Old rasta on the cliffs that sells bags of jerk seasoning

[Mike_D]

That rasta stopped me on the West End Rd when I was there a few weeks ago. He showed me the jerk seasoning and told me he also had some blue mountain coffee in his bag. At the time, I had a plate of Tony's chicken in one hand and a bag of drinks/snacks from L&M in the other hand. At same time a younger guy on a bike stopped by us and tried to sell me necklaces and bracelets. At this point, I was getting frustrated as I just wanted to get back to my room and enjoy some chicken and Red Stripe. I just turned around and walked away, but in the back of my mind I was kinda interested in his products. The rasta wasn't aggressive but he was persistent. I think he even said I could pay whatever I wanted for the seasoning, as I was walking away. Now I'm curious about his stuff, particularly the coffee.

On a related note, I did have a labeled bag of jerk seasoning (from Time Square), as well as an opened bag of High Mountain coffee in my checked luggage, when we flew back to Philly. My suitcase was definitely searched in MBJ after I checked it, as I noticed the zippers were in a different spot when I picked it up from the luggage carousel. In addition, when we went through customs at PHL we were pulled out of line by a customs officer and brought into a separate room where our luggage was searched again (I wonder if they were watching our luggage and waited to see who picked it up). When they opened my suitcase, it was obviously already rummaged through. The customs officers proceeded to search it again and paid close attention to my Jamaican products. They even unzipped the liner to my suitcase searched under the fabric. They eventually let us go without incident.

So yeah, there is nothing illegal about bringing spices, etc. back from Jamaica, however having items in your suitcase that look like kilos of narcotics when put through the x-ray machine may raise a red flag with customs or security.