Surprisingly (or maybe not), Jamaicans actually talk like that, it’s not just a Hollywood cliché. And we’ve already received our first crash course: it’s Jaw-may-cans. With an emphasis on the ‘Jaw’.
We arrived in Kingston late Friday night. I guess 8pm isn’t that late, but when you’re arriving in a capital city, it’s already dark, and you don’t have a hotel reservation it’s late. And some nice fellow sitting next to us on the plane kept sharing horror stories about the perils of Kingston.
They assured us Jamaica’s capital isn’t worth the bother. That we’d be walking targets, ‘whities’ they said, almost guaranteed a confrontation. Besides the danger, they also said there isn’t much to see there, so we decided to leave first thing the next day. And one of the guys was nice enough to drive us to a hotel in the safer part of town for the night.
The next morning I was ready to go, but Abra wasn’t feeling too hot. She was sick, bloated…and well…not good. Lets just say she had a very interrupted sleep. But I dragged her to the bus stop anyway.
We found our bus to Port Antonio, a small village built around a beautiful bay in the northeast portion of the country. Our bus was a typical tour-bus (mind you this is their regular public bus), which operates more like a giant shared taxi. It doesn’t work on a schedule, doesn’t have designated stops, and leaves when it’s full. There are 2 seats on one side, and 1 on the other, and as the rows fill up, a seat folds down into the aisle. Four to a row right? Wrong, five seems to be the norm. Except it’s not 5 equally spaced, it’s 3 people to the regular 3 seats, then it’s Abra and another girl splitting the fold down seat. She’s thrilled. She’s feeling sick, squeezed into a tiny seat, and about to embark on a 3 hour trek across the Blue Mountains, with all the winding, one-lane roads that that entails. And it seems the bus drivers have an ongoing bet for ‘best time’.
Well, we made it, and found ourselves a nice guesthouse for the night. Then we set out to explore the two main streets of the city, before settling in at an internet café.
The next day, Sunday, we were up at a blistering 7:20am, as we were hoping to see a few out-of-town sights. First we headed to the Blue Lagoon, made famous by Brooke Shields’s body in the movie, ‘Blue Lagoon’ (real original). It’s a deep water (200 feet) bay, with such clear water it appears as an amazing rich blue. We hired a boat to take us around to nearby Monkey Island, Tom Cruise’s Beach House, and the gorgeous Dragon’s Bay, home to the deserted and crumbling Dragon’s Bay Hotel. Awesome pictures.
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| (Actually just outside Blue Lagoon, but its prettier out here, and the water is just the same blue!) |
Next we headed by private car, for a ridiculous fee that won’t be mentioned here, up into the Blue Mountains. The driver was Rasta, and it seems money is a taboo topic. We also had a ridiculous time trying to describe where he was going to bring us/what he was going to show us. There was a lot of agreeing, a lot of ‘Ya mon’, and little said. I’ve had a harder time communication with Rasta’s than with speaking Spanish in Cuba. We thought we were getting a mini-private tour through the Blue Mountains, we ended up getting a taxi ride that stopped at a waterfall.
After 4,400 feet of elevation, and miles of more winding, one-lane, two-way, blind-corner roads, with cliffs on one side, and a speed-minimum of 50 mph, we reached a point where a mudslide had knocked out half the road. We had to cross by foot, to be picked up on the other side by Hopey and Doggie, from our new Rasta family for the night.
Thirty minutes later and we finally reached their town of Section, a small, spread out conglomeration of houses, with supposedly 50 people and no stores. We were given a very comfortable room, overlooking a nearby valley. We were literally in the middle of the clouds, and surrounded by lush as-far-as-the-eye-can-see vegetation of bamboo, coffee plants, and banana trees. Our Rasta family (a bachelor pad with 4 dudes) cooked up some delicious vegetable stew with Johnny Cakes and fish (apparently they can eat fish) for us. It was actually really good, and I’m not just saying that because I had no expectations. These mountains are dotted with these coffee-growing Rasta families, all connected by these ridiculous windy roads, hours away from civilization.
It seems the main adjective Rasta’s use (or at least the one with the most positive connotations) is ‘natural’. Everything is natural. The food is natural, the mountains are natural, and of course, their dreads are natural, mon. I can’t wait to see their faces when they discover the word ‘organic’. Well, naturally, we had communication issues when it came to a fee. We were told in the beginning a sweet price of $15 USD. And when it came time to paying we though we’d give him a flat $20, since it was such a great experience. This seems to be the time at which money-as-a-taboo-topic disappears, and he had the audacity to ask for another $20. We still needed a ride back down the mountain, so we had little choice but to cough up the dough.
Oh, and we were given Rastafarian nicknames. Apparently I’m CoolWata, and Abra is CuttyRanks. I’m not sure where they came from, but I am sure I’m using it. They were given to us by Lakey, a stoned-out-of-his-mind Rasta (smokes 30 joints a day he said nonchalantly), with bloodshot eyes and dreams of visiting Miami.
After listening to some Reggae music, and having a Bob Marley jam session of our own (my guitar and vocals weren’t up to par), we ended up calling it a night at around 8:30pm, when everyone else headed back to their rooms. No wonder they kept referring to 3pm as ‘in the evening’.
The next day Abra and I hiked into the Blue Mountains to a look out point where you can see Kingston. The pictures weren’t great, and probably won’t appear below. I was stupid enough to take my shirt off, and got burned like the little bitch that I am. The pictures weren’t great, but probably will appear below.
Next Doggie drove us down to the collapsed road, where we hiked a couple miles to the ‘town’ of Wakefield. There we caught a bus to Buff Bay, where we caught a bus to Annotto Bay, where we caught a taxi to Port Maria, where we caught a bus to Ocho Rios (aka Ochi). I guess there weren’t any direct busses. But transferring from one to the other in typical NASCAR pit-crew speed was awesome with 35lbs backpacks and a sunburn. It was also exhilarating to speed by other cars going 120 km/hr in a 50 km/hr zone, with no seatbelts, and a driver smoking Ganja.
Anyway, we made it to Ochi, and found a cheap motel. We bought ourselves some ridiculous Jamaican fast food (Beef and Cheese Patties, don’t ask), and began the long and repetitive process of Aloe Vera application.
More soon!
Posted by CoolWata
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