Fresh from a glorious week traversing Puerto Rico staying in a tent on the beach, renting a room in a lodge in the mountains near Dos Bocas and Utuado plus a splurge on the last night in a luxury hotel on Condado Beach, on July 11th, we arrived in Kingston, Jamaica. Not knowing what to expect, we had decided while dressing at that luxury hotel to put on some Hawaiian shirts and white, drawstring pants along with our flip-flops. Something we soon regretted.
The Customs and Immigration building was a huge aircraft-like hanger and all the agents were in military uniforms. After the 1980 election and some tourists had been assaulted on the beach, the US Government had cut off almost all tourism and now it was only starting to come back which explained the military presence. We approached a rather large, gruff man at the desk who asked us for our papers. He scrutinized them once…twice and a third time before talking. “Where are you staying?”, he said to which I replied we are just traveling around and camping.
His loud, gruff voice seemed to echo off the building’s walls when he replied, “No Camping in Jamaica. You will have to get back on that plane!” This was upsetting to me on many levels. The first being that I had been in contact with a Jamaican named Peter Bentley on Jack’s Hill who ran JACHA (Jamaica Camping and Hiking Association) and that was where we were staying for two nights plus there was no way I wanted to go back and ruin this vacation.
Thinking quickly, I slowly and calmly said, “Do you want to know where we are staying?” to which he nodded so I apologized and said that I didn’t understand the question because of his thick patwa. “We are staying a JACHA on Jack’s Hill” leaving off the part about camping. He seemed reluctant to accept that answer, but our outfits looked so out of place that I believe he took some pity on us and stamped our papers.
We pick up our backpacks and headed out the doors into the reality of Kingston completely clueless and definitely not dressed for the occasion.
