Jamaica

June 2016

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Ironically, Jamaica was on very low on my list of countries to visit. I didn’t like reggae music, was oblivious to the Rastafarian culture and Jamaica as a tourist destination had had its fair share of horror stories and apparently some resistence to white western tourism. But when I found an all-inclusive week at Montego Bay for around &163;780 in mid-June, well it seemed rude not to give my 133rd country a chance to prove itself. Wendy who did like reggae music was keen to see how it differed from Barbados and Antigua which we had visited together.

Thompson Airways had a new plane with more leg room (but it was still cramped on a 9 hour flight) free movies (limited choice) and better oxygen to avoid jet lag. We left London Gatwick at 0930 on Friday June 17th and arrived at Montego Bay airport around 1330 local time. It was roasting outside in the upper 20’s. There were long queues to get through immigration but it gradually moved and the luggage was there. Outside we found our transfer bus called ‘Usain Bolt’ (‘We may be the last to leave but we’ll get you to your hotel first’ the driver said). The luggage guy stowed the suitcases and then offered me ‘smoke’. As other tourists boarded l heard them all discuss their invitation to purchase ganga. During our week at the resort, I would occasionally smell ganga coming from rooms. It is now legal to possess small quantities in public.

Montego Bay airport (Donald Sangster International Airport) was built to allow the tourists easy access to the resorts on the coast and avoid the capital’s airport at Kingston. Consequently the transfer time was minimal – maybe 15 minutes for us including two other hotels. Resorts near the airport have fabulous beaches hemmed in by a labyrinth of offshore reefs and framed by a cradle of hills behind.

We were staying at the Holiday Inn Resort (don’t laugh). In the spacious lobby, we were issued with wristbands (‘You lose this and we charge you $100’), a drink and a porter to take us to our first floor room. It was quite a sprawling hotel with seven buildings of rooms but once you got your bearings it was easy to find your way around. There were children’s pool areas, an adult pool (with bar), narrow but beautiful white sandy beaches, a small manmade island to wade out to, tennis courses, giant chess board, 9 hole mini golf, kayaks, free ice cream and all the rum cocktails and Red Stripe beer you could guzzle. The en suite room was spacious, clean, excellent cleaning service and predominantly US TV channels (including a few religious channels). We went straight to the bar and then the beach.

The CIA website summarises Jamaica: “The island - discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1494 - was settled by the Spanish early in the 16th century. The native Taino, who had inhabited Jamaica for centuries, were gradually exterminated and replaced by African slaves. England seized the island in 1655 and established a plantation economy based on sugar, cocoa, and coffee. The abolition of slavery in 1834 freed a quarter million slaves, many of whom became small farmers. Jamaica gradually increased its independence from Britain. In 1958 it joined other British Caribbean colonies in forming the Federation of the West Indies. Jamaica gained full independence when it withdrew from the Federation in 1962. Deteriorating economic conditions during the 1970s led to recurrent violence as rival gangs affiliated with the major political parties evolved into powerful organized crime networks involved in international drug smuggling and money laundering. Violent crime, drug trafficking, and poverty pose significant challenges to the government today. Nonetheless, many rural and resort areas remain relatively safe and contribute substantially to the economy”. It’s 2.9 million people is governed by a parliamentary democracy. With an average income of $8,000, 16% are classed below the poverty level. Exports include alumina, bauxite, sugar, rum, coffee, yams, beverages and chemicals.

Rough Guide said “Brash, beautiful and seductive, Jamaica is much more than beaches and swaying palm trees. A sensual land of bright colours, soulful rhythms and unfailing creativity, the island retains an attitude – a personality – that’s more resonant and distinctive than you’ll find in any other Caribbean nation. There’s certainly plenty of white sand and gin-clear sea to enjoy but away from the coast are spectacular mountains and river sand tumbling waterfalls. This verdant natural environment forms the backdrop to a dynamic cultural history in the islands towns and cities, illustrated most vividly by the explosive reggae scene, but also in the powerful expression of its artwork and the startlingly original flavours of its national cuisine.”

Rough Guide continued “In some respects it’s a country with a swagger in its step, confident of its triumphs (I would assume rich musical heritage, fastest runners etc) in the face of adversity, but also with a weight upon its shoulders. An unsparingly tough history has had to be reckoned with, and the country hasn’t avoided familiar problems of development like dramatic wealth in equality and social tensions that occasionally spill over into localised violence and worldwide headlines”. The harassment of tourists that once bedevilled the island seemed much less noticeable these days.

Our resort was full of Americans or Europeans. I was surprised how many black families were here on holiday. The food at the hotel was ok but nothing special. There was a cafeteria type system where you just helped yourself to the food and a waitress would bring wine/drinks to the table if requested. There was some Jamaican fare. Breakfast was always the best meal. On two nights we did book into the Italian restaurant which was part of the all-inclusive package and the food was delicious – especially the steak and lamb. The bar staff were efficient around the resort and when we were there we took full advantage of the varied rum cocktails. The ‘Miami Vice’ was very yummy.

There was ‘entertainment’ every evening. This ranged from an excellent violist who mixed reggae songs with well know tunes to a really tight reggae band with a great vocalist. Then there were terrible loud shouty troupes who tried to engage the slumbering audiences but just made us head for the furthest bar away.

On the first two mornings I went scuba diving. I was able to organise the dives at the hotel sports desk and walk all of 300ft from the room to the short wooden pier and onto a dive boat. The captain then motored me down the coast to the next hotel complex which had a dive school and I could pick up equipment plus a dive master. On the first day, an elderly skinny Jamaican was in charge. He was a standby when the usual one took a day off. A young American couple joined me. The reef was only 500m off the coast and we dived just up from my hotel. There was no dive briefing. We just stepped off the boat into water that was 32’C and felt like bath water. I dove with no wetsuit. My first impression of diving in Jamaica was that all the decent sized fish were absent having been over fished. There were quite a few fishing baskets lying empty on the bottom of the sea. The soft coral was very nice but without fish, it’s just coral. Diving to a shallow 17.5m for 46 mins I only saw 1 turtle and 1 lion fish (Ironically, later in the week, snorkelling around the hotel’s island, I spotted two lion fish there – other tourists were trying to touch them. I should have told them they are poisonous. Doh!

After switching tanks we were back under for a second dive. They didn’t hang around. 50 more minutes down to 15.7m. Apart from the coral I only saw 1 small ray. Our dive master had taken a wrong turning and when we came up, the dive boat was nowhere to be seen. The sea was now choppy and the waves large enough so we couldn’t see over them. The dive master signalled we should dive again and swim beneath surface which would be easier than fighting the waves. We did this for 15 minutes and still the boat was invisible. By now we were running out of air and we rose to the surface, lay on our backs and kicked. Finally, the boat saw us and motored to rescue us. It made up for the average dive.

The following day, I had the usual dive master back and someone joined me from my hotel. The chubby Englishman had not dived in two years so we stayed to 17.5m. I saw a sea-snake and watched the dive master kill a lionfish (which are eating all the local fish – or what is left of them). I was shocked when after only 20 minutes we were told to surface. My companion had run out of air. I still had two thirds of a tank left and asked to go back down, so I followed the dive-master around Rose Bay. The final dive was the best one. Staying shallow to 14.8m, we saw a pair of large eagle rays swimming in formation, a large ray lying on the sand and some decent sized fish at last. My companion lasted 35 minutes this time. I can’t say diving in Jamaica was exceptional and I just ticked it off as another country where I had dived. I think that was my 14th country. It seemed strange to be finished by noon in time for cocktails, lunch and a relaxing afternoon on the beach.

If we hadn’t left the resort, we could have been anywhere in the Caribbean. Most tourists splashed out on expensive excursions. These didn’t really appeal. There were waterfalls to be seen, but once you’ve seen Victorian Falls in Zimbabwe or Niagara Falls in Canada, everything else is going to look mediocre. We wanted something different and found it at the Glistening Waters Luminous Lagoon up the road just outside Falmouth. Our courier was a loud humorous girl who kept us entertained as we stopped at three other hotels to pick up others. We hung around the lagoon for over an hour, watching a wonderful sunset (there were not many that week), with a couple of wrinkly old Jamaicans trotting out the ‘usual suspects’ on a guitar and tambourine.

As dusk fell we boarded a boat and motored into the darkness. Enclosed by a casurina-covered (look it up – it’s a tree) promontory, the lagoon owes its name to the very impressive incandescent illuminations of micro-organisms that produce photochemical reactions when disturbed. It is well advertised as one of only three similar locations worldwide. After dark, the water shines a bright eerily green when agitated, and you can see the trails of fish that look like green lanterns. When the boat stopped, a bunch of us jumped into the water to be startled by the fact that the water turned illuminous green around us which er, is why it is called the Luminous Lagoon. Lonely Person’s Guide describes the experience as “semi-hallucinogenic” which it certainly was and further enhanced by the mixing of salt and freshwater from the sea and river so you not only swam through green clouds of phosphorous but also alternating bands of cold and warm. Recommended as a unique experience of what appears to be glowing water.

On our last two days, we rented a car and went drive about. On the first day, we headed first to Falmouth up the coast and just off the North Coast Highway. We had passed through here on the way to the lagoon. Just outside town was the Jamaica Swamp Safari Village. It was here that Ross Kanaga, the zoo’s American founder performed the stunt in ‘Live and Let Die’ where James Bond used crocodile heads as stepping stones. It was also a location in Steve McQueen’s ‘Paillion’. The guide had told us that Ross did the stunt three times but got 170+ bite marks on the 3rd attempt. The producers used the first cut! He died a year later from a heart attack when ‘his body finally realised what had happened on that third attempt.” The bridge where James Bond flew over in speed boat is also on the outskirts of Falmouth.

This small market town became the main port of call for sugar ships in the late 18th century. Slaves were traded and goods unloaded while planters built elegant Georgian town houses. Some remain but the most impressive building was the Old Court House overlooking the sea This had been reconstructed in 1926 after a fire but was faithful to the 200 year old building that had stood there before. In 2011 Falmouth opened a new deep water cruise ship dock.

Falmouth is the parish capital of Trelawny, a region is best known for both its magnificent yams (60% of all Jamaican yams grown here) and as the home of the world record sprinter Usain Bolt. The Rough Guide said “Less than two hours drive from the centre of Montego Bay lies an area so untouched by any kind of holiday development that it is something of a parallel universe to the coastal resorts. The mainly uninhabited limestone hillocks of Cockpit Country are the antithesis of palm trees and concrete”.

We headed into Cockpit County via Clark’s town with its stately Victorian church dominating the centre. The narrow roads were pot holed and we had our first experience of the Jamaican kamikaze approach to driving. Speeding on narrow roads, overtaking on bends, driving up your arse. So much for the relaxed ambience. The thick green vegetation was broken up by sugar cane fields. Everything looked very lush.

Eventually after passing through a few quiet hamlets, we rolled into Sherwood which was just as sleepy. Outside the Post Office was a sign containing a picture of Usain Bolt plus his world record times for the 100m and 200m. There was also a mural of him on the school wall. I have no idea how he was discovered living in Sherwood – unless he ran out there all the way to the coast. His auntie ran a gift shop in town as well.

Attempting to find our way to Windsor, we ended up on a small narrow unkept road. An old Jamaican on a bike tried to flag us down and then pedalled to catch up. When he did, he told us that he was the custodian of the Windsor Caves.. “I’m Martryn. I’m in the book” he said (meaning the Lonely Persons Guide). “I was just getting some smokes”. We told him that we were not going to the caves and drove on. The road got narrower and more overgrown and in parts was flooded mud. Eventually we came across the colourful hut outside Windsor caves. Unbeknown to us, we had just come down a dead trail to the caves. Martyn could have told us that! Doh!

We did a lot of double backing that day. They were no traffic signs and often no indication of what village you were in. But it was a fun way to explore Cockpit County. Trying to find Windsor, we came across a lovely green coloured river and followed it. To our surprise, it took us back to the North Coast Highway and we were not far from the hotel.

Popping in for a late lunch, we then headed for Jamaica’s second largest city, the seaside settlement of Montego Bay which is locally known as MoBay The traffic was gridlocked and there were few useful directions. A local on his bicycle offered to show us a way through the town. We knew he was scamming but followed him and then took off at the first break of traffic. MoBay seemed an awful place and we would have to suffer it four times.

We finally found the B8 road off the coastal road and made for the Rocklands Bird Sanctuary which was only a few miles inland but up a long and steep narrow unmade road. I had had visions of a proper aviary but it was really just someone’s garden high above the bay. This was the home of the late Lisa Salmon, a celebrated ornithologist who over a period of seven years managed to get hummingbirds to be confident enough to drink sugar water while perched on your outstretched finger and they continue to do so to this day. We sat in a couple of chairs holding a small container with a hole in one end. Sure enough, we started to see flutterings around us, getting closer and finally landing on our finger. The streamer tailed doctor bird which is Jamaica’s national bird was very colourful and other varieties of hummingbirds appeared and disappeared. This was definitely a first. I had seen them in Brazil but only from a distance. These ones landed on your finger and sucked at the water for up to 30 seconds before disappearing again. Some were feeding babies and transporting it back to the nests. The custodian told us that he still had to feed them every day if no tourists turned up so that they didn’t lose the habit. Recommended for the uniqueness of the experience.

On our last full day, we had to retrace our steps past the Rocklands Bird sanctuary turn off and continue on the B8 into the hills on narrow twisting roads climbing up Long Hill, blocked by slow moving trucks or passed by manic locals. We progressed into the verdant St James interior, parallel to the Greta River Valley. The road rose to 2000ft before Anchovy and then passed through the citrus groves of Montpelier. Picking up a side road which was potholed and lumpty, we made for the small town of Newmarket and then down the hills to Middle Quarters and onto Black River by the coast.

Although it is St Elizabeth’s largest town, Black River is a quiet spot. In the mid-19th century it was a wealthy town based on logwood which was used to produce black and blue dyes for the textile industry and exported in great quantities from Black River port. For a brief time, it was the most influential town in Jamaica with electricity, the telephone and the car all introduced to the island here. The Waterloo Guesthouse (built 1819) is reputed to have been the first place in Jamaica to get electricity and have the first telephone. A stroll along the waterfront revealed many old wooden buildings. It was also the only place I heard someone yell out “Hey whitey”.

Like everyone else, we had come here for the boat safari on the Black River itself which at 71kms is Jamaica’s longest. The river gets its name because the peat moss lining the river bottom makes the crystal clear water appear an inky black. It is the main source for the Great Morass – a 201 sq km area of wetland that spreads north and west of Black River and provides a swampy home for most of Jamaica’s surviving crocodiles as well as bird life.

There were only half a dozen people on our boat for the one hour cruise. Just up the river after casting off, were a couple of trees full of perching white egrets. The guide spotted the local ‘tame’ crocodile and encouraged him over with offers of a chicken. The wide open river got narrower and long mangroves hanging down to the water began to dominate. The water was like a millpondl so there were lovely reflections of the greenery. We saw a sleeping rat but no more crocodiles. At the turn around, the guide moored the boat and asked if anyone wanted to swim. I was the only taker, everyone suspicious about the possibilities of a nearby crocodile. Nothing appeared and I climbed back aboard limbs intact. Near the end of the trip we saw a crocodile basking near a wall. I had seen it earlier from the bridge when I had been for a stroll. So apart from these two, we didn’t really see a wild crocodile in Jamaica.

We followed the coastal road north and just outside Black Rock did see a colony of pelicans sunning themselves on wooden poles above the sea. Stuck behind more trucks and crazy drivers, we pottered to Whitehouse and Ferris Cross, and turned inland until we reached Whithorn and Ramble and eventually the B8 and Montego Bay’s dreadful traffic for the last time. That night we watched the TV coverage of the EU Referendum in the UK. We were six hours behind and by the time David Cameron resigned, it was 3am local time.

Final thoughts. I realise that we did not see the entire island, but I got the impression that much of it was the same. We also didn’t make any pilgrimages to Bob Marley. I found the admission prices expensive for what you got. $25 seemed the minimum entry. Our resort was fine but not a patch on Antigua. It was a country to tick off really. But we got a hell of a sun tan and by the time we touched down at London Gatwick at 6am on Saturday June 25th, we found our country had voted to leave the European Union and all hell had broken loose.