(Jamaica)…The word in a certain type of magazine has it that Jamaica might possibly be the most dangerous place in the world. I did not find this at all, well, after I got past the vultures who work the car-rental agency. They told me right away that they were here to “work with me,” which is a curious use of English and possibly means the complete opposite.
Probably, if a bad reputation is warranted here, it is because a certain type of traveler clashes instantly with those out to make a dollar (and there are 50 Jamaican ones to every American one) from them in such places as Montego Bay and Negril. Possibly, the locals feel resentment at seeing tourists “protected” behind the walls of resorts, a number of which—ugly ones—are beginning to mar the coastline east of Montego Bay. I headed a little west of Montego Bay and then south to the wonderfully named Anchovy. I was told that there is no place in Jamaica where you will not see a person, and it is true, except for a stretch of sugar-cane fields between Jackson Town and Clarks Town in the north. Everywhere, heads pop out from behind hedges and roadside stalls to see what is going on. As the roads became worse and more winding, the people became more pleasant, helping me with directions as I drove through the night on the way to Ferris Cross, Black River, New Holland, Spur Tree Hill and my final destination of Mandeville, where a Greek cousin of my girlfriend lives with her Jamaican family.
One part of the drive went through Bamboo Avenue, where drooping clumps of high bamboo touch each other in the middle of the road and workers threshed bamboo cane into a brilliantly lit combine-harvester. Mandeville is off the tourist map. Bauxite mining seems to be the big industry, and I drove along many orange-rust-coloured mining tracks, ostensibly on a search for a group of botanists who were members of a natural-history club. Christalia—the cousin—and I were glad we did not find them to much later on, as it transpired that they had been looking at and talking of hydrotropically grown lettuce for 120 minutes in a spot near Swaby’s Hole.
I love nature, but I have my threshold. A lunch of jerk goat at the Top Class restaurant (no sign, so look for the blue and brown-painted shack on the left as you reach the petrol station when driving five or so kilometres away from Mandeville) restored our commitment, and the afternoon was spent happily at two beautiful gardens in Mandeville: Bonnie View and—the best—the Levy’s Garden, which was full of hummingbirds, euphonias and elaenias. More birding was on the next day at the well-known Marshall’s Pen.
Also in Mandeville, I got access at 6 a.m. through cousin-acquired contacts, and it is a superb spot for Jamaican woodpecker; Jamaican tody; Red-billed streamertail (Jamaica’s national symbol, aka the Doctorbird), White-cheeked thrush, Orangequit, Jamaican oriole and Arrow-headed warbler. It is a beautiful spot, but there has been tragedy here, with a robbery-gone-wrong that ended fatally. I must have driven up Spur Tree Hill seven or eight times, but there is much to see, and I drove through Bamboo Avenue again, although this time during hours of light. I saw on the map a place called Lower Black River Morass, which sounds like my kind of place. A tour of the brackish river there is the highlight, although the small-boat captains all seem to know a little too readily exactly where the crocodiles are waiting.
The nearest we came to being bitten is when he inspected a crabbing pot and one of its contents managed to escape to the boat’s floor. The owner back on land seemed very disappointed when we paid him the resident rate, rather than the tourist rate he was expecting to earn from one black child, two white children and two white adults. We reached YS Falls, a beautiful spot that apparently rivals the world-famous Dunn’s River falls near Ocho Rios, with little time to enjoy the tiered falls, but there were sufficient minutes to swim and swing off a rope. As we left on the tractor-pulled train, the rain crashed down, but the light was beautiful, and the red-billed streamertails flocked around the hummingbird feeders.
A short cut across country turned out to be a long cut, but everyone—and I mean everyone—however far away, instinctively knew the directions to a seaside seafood restaurant called Little Ochie, which when I returned home I saw was the subject of an advertisement for Jamaica in a high-end travel magazine. The road never seemed to finish, winding around the Santa Cruz Mountains and creeping along cliffs. Towns we passed included Leeds, Malvern, Hermitage, Southfield, Top Hill and Junction.
There still was one more moment to make a mistake, as we made a wrong right to head to Port Kaiser, where we disturbed Antillean nighthawks roosting in the middle of the road. The food at Little Ochie, in Alligator Pond, is wonderful. You buy it by the pound and then decide how you want it prepared. North of Mandeville—I stopped off in Williamsfield, a suburb of Mandeville, to get a tour of Christalia’s husband’s (John Jay) Pioneer Chocolate Factory—the road climbs, and again there were people everywhere.
I stopped at the fabulously named Wait-a-Bit (the photo above is from near there) and the attractive Albert Town. The road suddenly becomes faster (it was 50 kilometres an hour most of the way before) when one nears the sugar-cane lands of Clarks Town and the coast. It also gets noticeably warmer. I stopped at Falmouth, which retains a little of its former colonial grandeur and some interesting, rusting cast-iron machinery behind a Rastafarian restaurant. On the motorway towards Montego Bay, it was a shame to see that apparently the Success Beach restaurant is no longer operating. It is the last glimmer of hope before the tacky sprawl of Mo’Bay begins.