How I got to Jamaica...too.

[Jdub]

Great reading, my friend. You had me laughing so much! My first trip was in 1984 due to hearing “Buckingham Palace” by Peter Tosh in1979. I had no idea what to expect, but I don’t know what happened to my “I survived the road to Negril” T-shirt. That was also the 1st time I had rum punch, which I was drinking as I read your story. Thanks for sharing!!

[Accompong]

Great reading, my friend. You had me laughing so much! My first trip was in 1984 due to hearing “Buckingham Palace” by Peter Tosh in1979. I had no idea what to expect, but I don’t know what happened to my “I survived the road to Negril” T-shirt. That was also the 1st time I had rum punch, which I was drinking as I read your story. Thanks for sharing!!

Respect jdub. All this quarantine plus liking Captain Dave's story made me want to give myself a mental checkup. Sometimes reliving those memories helps put the present into a more livable perspective.

I am writing this for myself but like a good tour guide, I make a real effort to enable others to have the best experience possible and, perhaps, do a little reliving of their own. The one truism I have learned over time is you can't please everyone and some people do everything they can to not enjoy something. I sometimes don't play well with others but most of the time I just don't even like to play.

Maybe that is why I come and go to Jamaica and few people know until I have already come back.

I toil in self-approbation.

Respect

[airswift]

35 years ago give or take took a flight to Mo Bay. Taxi to the minibus terminal. [a vacant lot]. Mini buses were packed to the doors but they always made room for me and my wife. [the only white people]. The driver was smoking and drinking and everyone was singing during the trip to Negril.
Stopped at Arthurs $6 for the trip.
Met Norma and Bradley Arthur and negotiated a price of $8 a nite for a room at Norma's Cottages.
Bradley is gone and so are the cottages. Norma still lives across the road near Thunder and Barbara.
The girl who swept out the rooms is still there but I can't remember her name.
Back then we had the vendors, the peanut man, the hat man, and long timers may remember Nuray, the white guy with dreds who was selling sprouts to the restaurants.
Been going back ever since.

Enjoy.

[Accompong]

Yes, it is always good to look back on the old days and remember how special they were.

If I stay quarantined for a few more days, I just might get to the point on this first trip where we got to Negril from Port Maria, St. Mary on an old country bus. We stayed the old Secrets Cabin at Firefly for $10 US per night.

The one vendor I really remember from this first trip was a guy they called "Mushroom Kenny"

Hope you enjoy as well.
Peace and Guidance

[Accompong]

Pitch black and no lights along with being high and night blind, I stumbled over the jagged edge of the road and just caught myself before going down. I looked down the road. Nothing. No sounds. No cars. Nothing. I started walking down what I thought was the center of the road when I realized that almost every yard had people sitting along the road and watching for the rare car that might come by each evening. Suddenly, I felt a little paranoid at being watched by so many strangers that were also being so silent, but I continued to walk towards a board shack along the road with a flickering light of a candle showing some people in the doorway.

Getting closer, I noticed a large person walking towards me and caught a flash of a toothy smile. “Whaagwan, Bill?”. It was Jah Mike. I went on to babble something about being sorry and not understanding and wanting to buy some ganga. Jah Mike kept saying “No Problem” and “Tomorrow” when I realize this must look like a dope deal that it was in front of his entire community. I shut up and he offered to walk me back to the house. It felt like a perp walk and I was so ashamed.

When we got back to the verandah, Jah Mike asked me for $2 Jamaican to get some ganja. Wow! I could not get the money out of my pocket fast enough. Mike said to get some sleep and be ready for a trip in Jah Love in the morning.

[Accompong]

Mike Higgins, better known as Jah Mike, was a physical specimen of a man. About 6’ 5” tall and muscular in a lean, athletic sort of way. I am 6’ 3” myself and with his lion’s mane hair he towered over me. His best quality was his constant disarming smile which he flashed readily as he talked. I begged leave to go into the house and retrieve the envelope from Peter and give it to Jah Mike. He read it and said to pitch our tent near the corner of the house then come inside for something to eat. I could feel a little tension, but I did not want to bring it up, so we pitched the tent and went inside.

One thing we learned quickly from our discussions with Jah Mike is that he is the face of tourism in this little village dubbed Castle Gardens. Also, we learned that nearly 70 percent of the people were unemployed and an equal number illiterate. Mike’s house was also like a club house where everyone came to visit and hang out. Before long, a number of young girls and young women came to talk to my wife and very soon after eating she vanished into the neighborhood not to be seen until the later afternoon and that happened both days we were staying there.

After polishing off a meal of fresh lobster and steamed snapper with rice and gully beans, Jah Mike invited me out to the verandah to talk. I had to be a little bit of a detective to put all the pieces together but I was beginning to see that my wife and I were some of the very few people to come here to stay so we were valuable property to Jah Mike. Jah Mike asked straight out if Tony charged us to go up to Firefly and go swimming. I said no. He asked about my wife’s sunglasses Tony was wearing and I told him it was just a gift and not a payment. He seemed to accept the answer, but I did not see Tony around much the rest of the time we were there.

Jah Mike told me he takes guests out to Allen’s Island in his boat “Jah Love” and to go fishing and snorkeling. I started to say we had already been there but realized he needed the money, so I agreed to go the following morning. Soon, several Rasta youths came by and joined us on the verandah. English went out the window and I was struggling to understand the conversation, but I had the old standby “yah, mon” to use when asked something and it mostly worked. Things started to go downhill when Jah Mike rolled me a spliff and gave me a beer.

Again, I was hammered. The strength of the smoke was beyond any that I had experienced except up at Peter’s place. My wife came back, said “Hi” and went to the tent to get it ready for the night. Everyone was smoking a spliff and when someone talked to me, I did not understand so I just said, “yah, mon”. It happened several times when suddenly everyone got up and left me alone on the verandah. Including Jah Mike!

Perplexed, I made my way over to the tent and said to my wife, “The strangest thing happened”, “We were all sitting around talking and suddenly everyone got up and left me alone”. She chuckled. “They were asking you if you liked the smoke and you said ‘yah, mon’ and they asked you if you wanted to buy some and you said “yah, mon” but you didn’t give them any money to do it!”

It was dark outside. I was hammered. There were no lights up on the street, but I felt I must find Jah Mike and make this right. I stumbled up to the road and started to look for him.

[Accompong]

I woke up refreshed and ready to learn more about Jamaica. I leaned over and kissed my still sleeping wife on the forehead which put a smile on her face. She opened her eyes and told me that a guide that worked with Peter was coming by to take us to Port Royal later this morning. His name was Hunter Wint and she got to know him last night while sitting around the fire. She said she liked his enthusiasm.

We took the time to pack a couple of day packs and organized the tent before heading out to the yard. Peter was already in the kitchen and the “one dollar each” cups of coffee were ready along with some callaloo and johnny cakes. I normally don’t like greens like spinach but this callaloo was delicious especially when I made little breakfast sandwiches using the johnny cakes.

Hunter arrived as if on cue, so I singled him out in conversation to know him better before heading out. My wife was correct. He was enthusiastic as well as smart. I liked him immediately. We agreed on a price of $25 for a day trip and we would pay all expenses. Peter was on his way to town, so we piled in his 4-wheel Land Cruiser and headed down to the bus yard at Half Way Tree.
The city bus was crowded with people going to work but we got a seat thanks to a couple who gave us theirs while Hunter stood next to us. We got off at the ferry terminal and bought $1 tickets for the ride over to Port Royal that would be leaving soon. Hunter took us over to the seawall to sit and gave us a short history lesson about Port Royal and places we would visit. Hunter asked if we wanted to go swimming at his favorite place, Lime Cay. He said he needed to hire a boat for the round trip, and it would cost $10 plus a little tip. We quickly agreed. The ferry gave a signal to board.

Once we got off the ferry, Hunter took us over to the fisherman’s boats on the beach where he arranged for the trip to Lime Key we would take after touring Port Royal. Over the next hour or so, we toured the old Fort Charles and museum as well as Giddy House and shared a drink with our boat captain and Hunter at the Y-Knot before heading down to the beach to shove off for Lime Cay.

The old wooden boat reeked heavily of dead fish, but I just guess that just indicated he was a good fisherman and capable of getting us there and back from Lime Cay. We cut our way out of Kingston Harbor but our destination wasn’t visible as the boat pounded the wave tops and the outboard motor changing pitch as it alternated between being under and on top of the water. About 30 minutes later, a small island appeared in the distance. Lime Cay.

We got off the boat and Hunter stopped me from paying the boat captain. “You don’t pay until he comes back to pick us up”, he said. “That way you pretty much know he will be back”. I smiled. I am getting hang of the Jamaica ting. We put our stuff on an old concrete table topped by a weather-worn thatch covering that had seen better days. No real shade here anywhere as we watched the boat fade into the Kingston skyline. My wife and Hunter sprinted to the water and dove in. I followed close behind. We swam and bobbed in the water playfully splashing each other. Actually, they were mainly splashing me! I was wondering if I were losing my wife to this “Hunter”!

Hunter waded back out of the water and returned with three sets of snorkel masks and tubes he borrowed from Peter. We adjusted them and began to snorkel. Wow! This is why people came out here. They came to snorkel. The fish were colorful and big. Although there was a small reef around the island, it quickly dropped off to a hundred feet or more in depth. A large fish, I think a shark of some kind, swam directly below me which caused me to doggy-paddle my way to shallower water.

In the later afternoon, I kept searching the skyline for our returning boat captain dreading he would not, and we would be stranded here all night or even longer. “Here he comes!”, I heard Hunter yell and felt much better knowing that. We retraced our route back to Port Royal where I paid our boat captain with a little tip that he showed appreciation for by giving us cold Red Stripes.

We took the ferry, a city bus, and a taxi back to Peter’s place just as the sun was setting. We ate some cut up fruit grown mainly in the yard for a dinner. James Dennis was sitting on his usual log seat and I wanted to give both him and Hunter a little something, so I went to the tent. We had started this trip in Reno Nevada, and I had 52 silver dollars I won in a small bag. I took out ten of them and gave five each to Hunter and James. A small token but they seemed to really appreciate it. We hugged and shook hands all around and retired to the tent for the night.

Tomorrow we would be on our way to another new adventure.

[Accompong]

Today is Sunday July 17th and we got up early to wash up and change into our newly washed and air-dried clean clothes. We decided to walk down the beach and see what else may be open to get some breakfast or something like it. We saw a few places, but nothing seemed to have people around, so we kept walking until we came across the craft market at the river. There we found some people cooking in big pots and we were plenty hungry by then. After eating, my wife wanted to shop a little for a souvenir but wanted to see what else was available, so we continued walking on the roadside into the West End.

We walked for a time until we came across a row of stalls opposite the ocean side of the road displaying colorful towels and some shirts. She browsed the shops looking for something different but small because of the limited room in our backpacks. She settled on a couple of small, woven baskets that nested inside each other and a woven smallish beach bag to carry things too. As we were standing there, a small airplane flew over with loudspeakers blaring from an open door. They were announcing a revival that was happening somewhere around where we were, but we were geographically challenged. We thought it unusual and a little funny way to reach people but agreed it was quite effective.

We walked back to the river mouth where a boat had just come in with about a half dozen lobsters, so my wife went over and bought one for a couple of dollars. We took it back to our cabin and my wife went to go borrow a pot from Valerie to cook it. Valerie offered to cook it for her along with a pot of rice. We accepted.

While we were sitting and watching the lobster cooking, I asked Valerie about catching the country bus the following day as we had a plane to catch out of Kingston in the later afternoon. She told us the bus did not come by in time for us to make the trip and meet the plane. She went on to suggest we get a taxi to Mandeville and catch the bus out of there. She knew a guy named Roy who had a Ford Cortina that could take us, so we arranged for a pickup.

We had to be ready at about 4:30am. We looked at each other in shock. Well, it was important that we make our plane, so we agreed. After we ate and tipped Valerie for her cooking and hospitality, we headed back to the cabin to pack and get a little sleep. Sleeping was difficult knowing we had to be ready at 4:30am but we finally fell asleep.

“Beep! Beep!”, it was the sound of a little Cortina horn.

[Accompong]

The best way I can describe this experience is how I saw it at the time. An out of body yet clinical examination as an observer from somewhere high over my body. I am not religious, in fact, I am anything but. Yet, I can only imagine that if it happened to someone else, I would understand if they suddenly gave away their possessions and joined the Hari Krishnas at the airport.

I seemed to start by imagining that I was outdoors walking in a lush landscape approaching a bush alongside the trail. I stopped to visually examine the bush when I thought I saw movement coming from behind its far side. I leaned a little to my left and craned my neck to get a better look when suddenly I caught a glimpse coming from the bush’s right so I leaned to the right and, again, craned my neck to look. Repeating it again and again; faster and faster until my head was spinning making me feel a little nauseous. With each cycle, I seemed to get a better and better look at the object until, like viewing a kinetoscope’s fluttering image, it began to morph into a 3-dimensional live image of, you guessed it, a rabbit.

It seemed like we stood face to face examining each other for an exceedingly long time. My mind was urging me to see if it was real. To reach out and touch it or grab it or something but I instinctively knew I could not or, maybe, should not. I was not afraid only curious but not curious enough to follow as the rabbit turned and hopped a zig-zag pattern up the trail looking back at times to see if I was following. I felt an urge to follow but something was holding me back. A hand….

“Wake up!” “Are you okay?” I felt a hand on my shoulder as I opened my eyes to my wife’s concerned face lit by the dim light of the dollar store flashlight. I was drenched in sweat even though it was a slightly cool evening. “You must have been having a nightmare”, she offered. I could not wait to tell her about the dream while it was fresh in my mind. She listened. “If I didn’t wake you, would you have followed that rabbit?” To this day, I can’t say one way or the other if I would or wouldn’t not have followed.

I later learned that “chasing the rabbit” is a reflection of the temporary happiness you enjoy (according to theastrologyweb.com )

Perhaps Jamaica is that rabbit….metaphorically speaking.

[Accompong]

We thought we were pretty clever taking the backseat on the bus as it was a bench seat all the way across the back. This way we could spread out a little and even lie down if needed. The biggest problem, we thought, was a board under the seat cushion making the seat hard. The old country buses also had no suspension to absorb the numerous pot holes so, when we hit one near Orcabessa, we flew up in the air so high we hit the ceiling of the bus only to come down hard making a loud bang. Everyone seemed to turn back around and suppress a laugh at the tourists in the back seat. A little embarrassing.

It got me concentrating on the road ahead as best I could to avoid it again. We came across another giant hole and I knew we could not miss it, so I had us lift our bodies off the seat by about a foot to make room for the jolt. It worked and when everyone turned around to see how we were, we just smiled and gave them a thumb’s up sign. And so, it went for the next 7 or 8 hours until we entered Negril.

By this time, the bus was mainly empty as most people got off in Montego Bay or Lucea and we picked up fewer and fewer passengers as we progressed along the old road to Negril. I made my way up to the conductor and told him we wanted off at Firefly. He nodded and said “soon come” so I returned to our seat. Shortly, the bus pulled over and we were there.

As I remember the place, there was a one story home and office where (I think her name was Valerie), a guy and some kids lived that was still unfinished next to two outdoor showers with concrete walls about 5 feet high. We walked up to the office and gave Valerie the receipt that Peter had given us and waited for her reaction. She readily accepted it and slipped into a pair of sandals and walked us to our cabin.

I think that at the time there were only two cedar wood cabins on a knoll next to the beach and a lifeguard stand just beyond as well. The cabin was small and had bunk beds with a naked light bulb for light. Since we had been living out of a tent up until then, it seemed like a castle to us. We dropped off our packs and locked the door. I headed to the beach and my wife headed to the showers to wash her hair and some dirty clothes as we were running low on clean ones.

I looked down the beach and saw no people as far as I could see. Only an overturned, beached fishing boat or two. Suddenly, just down a bit, a youth on a moped came putting up the beach and stopped in front of me. “Hi, they call me Mushroom Kenny” as he thrust a paper shopping bag into my hands containing magic mushrooms. I handed it back and said I wasn’t interested. He was getting a little annoying and hard to avoid as he began to list almost every drug I had ever heard of and some I never had. I kept saying “No!” and waved him away but he was nothing else but persistent so I just avoided him enough to run into the ocean where he could not follow.

About the time Mushroom Kenny gave up and motored down the beach, my wife emerged ready to join me in a swim. It was just getting dusk and the romantic atmosphere was overwhelming. She said she hated to leave Jah Mikes, but she was glad she was here. That make me very happy. It was getting quite dark and we were very tired by lack of sleep the night before and the long bus ride to get here.

We retired to the cabin and I took the top bunk bed. I was fearful all night long that I might fall out but still managed to feel rested in the morning for our last full day in Negril and Jamaica.