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STRAIN HUNTERS LIVE THREAD! - TRINIDAD - St.VINCENT


franco
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the ceremony is for sure something very special take that chance to witness that, strainhunting is lot of hard work patience and pasion to make such a projekt work like yours really thx for all ur effort to walk steep jungle trails get stiched by moskitos and face the law in foreign countries..........

plzz take care all of u at this secret :):) carribien island

jah bless

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So, here we go again.... it's really late, past 1 in the morning, but I have good wi-fi in this place. I'm posting, then I'll get few hours of deep sleep.

Thanks to all of you for following this thread, it's a great feeling to see how many are watching.

@ Romeu9: I am fighting with the director, he does not want me to upload GoPro stuff, because he wants to keep it exclusive for the video. I'll see how to convince him...

;-)

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DAY 5

Today for the first time I wake up very relaxed, and well rested. Today is our last day in this dangerous country, starting from tonight we will sleep on a new island, in a different country. It's going to be something else, much more relaxed. During the first scouting trip we did back in July we felt a huge difference between these two countries, one so repressive the other one so tolerant…

I shower, then eat some peanuts while I pre-roll some spliffs for the day. We regroup, and we get the cars loaded with all the filming gear. We have some time to spare so we drive in search of the most famous breakfast place in town, known for its perfect "doubles". It's not very different from all the other "doubles" vendors we saw, but the line of customers makes it clear this is "the place to be" for breakfast, plus it's really cheap: we eat 9 doubles with drinks, for 5 US$.

Full belly, we drive up to Eric's camp for the ceremony. The whole community is waiting for us, they open the gates and let us hide the cars in the back of the compound, a wise move to avoid attracting unnecessary attention.

Before we can enter the tabernacle we have to attend a purification prayer, to clean our spirits. According to the procedure we empty the content of our pockets on a table, we take off our shoes, and we face towards the east; towards Ethiopia; towards Mama Africa. The sun is hot in our faces, and it's literally blinding me. I am sweating profusely, but I try not to move and to keep focusing on the speech of the High Priest (who's high indeed…). I close my eyes because the sun is just too much to bear, I can feel the sweat dripping down my face. After a few minutes - that felt like an hour - we are done with the purification.

The High Priest takes us aside, and briefs us in detail on how to behave during the ceremony; then we are finally allowed to enter the tabernacle. It's busy, there are several man and a few children, all dressed in white; everyone bears at least one item or accessory showing the rasta colors, red yellow and green. At the east and west entrances, two men wave huge rasta flags. A large set of drums, in front of the main stage, dominates the room. The drummers are busy and the sound is a deep, hypnotic, slow beat; they call it the heartbeat.

We bow, we prostrate to the ground for a silent prayer, then we take our seats, all according to the rules. The cameramen are filming, and nobody really seems to mind; probably they have all been informed by the High Priest in advance. As I ease my body and spirit into the ceremony I start flying away with my thoughts: I can't believe this is happening, I would have never imagined we would be allowed to film this, it's a very special, very intense moment. The reading of psalms from the Old Testament is broken by loud singing, prayers, and sudden invocations to Jah Rastafari, Emperor Haile Selassie, in every possible way and tone. No ganja-smoking is officially allowed before 11am, but it's clear everyone is very high. The Rastafarians smoke all day, starting when they wake up, and most of them smoke the chalice, a traditional water-pipe made from a coconut shell; After about an hour, when it's already past 11am, we leave the tabernacle, while the ceremony goes on.

Eric and a few other locals join us for a smoke in a separate area in the back, a patio overlooking a deep, lush valley. We taste the local weed, from several batches. Some of it smokes very harsh and green, and it's clearly sativa. Other buds have a little more induce in them, surely crosses with imported seeds. After a good smoke we leave the community, knowing that we witnessed a very special part of local culture, deeply connected with cannabis and with spirituality.

We drive back to the hotel to pack our bags and check-out. It's an organizational challenge, because we have more bags than we are allowed to, and we will be harassed to pay extra at the airport, for sure. We have a meeting about the past days, and we are happy of what we saw, learned, experienced, and collected. We had the chance to get seeds from several fields, and we now have a good representation of the local landrace, which is very close to the sativa landrace from the Santa Marta region of Colombia. During the drive to the airport we smoke lots of weed, and we get in a really good mood. At the airport we leave the cars to Dr Green's friends, and we all check in. The airline let us pay for some extra-luggage, as expected, but it all flows pretty smoothly. We hope the bags will actually get to destination. Dr Green is flying on the same plane with us, because he has very good links in the country where we are going as well; but for safety reasons we travel on separate reservations. People from this island are not very welcome in the island where we are going. They kind of have a bad rep...

Our flight is scheduled to leave just after sunset, and the flight-time is a little over an hour (a first flight of 35 minutes, then a 10 minutes stop-and-go layover on a different island, and another flight of 25 minutes to destination). We still have plenty of time, and we use it smoking, drinking, and buying duty-free presents for our contacts waiting to pick us up as we land tonight. We take a long time clearing customs because procedures are very complicated in the Caribbean, and local customs officers move very, very slow. We fill in immigration landing-cards for the country where we are flying to, so we will hopefully speed up arrival procedures.

Our flight is on time; it's a propellor twin-engine from Liat Airlines, and it roars really loud. Seats are not assigned, we just enter the aircraft and grab any free seat, same as a bus. The flight is not busy, and we sit comfortably. I fall asleep just after take-off, also thanks to the vibrations of the aircraft, very soothing after several spliffs and a few vodka-cola… I sort-of-wake-up during our 10 minutes layover, then fall back asleep again. By the time i'm fully awake and conscious of my surroundings we are touching down at our destination.

It takes about half an hour to clear customs: my bag and Simon's bag get searched, as usual. The custom officer seems to think we are a band playing music, and he does not make any problems, even when he sees a whole bunch of Strain Hunters t-shirts and caps. When we finally get out of the airport we are very happy to find our local contacts, J. and C., waiting for us with a big spliff. We smoke right there, outside the airport. This island is a lot more tolerant with cannabis use the one we come from, and it's a true pleasure to be here! Our contacts arranged two 4x4 pick-up trucks for us; we load our bags and we quickly drive to a hotel not far from the airport.

Dr. Green clears customs separately, then we pick him up along the road just off the airport. Arjan and myself have been on this island already during our scouting-trip last July, and we know the hotel where we are going. It's an upmarket location, located right by the water; the restaurant serves good food, and the rooms are clean. We enjoy a nice dinner, smoke some weed on the beach, and make some plans for the next days. We will use 2 speed-boats to move around the island fast and stealth, and everything is arranged. When we finish talking and planning the next days is already past midnight, and tomorrow morning the alarm is gonna go off really early. The longest, hardest walk of the whole trip is waiting for us…. tomorrow we will trek all the way to the top of an active volcano, at almost 1000 meters above sea level.

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very nice pictures from the rastafari chanting, it must be very special feeling to be there with a group of people who have different way of lifestyle and diferent form to see the world. i love this purifying ancient style of living in the mountains.cant waint to see som pictures from the new island landraces

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