke English, so we had 

 a hilarious time trying to talk back and forth with the aid of my 

 pocket dictionary. At one stop, a Negro village of thatch huts, the 

 last passenger crowded aboard. She was a hefty colored woman and 

 she was carrying a small dog and three large melons. With much 

 laughter and a rapid-fire barrage of Spanish from all sides, she sat 

 down in the only space that remained, which was squarely in my 

 lap. And there she rode for the remainder of the voyage. The 

 melons were deposited on my feet, both of which promptly went 

 to sleep, and the dog, which she kept shifting from one arm to the 

 other, would lean over and lick my face each time it came toward 

 me. Since my arms were literally pinned to my sides I could do 

 nothing to defend myself. 



The next day I went on a birding expedition to the big lake with 

 the governor of the province, Cesar Alberto Meyreles, and the local 

 justice, Dr. Santiago Lopez. I had met these two gentlemen at 

 dinner in the hotel, and the governor, who had once lived briefly 

 in Harlem, was delighted at this opportunity for practicing his 

 English, which had grown pretty rusty. We rode to the vicinity of 

 Enriquillo in an official jeep and then started walking through 

 the brush and cactus to the shore. At one point, when we seemed 

 to be hemmed in by cactus, the governor, a big man standing 

 well over six feet, reached into his waistband and whipped out an 

 evil-looking bayonetlike weapon that had been concealed in his 

 trouser leg. It had a blade fully eighteen inches long, and from 

 the way he whacked the offending cactus apart it must have been 

 as sharp as a razor. I hoped that we would remain friends! 



Lago de Enriquillo lies below sea level and is more than twice 

 as salty as the open sea. There is abundant evidence that it is an 



