South Carolina Eating

Luckily it was still the weekend so I could do some immediate damage to the local food scene.

There was a fun view of the canal from the back door of the house. It seemed pretty shallow and was pretty much mud at low tide, so I'm not sure how much of a purpose it had. It was nice to look at though.

This was one of my favorite snacks of the entire trip and we ended up buying more. Benne wafers are fun little crispy cracker like things with a taste that's hard to put your finger on. They are sweet and salty and filled with sesame seeds. Dipping them into the local pimento cheese was even weirder, but somehow it all worked. Unbeknownst to me, "benne" is the Bantu word for sesame, and the crop was brought over by slaves. It's weird because they definitely had slaves in Missouri, but I don't think I've been to an area that still seems to have so many echoes of slavery all over the place.

I found a list of must-try South Carolina foods during the long drive here that I've been using as a guide. 

Check

And check

I don't know that I've ever been to a beach when it was cold before. It's a strange sensory experience, because I have spent years associating the ocean waves. beach, seashells, and so forth with warm sunny weather. Now all of the same elements are here but it's cold and often windy/rainy to boot. The views are great though and the house is in a great location where the beach is walkable so it should work out very nicely.

Several businesses in North Myrtle Beach have fake lighthouses. So nautical.

We nailed our pecan obligations with some ice cream.

Despite the article making okra sound like some sort of alien appendage, I quite like it.

Myrtle Beach proper was closed up for the night but there were still a few things to see by car.

Cap Haitien, Haiti. So Garbagey

We snoozed at the Miami Admiral's Club until our flight to Haiti. This lounge's claim to fame was that they had showers. It was much bigger but also had a lot of weirdos in it so it was a wash.

We finally got to enjoy the business class service this flight. I opened with a dish of warmed mixed nuts and a large pour of Woodford Reserve bourbon. We visited the distillery on our tour of Kentucky's bourbon trail. Sometimes I whisper "hello my old friend" to the bourbon before I drink it. But that's neither here nor there.

I didn't even want any salt or pepper but I opened the package anyway. How decadent.

I always thought that they didn't give you metal silverware on a plane because it's a security risk. Turns out they're just cheap.

I watched Leonardo choke his enemies in The Revenant while I choked down more expensive alcohol. We're both heroes.

Haiti looks nice when you're really high up but it's all downhill from there.

We had agreed upon a hotel car pickup upon arrival but shockingly there wasn't one so we said yes to one of the pestering taxi men and hit the road. A nice and confusing surprise when we exited the airport was the several Norwegian police outside guarding the place.

The scene that unfolded reminded me of Africa a whole lot. Garbage was everywhere. Lydia wondered why there were no beachfront hotels in town until she saw the beach. The "beach" in Haiti is pretty much where the dry garbage meets the wet garbage.

The worst part of the city looked like someone was trying to colonize a landfill. The people seemed impressively clean in contrast to their surroundings with their clothing and the nearby buildings full of bright colors.

The Hotel du Roi Cristophe was fine by our standards but pretty much heaven by theirs. After our long journey we were content to spend the rest of the day inside the hotel's walls.

Until I started traveling I had no idea how luxurious flushing one's toilet paper really is. Nothing says "cleanliness" like having a basket full of poopy toilet paper in your bathroom.

Dinner at the hotel's restaurant was solid. Lydia had "Haitien specialty of conch" and I had "goat with creole sauce". Both were excellent.

I got rice and fried plantains as my sides. I think the mushy stuff bottom left is mashed okra. It wasn't bad.

And that was that. I wasn't about to go out in Garbageland at night. No way. We did some reading and kept it real until bed time.