Once we turn south onto National Road 4 near Léogâne, west of Port-au-Prince, the scenery changes quickly and dramatically. Soon, we leave the coastal plain, the roadside hawkers, the trash piles, the heat and humidity, and begin the sinuous ascent up into the mountains that bisect the southern peninsula east to west. Despite the near-ubiquity of deforestation, the scenery turns dramatic, verdant, vertiginous, lovely. The one road snakes its way along cliff sides and through narrow gaps, twisting and turning, bending to the natural terrain.

Along the way, we see a couple of quarries, but little industry otherwise. Lots of small farms. Goats tied to trees or posts along the side of the road. The occasional slim horse on a narrow plateau above the road. Schools, new houses, being built by various NGOs. We ask ourselves silently, then later discuss, why so many rural Haïtians would flee the countryside for the pollution and crowding of the city when they could grow their own food up here, where the climate and scenery and environment seem more favorable to a decent life.

One in our group points out, however, that the only agriculture to be had, at least in the current economic situation in Haïti, is subsistence farming. No trade means no money, which means no way to pay for necessities, for health care, for schooling for children, for gasoline, etc. This is somewhat speculative, I think, as we don’t really understand what works and what doesn’t work in Haïti, nor how and why, but it seems like a reasonable explanation.

The distance from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel on the south coast is short as the crow flies, but long on this serpentine highway. Washouts from Hurricane Sandy (in which as many Haïtians died as Americans, from a much smaller population) or other rainstorms have narrowed the road in places, and a stop-off at our partner church in the mountains means that we are over four hours in reaching Jacmel. As we descend the road on the south side of the mountains, the temperature rises, the humidity presses in, and so does the more obvious urban poverty we left behind a few hours earlier. The characters alongside the road through Jacmel to the east, where we hope to stay, look much like those in Port-au-Prince, selling tissue packets and bars of soap and all manner of other goods.

Previous visitors from St. Paul and the Redeemer stayed at Cyvadier Plage Hôtel, a few miles east of the city, and after bouncing down the rutted, almost nonexistent access road toward the hotel, we are all relieved to climb out of the dusty SUVs in the shaded parking lot. Here is a level of refinement I never expected to find in Haïti: manicured gardens around a swimming pool with fountain effect, outdoor drinking and dining spots overlooking the kind of cove we dream about flipping through the glossy New York Times travel magazine.

The manager, a handsome, young, tanned Swiss man, speaks with a sultry accent, and gives us the options, none of which is adequate, even for those of us (me?) willing to forego air conditioning for the sights here (!); there just aren’t enough rooms available for our group of six, including our pleasant, funny Haïtian driver, Ronald. While our group leader navigates the limited options, I use the few idle minutes to send messages home, not knowing when I’d have wireless service again.

Although we need to seek other lodging options, we stay for lunch, sip rum punches and enjoy a variety of seafood dishes made with locally-caught fish and shellfish. Sad to go, we pile back into the SUVs and continue east on the road to another Swiss-owned beach property, Hotel Kabic Beach Club. The owner is a soft-spoken septuagenarian German Swiss man with two dogs and a very pleasant staff of locals. The hotel is clean and modern without outdoor dining and chaises-longues scattered around the front lawn overlooking the Caribbean across the road, but it’s no Cyvadier. After checking in, a couple of us wander a few yards up the road to a path to the beach. The water is stereotypically warm and refreshing. I am surprised to see, when I look back at the shore from the water, the humble dwellings hard on the beach. Where in the Caribbean can you live on so little, yet waddle out of bed right into the waters of paradise? Two young Haïtian guys run a seafood restaurant right there at the beach and hope we’ll dine there. One of them at least speaks reasonable English. I want to support him, but we are warned that these local places may not always sell all of the day’s catch, and may lack proper refrigeration. Fear of food poisoning slightly edges out my desire to support two enterprising locals. I agree to dine at the hotel. Both nights, seafood with a side of guilt.