Jamaica 2022

Kingston & Bob Marley: The Jamaica Tour Begins

Times were when the Liguanea Club was a preserve of the privileged and the wealthy, stretching across 35 acres of prime Kingston territory and providing a sporting facility second to none in Jamaica, financially out of bounds to the vast majority of the population. Now, reduced in size but still with an impressive array of facilities for tennis, squash and swimming, it’s a relaxing yet relatively inexpensive place to stay with its wood panelled corridors echoing to the sound of visitors’ footsteps. It’s kind of a sports club with bedrooms.

There is an undeniable feel of bygone colonial splendour when taking Jamaican breakfast on the terrace at Liguanea as the sun rises above the city and the surrounding mountains emerge from the morning haze: it’s a bit like a scene from “Death In Paradise”. What it actually is though, is a scene from Dr No, the opening scene in fact, when apparently the first murder is committed, so, as a consequence, 007 paraphernalia is unsurprisingly liberally spread throughout the building. The passing of time may have taken the Liguanea Club from “classy” to somewhere closer to “shabby colonial” but it’s lost none of its ability to make one feel at ease and is rather a serene place to sit and chat.

It’s so easy to fall into conversation with Jamaicans: pleased to welcome visitors to their island, they are free with advice on places to go, helpful with information on island locations and even more happy to talk about rum, all delivered in that endearing, amusing lilt and dialect so enchantingly typical of Jamaica. 

“Morning” says Michaela on entering the Digicel store, “I’m looking to buy a tourist SIM please, could you tell me what offers are available?”. The Digicel girl inexplicably dissolves into fits of giggles and has to compose herself before she can respond, which at this stage is a bit of a mystery. We will come to understand later in the day.

The congested, car horn filled thoroughfare which is Hope Road ambles away from the clock tower past the offices and home of the Prime Minister, and past King’s House, the home of the Governor General, to eventually reach two of Kingston’s major attractions, Devon House and the Bob Marley Museum. No visit to Jamaica would be complete without delving into just how much Bob Marley has etched himself into Jamaican culture.

Housed in the very place on Hope Road which was both his home and the location of the Tuff Gong recording studio, the museum provides real insight into Marley’s life, values and beliefs, in particular the oppression of the black majority. Against a backdrop of Jamaica’s tough history of the brutal treatment of slave labour by the white rulers, the harsh treatment of the poorest by corrupt police and callous authorities hit the young boy hard and left an indelible impression.

Having seen his elderly English father desert his much younger mother at a tender age, Marley was raised in the ghetto type surroundings of the appropriately but disturbingly named Trench Town, and saw music not only as his opportunity to escape but, much more importantly, a chance to give a platform to those in society whose voice would never otherwise be heard. Visiting this museum provides real insight into the inspiration behind the music.

The guided tour of the museum is nothing short of excellent, as we learn of the meaning and power of Bob Marley’s lyrics, of the beliefs of the Rastafarian movement and, yes, the importance of marijuana in terms of life, the universe and everything. We are invited as a group to sing excerpts from his songs, see the mixing desks, guitars and platinum discs, learn to play percussion instruments directly from the revered Bongo Herman who is still employed by the Marley family.

Of course, each time the tour group moves from room to room, our guide calls “OK, time for Exodus, movement of da people”, and finishes most sentences with “yeah man”, but this simply serves to add to the engaging and absorbing feel of the tour. Anyone with as much as a passing interest in the evolution of meaningful music should visit this museum and do this tour – it really is that good.

Devon House, meanwhile, is something altogether different: a mansion built by George Steibel, Jamaica’s first black millionaire. Set in sumptuous grounds, this delightful 19th century building is notable for the practical nature of its design: spacious airy rooms in logical order rather than the narrow rooms and draughty corridors so often found in the great houses of England.

Steibel was to die only fifteen years after construction was completed but the grandeur of this delightful and historic property is still very evident today. Devon House is also home to a parlour listed by National Geographic as the 4th best place in the world to eat ice cream, which is one of those facts which only make you wonder where the other three are. You actually get a voucher for a free one as part of completing the tour of the house, and zero, in my book, is about the right price for ice cream as I really don’t like the stuff.

Staff at the House just won’t take no for an answer though and I end up clutching a rapidly melting concoction which (ice cream lovers will hate this) makes the short journey across the lawns straight from parlour to waste bin. Michaela manages roughly half of hers before it suffers the same fate.

Nevertheless, visiting the ice cream cafe is worth it for another reason – as soon as we ask for a bottle of water, the guy dissolves into giggles In precisely the same way that the Digicel girl had earlier. We can’t help but join in with his infectious laughter.

“What’s funny?” we ask through our own giggles.

“It’s your English accent”, he says, “it hilarious man”.

Ah, so that’s it! Just as we’re falling in love with the rich Jamaican dialect which brings a smile to our faces every time we hear it, the locals are just as amused by our accent! 

We think we’re going to have fun here.

Kingston: Heroes And Thankfully No Villains

Our walk out from the comfortable surroundings of the Liguanea Club each morning takes us across Emancipation Park with its manicured gardens and one-way jogging circuit where copper coloured doves peck among the benches and resting gentlemen call out a greeting, or a welcome to Jamaica, as we walk by.

This park is part of the land which was gifted to the Government by the original and exclusive Liguanea Club as the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew burgeoned in size when merchants and workers alike sought better working and living conditions. Much of the area of what is now known as New Kingston sits on the Liguanea Plain which had been largely unoccupied prior to the devastating earthquake of 1692 when huge areas of the previously thriving capital of Port Royal disappeared into the sea. A more recent earthquake in 1907 saw a further increase in the urbanisation of the former sugar plantations on the plain.

Emancipation Park opened in 2002, to celebrate Jamaica’s evolutionary history from slavery to freedom – hence the name – together with the resilience and spirit of the Jamaican people, with open spaces and water features designed to represent freedom and purity. At its entrance sits the bronze statue entitled Redemption Song – another Bob Marley reference, obviously – designed by Laura Facey to represent the triumphant rise of the people from the horrors of slavery. The statue didn’t initially meet with universal approval, detractors disliking its somewhat ostentatious representations of certain parts of the anatomy….as you can probably see…

Further celebration of Jamaica’s history and culture can be seen downtown in Old Kingston where quantities of glorious street art adorn the walls of an area centred around Water Lane. As we study these works and absorb the messages, the role played by music in the assertion of culture is very clear, the faces of musicians peering out from between the messages of pride and heritage.

One such, which reads, “The black skin is not a badge of shame but rather a symbol of national greatness”, speaks massive volumes and needs no further input from us. 

It’s fair to say that Kingston does not enjoy a reputation as the World’s safest city. Wandering in the heat of the day calls for a stepping up of precautionary tactics (keep phones and cameras hidden, stay in busier areas, carry small amounts of cash in several different pockets/bags, just in case), but walking the city after dark is not advised in any guide book. Consequently our evenings out are by taxi both ways, arranged by Liguanea on the way out and by our chosen destination for the return journey. We don’t risk walking between bar and restaurant. Forewarned is forearmed after all and there’s no point taking unnecessary risks.

One such sortie takes us to Usain Bolt’s restaurant, named Tracks & Records. Its name would suggest a pun pairing rock music with Bolt’s athletic prowess, but it is in fact an American themed sports bar where the NFL takes priority over the World Cup and the size of the main TV screen and its accompanying decibel levels are at the extreme end of extreme. Despite that, it’s still a fun place to be. For a while.

Friday morning and the increased humidity carries the threat of a storm, which in the end hovers over the mountains but never hits town. We’re escaping the heat sipping a chilled coffee somewhere near the disappointingly sparse Craft Market when Michaela first complains of a growing headache. By the time we’ve returned to Liguanea to sit through England’s turgid World Cup match against the USA with a group of bemused and bored locals, we all feel like our brains are hurting.

Towards the downtown area of Old Kingston lies a wide open, roughly oval piece of green parkland, originally a race track but now home to the National Heroes Park. Artistically inspired monuments stand proudly above the tombs of the great and good of Jamaica’s history in a peaceful open space where security guards outnumber visitors and butterflies outnumber both. It’s a humbling place. Inscription after inscription, quote after quote, remember those national heroes who fought for the rights of the masses, fought for the honour of Jamaicans, fought for the humane treatment of workers. Fought, indeed, for equality.

We leave the park feeling considerably humbled and full of respect for a nation which honours those who fought oppression, racism and misuse of power.

Further south from here is the real people’s market, adjacent to William Grant (formerly Victoria) Square, full of life, noise and colour, so different from the disappointing craft market which had zero in the way of character. Higglers shout, buyers test the fruit, people fill carrier bags with produce, the air hangs heavy under a marijuana cloud. Sadly we can take no photographs: we have been told so many times that this is not a place to hold a camera or iphone out in the open. But wow what sights, wow what an atmosphere.

So, what about the safety issue, here in this city with such a reputation? We have, personally, witnessed nothing: we haven’t felt in danger, we haven’t felt unwelcome, we have certainly not felt threatened. Far from it, in fact. But such is the intensity of warning that we have minimised any risk, hence the lack of photos from the more colourful areas. 

The lack of photos is a shame but being unable to use Google maps is inhibiting, as is the lack of opportunity to aimlessly wander. But the warnings are clearly real: find the quietest corner to check the map on your phone, and from somewhere a friendly motorist will call “please put your phone in your bag” as they drive by. Shopkeepers make sure you’ve put your money back into a secure pocket before they let you leave their shop. The danger is clearly here even though, thankfully, we’ve seen nothing to prove it.

Some themes are developing which are quite likely to remain with us throughout our time in Jamaica: emancipation, Bob Marley and James Bond, for starters. Now though, stage one is complete as we leave the capital city and head for the mountains. The Blue Mountains….

Into (And Up) The Blue Mountains 

On previous trips we have spent time in a remote tribal village in northern Thailand, in a mud hut in the Sunderbans mangrove swamps way beyond the reach of roads, and, in Albania, miles from anywhere in the wonderfully named Accursed Mountains. Our new location in Jamaica feels at least as remote and wonderful as those places….

This is without doubt one of the most breathtaking, peaceful, remote locations in which we have ever stayed, where exotic hummingbirds feed from the bottle bush trees and the occasional echoing bird call is all that breaks the silence. The hulking mountains loom large across the valley, darkened against the sky, brooding in a silence so intense that it is a sound in its own right. 

Closer to the clouds than it is to concrete, buried deep in the forested mountains, the tiny community of Lime Tree is beautifully detached from the rest of the world, way up on top of the island and within sight of Jamaica’s highest peak. This is a truly isolated community, difficult to reach and one which can be cut off for six weeks at a time when the rainy season brings landslides.

The journey here is fantastic. Picking up the hire car and heading out of the city, we hit the foothills of the forested mountains less than a mile after once more passing Bob Marley’s iconic statue. Within minutes the road is broken and potholed, crumbling where mountain water run-offs cross its path, twisting around hairpins and diving into hidden dips.

Gordon Town is the last village of any note as we seemingly leave civilisation behind and climb to our prearranged meeting point at Mavis Bank – prearranged because from here it’s no longer a road and only a Land Rover or 4×4 will do. In the case of Rodger our host, it’s the former. Leaving the hire car in a secluded corner of the forest, we’re in to the Land Rover and on to an assault course track which is so “off road” that it takes over half an hour to climb the five kilometres to Lime Tree from where we have left our car. All the way, every glimpse of scenery is a feast for the eye.

Lime Tree is little more than a handful of shacks nestled among the trees: trees which are heavy with fruits both familiar and unknown. Beyond the dwellings the track rises to the top of an impossible ridge way above the world, the visible tyre tracks of Rodger’s Land Rover leading to the very end of the ridge where the land just drops away on all three sides. And here, between the land and the sky, is Lime Tree Farm, our home for the next few days.

As we sit sipping our first Red Stripe looking at this incredible scenery, birds are all around. The spectacular swallowtail hummingbird, known locally as the “doctor bird” and Jamaica’s national bird, hovers and takes nectar so close by that Michaela captures numerous terrific shots. Hawks hang around for the kill, vultures scour the land for the already dead. 

Coffee. Aficionados will know that Jamaican Blue Mountain is ranked as one of the world’s finest coffees, especially from the beans harvested above 3,000ft. Picture a coffee plantation and you think of the regimented lines of plants rather like a vineyard; that’s not how it is here, where the coffee plants mingle with fruit trees, eucalyptus, banana palms, pine trees and others in these intensely green mountainsides. This terrain makes “regimented” impossible.

At Lime Tree Farm, the delicious coffee is of course made from the beans harvested within yards of the house – but then so is pretty much everything we eat here. When you live this far from civilisation, maximising use of your own produce is essential, and apart from the fish just about everything is sourced just outside the door.

Rodger talks eloquently about this area and its history, and about Jamaica as a whole, over our first sumptuous dinner, describing how most Jamaicans have never been up here in the Blue Mountains and how only 1 in 10,000 visitors to the island ever experience this. There are no other guests here yet in the five rooms at the farm, it’s just us, Rodger, his wife Tifony and their excellent cook and all round helper Keisha.

Next morning we are joined by Max from “just south of Atlanta Georgia” who will join us on our hikes here. Before we reached Lime Tree, we had decided that climbing to Jamaica’s highest point was not on the agenda; once we are here though, the sense of challenge coupled with Rodger’s encouragement, sells it to us and, despite ourselves, we decide to take it on.

After a practice run along a ridge known as the General’s Bench with Rodger as guide and Black Ops the dog alongside, the next day brings a 5am pick up and an assault on the Blue Mountain Peak Trail. It’s a 4-hour climb with an elevation gain of around 3,000ft to reach the summit, Jamaica’s highest point at 7,401ft – no guide or friendly dog this time. By the time we’ve made it back down to the trailhead, it’s been a six-and-a-half hour long, testing hike, and the three of us are pretty tired by completion.

Rated as “challenging”, the uphill climb definitely lives up to that description, partly due to the unrelenting steep incline and partly due to the tree cover which restricts the stunning views to occasional glimpses of the amazing country around us. Given that we had resolved not to do this hike, it turns out to be quite a toughie. 

To even reach this hike, the journey to and from the trailhead at Abbey Green is 90 minutes of the roughest, bumpiest, boneshakingest, headbangingest dirt roads you can imagine – 90 minutes to do what must be considerably less than 20 kilometres. After completing the trail, the return journey with aching legs crammed into minimum space is another endurance test in its own right, made slightly better by the fact that, as we travel home, England are stuffing three goals past the Welsh to progress to the next stage of the World Cup.

Chatting with Rodger really brings home the isolation of living up here. Imagine having to plan a 4-hour round trip to buy petrol (gas) and diesel, let alone some basic provisions. Imagine having to live off the land when the rains come. Imagine being cut off for six weeks without power, without water until you yourself repair the pump at the natural spring. Imagine being cut off until you and the other villagers clear the fallen trees and debris from the dirt roads.

To run a coffee farm with accommodation on site in a location as remote as this, you’ve got to be pretty capable. Who else but you is going to repair the water pump/pipeline/broken gate/Land Rover/generator/washing machine? Rodger is clearly very capable.

Yet here’s the thing: Rodger wasn’t born here, he’s English. Originally coming out here to help his mate Charlie build the farm on untamed land, Rodger ended up buying Charlie’s half, marrying local girl Tifony, and pretty much building this place single handed. Everything from the delightfully comfortable cottages (which we referred to as “rooms” earlier) to the dining table where guests dine, the plumbing, the wiring, the viewing terraces….all Rodger’s, and in the earlier stages Charlie’s, work. Rodger’s been here nigh on twenty years now. What an amazing, unconventional lifestyle this man has chosen.

As we pack up to leave here, we are a little sad to be going so soon. The peace, the silence, the clear air, the views, will all be missed. One more day relaxing from yesterday’s strenuous hike and breathing more of this mountain air would be perfect. Chatting more with Rodger, Tifony and Keisha, who is another one blessed with that gorgeously infectious Jamaican laugh, is incredibly appealing and we can’t shake the feeling that we’re leaving too soon.

But, as ever on our travels, there is so much more to see….

To The North Coast: Lime Tree To Port Antonio

Driving Jamaica is very heavy on concentration levels, mainly because the roads are in such appalling condition. Giant potholes, boulders in the road, piles of builders’ rubble, sudden narrowing of road to single line traffic…main roads which suddenly hit an unmade stretch without warning. It’s all here. You have to keep your eyes on the road surface as well as the other vehicles for every inch of every journey.

Consequently it’s a long slow drive from Mavis Bank to our next destination at Port Antonio on the north coast, a drive which involves climbing right over the top of the mountain range before descending through sumptuous green valleys alongside the Buff Bay River. We opt to follow the B1 roadway, but don’t be fooled by the fact that the road has a number – this is a twisting, rolling lane which now and again declines into the “unmade” category.

En route we make a coffee stop at the amazing location of Strawberry Hill – well, after convincing the security guard that it’s OK to let these two scruffy English bods into such revered territory, anyway. Strawberry Hill is an exclusive hideaway and spa resort way up in the Blue Mountains with spectacular uninterrupted views all the way back to Kingston and Port Royal. None of that is why we’re here though.

This is a place etched into music history. Island Records boss Chris Blackwell, he who brought Bob Marley to the world, bought Strawberry Hill and created this rich man’s paradise which became a destination retreat for stellar characters from the music business. The walls are adorned with iconic photographs….wander around and you’ll see pictures of the likes of Grace Jones, Springsteen, Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sting and The Police, U2 and, probably best of all, a shot of Jagger and Marley TOGETHER…….

I absolutely love it, sitting on this balcony looking out for miles across Jamaica, knowing that we’re on the very spot where hedonistic rock’n’roll lifestyles have been played out over and over. If it wasn’t for being in the middle of a long drive, we’d be ordering a rum cocktail and soaking it up for hours. Just imagine the parties here…

Our journey finally hits the coast at Buff Bay, from where the road hugs the shoreline most of the way to Port Antonio, an authentic Caribbean town out of the reach of the likes of Sandals – for now, at least. Here, the Patois dialect is written as well as spoken, an enthralling English to English language barrier which is made even more entertaining by the fact that most of the locals can switch off the dialect when they realise that we’re struggling to understand. We don’t always want them to: we’re trying to tune in.

Port Antonio sweeps around a wide double-cup bay where the white Caribbean surf charges in with considerable panache. You can hear the crashing waves everywhere in town – except perhaps where the reggae is too loud – but this town which has no beach and no gentrified waterfront is undeniably appealing in a laid back ramshackle kind of way.

Somewhere behind some locked gates is the wonderfully named Errol Flynn Marina, home to a cruise ship terminal which apparently only sees one liner per month, and even then only outside hurricane season. The appeal of the rest of the town is its gritty normality: we wonder what those occasional cruise passengers, more used to exotic calls, must make of Port Antonio. They probably don’t like it.

A short drive east from our new base brings us to our first proper desert island style beach at Frenchmans Cove, where it is so much fun to get bashed around by the surging waves and powerful currents. The cove is small but beautiful, just so photogenic that we instantly feel, “yep, this is what we expected”.

The other way, to the west, the wide Rio Grande river sweeps beneath the road and into the sea at St Margaret’s Bay, one of the locations which offers raft rides along the river. With a raft made entirely out of bamboo, and a bamboo pole for punting, our “captain” (his word) Trevor takes us on a serene and peaceful trip along the water, far away from reggae beats and pounding waves and deep into the tropical greenery.

It’s a delightful experience, calmly floating along the waters for three whole hours with only the plop and swish of the bamboo pole and the occasional cry of a heron to disturb the peace. We seem awfully close to the water, and unprotected, given that we’ve read that there are crocodiles in the Rio Grande. Trevor laughs when we mention it.

“Man” he chortles, “I been raftin turty too year on dis river an I ain’t never see one croc”. 

Well that’s alright then. “Maybe today you be da lucky ones”, he adds, shooting us a mischievous smile. Part way through the ride, the serenity is interrupted by heavy raindrops peppering the river – Trevor pulls the raft over to the cover of the trees and produces, of all things, an umbrella. We must look an odd site, two white people huddled under an umbrella on a raft in the middle of a tropical river.

The showers around Port Antonio are heavy and regular; unlike the southern side which sits in the rain shadow of the Blue Mountains, the northern coast has no wholly dry season and some quantity of rain falls in each month. But then of course, you don’t get this beautiful green scenery without regular rainfall.

At nearby Somerset Falls a different, shorter boat trip with an oarsman and – wait for it – life jackets (!!) takes us beneath the modest but splendid cascade which drops into the dark, moss covered rocks in this strangely attractive little setting.

Possibly the strangest thing about Port Antonio is the coffee: there isn’t any! After the utter delights of our first two locations, we are completely thrown by the fact that there’s no coffee shops and the only thing on offer in cafes is Nescafe. It’s as if all of the Blue Mountain coffee either gets consumed up there in the mountains or goes straight to Kingston for export. I wish I’d known that before we reached here, I declined so many chances to buy, never thinking for a moment we’d hit a coffee-free zone.

Evening falls quickly in Port Antonio. Sunset is around 5.40pm and the darkness closes in at speed after that, and as it does so, the air fills with an outrageous cacophony of creature noises. Imagine several thousand squeaky child’s swings going back and forth and several thousand hospital heart monitors beeping at the same time. The first time we heard it all, we asked a girl in a bar what it all is..

“Dem is fraags”, she says.

“Frogs!? Wow, we never would have thought that”.

And then we wonder if it all goes on until daylight, and ask a second, different girl that question. She laughs.

“Dem is naat fraags”, she says through her laughter, “dem is crickets”.

So we’re none the wiser, really.

Street Food, Food Wars & This Unfair World: Port Antonio To Falmouth

We always think there’s something exciting about it when foods with unfamiliar names appear on the menu, and for reasons we can’t quite grasp, it’s even more exciting when it’s breakfast. So to discover that the traditional Jamaican breakfast is ackee and saltfish with johnny cakes and bammy is just irresistible. A side dish of callaloo? Even better!

Jamaican food is tasty, often hot and spicy and full of unusual ingredients – though they do like to surround the tasty dishes with a large amount of rather weighty, carb-heavy accompaniments. And by the way the stories are true, there’s certainly no scrimping on the amount of alcohol in the cocktails here – slug them at your peril!

One message we would give to would-be visitors to Jamaica is: don’t be afraid to go for the street food. Curry goat, brown stew chicken, hearty soups and patties are everywhere, and almost always delicious. Patties, if you don’t know, look like Cornish pasties which have been put in a trouser press.

Jerk is probably Jamaica’s most famous ingredient, so we make our final excursion from Port Antonio a trip to Boston Beach, said to be the very place where jerk was invented. Sure enough, a huddle of jerk shacks between the unmade road and the oh so pretty beach tells us we are in the right place. It’s OK, but in truth isn’t the best jerk we’ve tasted so far, despite its claims on originality.

As we order our food, voices are being raised all around us, and it slowly starts to dawn that there is some sort of dispute between shack owners which is reaching fever point. One – let’s call him Jay – is seriously agitated, yelling right in the face of those on the other side of the argument. We can barely catch a word – angry Patois is a whole other level of difficulty.

Finally Jay really loses it and hurls a full bottle of Red Stripe (cap removed) straight at his adversaries, and all hell breaks loose. Everyone from every shack is on their feet, all shouting at once, remonstrating, some trying to calm it down, others taking sides in the war.

Now, we think of ourselves as not being stereotypically British. Yet here we are, mayhem all around us, sat at our table and carrying on with our meal as if everything is perfectly normal. Stiff upper lip. British stoicism. We must look like Sid James, Joan Sims and co in “Carry On Up The Khyber” steadfastly taking tea while the building around them is being bombed. 

Next morning it’s time to pack the bags, load the car and say goodbye to Port Antonio. Driving west along the coast is something of a revelation: the changes are absolutely palpable. Leaving the rural east behind and heading into the more visited western half, road surfaces become infinitely better and eminently more driveable, hotel complexes grow larger and more and more white faces are evident. White visitors means investment, evidently.

We pass through great little coastal towns: Annotto Bay, Port Maria and Oracabessa all look lovely, but we take an excellent brunch break at Ocho Rios, the first real resort town of our Jamaica tour. It may be a popular tourist destination but it feels extremely welcoming in our brief stop here: they’re even free with “advice” when I drive the wrong way down a one-way street!

Throughout the journey to our next destination at Falmouth, we have one eye on the clock. England play Senegal this afternoon and we need to make kick off. Ending up in a bar where the locals are clearly on the side of the opposition, England stroll to a second successive 3-0 win and we are the only drinkers celebrating. At the final whistle we take the magnanimous congratulations of the local punters and walk back down Duke Street with broad smiles. Yeah man. Irie.

Heading back out for our evening meal, the same bar is very busy and extremely rowdy, but the rest of Falmouth is quiet. Groups of people hang around in the street, but all of the restaurants on the Google map are either closed or non-existent. It seems Sunday night is not the time to arrive in Falmouth.

So we go to bed having eaten nothing since our brunch in Ocho Rios – and when we say nothing, we don’t just mean no meal, we mean that not a crumb has passed our lips since this morning. By the time we find somewhere open for breakfast on Monday morning, we’ve not had a morsel of food in 21 hours. “Hungry travellers” indeed!

To be frank, Falmouth is a bit odd. There are some lovely old Georgian houses – Jamaica’s best apparently – but this is a town of strange clashes. Rustic, obviously not affluent, maybe a little basic…yet almost daily the cruise ships dock, thousands of passengers disembark, but most of them hop straight on to their shuttle buses and head to inland sights.

For the very small percentage of passengers who wander around the town, craft market stall holders set up, hoping and praying that just a few of the dollars head their way. On our second day here, two ships dock, with 6,000 passengers between them. We see no more than a few dozen of them in town. Our heart bleeds for the people of Falmouth; such riches, so many customers, all kept just out of reach, and all heading back for their sumptuous meal on board while these guys have so little. It’s not a fair world, is it.

Just out of town is the “876 Beach Club” described thus on the internet….”the party is always kicking here with lively music and entertainment, a large floating water park for endless play, a sizzling jerk pan taking care of lunch and snacks, a well-stocked bar and beautifully maintained grounds and facilities”.

We call in there and find a desolate scene where there’s just us two, three staff twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do, a derelict bar, deserted buildings and seaweed strewn across the sands. One forlorn guy tries to sell us a few beads. Music and food? Not a chance. COVID has killed these places, killed these livelihoods. 

And then they have to watch the cruise passengers disappear back and forth on their minibuses. 

From Monday night the bars and jerk shacks of Falmouth are back up and running, the Sunday impasse over. We indulge in a few Red Stripes, a few coconut rums and a jerk bowl each. It’s not much to help the plight of these people, but what else can we do. At least we’re in an airbnb within a family home and not away on the boat tonight.

Travel is full of lessons. Some harder than others. Puts going to bed without dinner in perspective, doesn’t it.

The Good, The Bad And The Silly: Adventures Around Falmouth

Is it just me or are wind chimes slightly sinister? Does the sound make you picture a deranged axeman who grins inanely to the tinkling sound as he brutally removes the head and limbs of a victim? No? Must be just me then…

The sea breeze here in Falmouth is enough to keep the airbnb chimes doing what they do but not enough to deter the unseen, biting insects from doing what they do too. If Michaela isn’t dabbing cream or gel on herself then she’s scratching around the little red mounds which are appearing everywhere; these little perishers have even put a few marks on my flesh, an area normally well off limits for such critters.

Falmouth was always intended to be a base for out of town adventures rather than a base in its own right, a good choice as it isn’t exactly full of attractions itself. Our next such trip out of town is another chapter in the Bob Marley story, out to Nine Mile, both birthplace and mausoleum of Jamaica’s most revered modern day character.

Having heard that Nine Mile is a “must do” in Jamaica, having also received many good recommendations from travellers whose opinion we trust, and with the Marley museum in Kingston having been so good, we know it will be worth the long drive on the poorly kept roads up into the mountains. Except it really isn’t, turning out to be our least edifying Jamaica experience so far by some distance.

It’s not the touts outside, the bogus “guides” or the hawkers – we expect those and they’re all well mannered anyway – it’s actually the place itself. Firstly, it’s not exactly cheap at almost £30 each to enter (!), but once inside we are subjected to the most blatant unashamed money grabbing onslaught you can imagine.

It actually starts off OK with a room filled with gold discs and framed newspaper clippings, but pretty much anything interesting ends there. What comes next is constant hassle from staff to buy drinks, buy food, buy marijuana, tip the musicians, tip the guide, tip everyone else and even put money in a pot to “pay for upkeep” when we’ve just paid almost £60 to get in. Add a self-satisfied guide who is obviously a wannabe comedian and spends the tour cracking bad jokes rather than telling us anything useful about the Marley clan and we leave Nine Mile feeling we’ve just lost half a day of our lives which we’ll never get back.

And given that it’s his final resting place, it actually feels disrespectful.

It’s a very different story at Dunn’s River Falls where disappointment turns to daft fun. Basically, this is a waterfall which you climb from (almost) bottom to top, clambering up the rocks and boulders through the cold cascading waters. Climbing a waterfall involves, by definition, such things as sticking your head under the onslaught, standing in whirlpools, losing your balance on the rocks, going unexpectedly from ankle deep to thigh deep in one step, letting your calf muscles get expertly massaged by pounding waters.

The more confident we get, the more we find to do, and the more our “spirit of being silly” takes over. There are, essentially, about twenty seven ways to do something daft, and we find all of them.

And speaking of offbeat things to do, there is, just outside Falmouth, a lagoon with some unusual properties. This is one of those strange places where bioluminescence occurs as a result of algae reacting with brackish waters, and thus it’s an inviting evening excursion too tempting to resist. Swish your arms around here and the dark waters instantly illuminate in a kind of electric blue, just for a few seconds before returning to dark. Swimming around creating this effect is as weird as it is amusing – it’s like being a water borne Michael Jackson, if you get my drift.

If you think climbing a waterfall or swimming in a luminescent lagoon sounds risky, it’s past sunset by the time we’ve grabbed a meal in Ocho Rios and we have to make the drive back to Falmouth in the dark. Amidst blinding full beams, cars with no lights at all, swerving taxis and minibuses and the occasional wayward goat, that’s far more scary than anything Dunn’s River Falls threw our way, but we come through unscathed.

Like Port Antonio, Falmouth is a coffee-free zone. Google Maps says there’s a cafe called “Koffee Pot” but it sure as hell ain’t here, nor is anywhere that serves anything other than Nescafe. A token few bags of “real” coffee occupy the supermarket shelves – bizarrely displayed in the liquor section – but neither of the airbnb’s have had a coffee maker or even a cafetière, so absent is it from daily lives here. We’ve had one decent coffee (at Ocho Rios) in nine days now and my caffeinometer is significantly into the red zone.

Something which is definitely not scarce here though is marijuana: it’s such a big part of life, part of religion, part of character, part of everything, as essential to daily life as breathing, seemingly. A cloud of sweet smelling smoke hangs everywhere. We haven’t yet plucked up courage to tell people here that neither Michaela nor I have ever smoked a joint in our lives – we think they would be utterly incredulous. 

There are some places on Earth that simply convey the exotic just by mention of their name. Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Acapulco, Jakarta….they evoke thoughts of romance and excitement in exactly the way that Luton doesn’t. Montego Bay is one such.

So although on this Jamaica tour we’ve largely eschewed the more obvious vacation targets, our base at Falmouth is only 27 kilometres from “Mo Bay” so we just have to go and see it for ourselves. And no wonder this place grew to be so popular, the pristine beaches and unbelievably glorious Caribbean waters are beautiful and spellbinding, just absolutely that perfect combination that is in our mind’s eye when we picture this part of the world.

The beaches are in sections and all of the best stretches carry an entry fee, but that doesn’t stop the jaw dropping when you look out over the gorgeous shoreline. The Caribbean blues are so incredibly deep, the water so clear. Along the seafront, the so-called “hip strip” is filled with bars, restaurants and the odd casino, and is quite probably far too loud at night…but for a daytime visit Montego Bay lives up to its reputation and provides that fix of seeing “the Caribbean beach” just as we all picture it.

The town of Falmouth owes its existence to the export of sugar cane – what is now the cruise ship terminal was once a thriving dockyard as the produce left these shores for destinations worldwide. The sugar cane plantations brought enormous wealth or, more accurately, brought enormous wealth to a small number. It also brought brutal treatment to a much larger number as tens of thousands of slaves toiled in the fields.

A small but meaningful memorial in Montego Bay commemorates Sam Sharpe, a leading figure in the fight towards emancipation. “Daddy” Samuel was one of the many thousands of slaves on Jamaica, but he was literate, devout, and a Baptist lay preacher. Emboldened by developments in London with moves to outlaw slavery in the wake of Wilberforce’s efforts, Sharpe targeted Christmas 1831 as a point of uprising.

Encouraging workers to refuse to return to work after the holidays unless their demands were met, the revolt soon turned from peaceful to violent and the retribution from plantation owners and the authorities was brutal. Sharpe, identified as the instigator, was publicly executed on the site where the memorial now stands.

Sharpe died a martyr for the cause, but after his death the cause was justified and emancipation and the end of slavery was soon to follow. Samuel Sharpe was designated a Jamaican national hero in 1975.

As our time in Falmouth nears its close, we next visit a place where we learn some brutal, horrific truths about those times. More on that subject in our next post.

Rose Hall: Great House Of Horrors

As we turn off the main A1 and climb the driveway towards the grand house, we only have a small inkling of the lessons in history we are about to receive. But before we start on the startling and dramatic story of Rose Hall, a brief partial history of Jamaica is necessary.

The earliest known inhabitants of this island were the Taino from South America who arrived on these shores in the 8th century. By the time Columbus arrived, first in 1494 and more significantly in 1502, it is estimated that the Taino population had reached around 100,000.

It was the Spanish who first started importing African slaves, yet they never completely exploited Jamaica as there was a greater attraction in the riches of South America. In came the British, first ousting the Spanish by allying with lawless pirates to ensure victory – the Spanish finally fled via what is still called Runaway Bay – and later by realising the value of sugar plantations.

With the Taino population having dwindled under Spanish rule, labour was needed, so in were brought an estimated 600,000 African slaves, most of whom were “bought” by trading manufactured goods from Britain. Something like 1 in 5 died on the way here, the rest subjected to inhumane, brutal treatment on the plantations, where they were “owned” by plantation bosses. 

Slaves were traded like commodities, their lives were expendable, their welfare irrelevant. The brutality and oppression suffered by the slaves is unimaginable, as is the callous manner in which it was dished out by those in power, seeking riches. No wonder Jamaica celebrates its heroes. People blessed with the courage to fight and overturn such outrages are heroes in every sense of the word.

Even the identity of slaves was stolen as they were forced to abandon their original African names and adopt the name of their “owner” – one reason why so many Caribbeans have English surnames to this day. Samuel Sharpe himself, martyred rebellion leader on the road to emancipation, bore the name of his “owner”, a different – white – Samuel Sharpe.

Sugar brought great riches to the planters and grand homes began to appear as a mark of power and authority on each plantation. It didn’t take long for the British to realise that construction of castles was inappropriate in the Caribbean climate, and so Jamaica began to sprout the “great houses”, the ostentatious homes of the wealthy plantation owners.

All of this brings us to Rose Hall, one of the few remaining, though heavily restored, great houses. Begun in 1750 by one George Ash and named after his wife Rose, construction was finally completed by Rose’s fourth husband, John Palmer, in 1780, as a so-called calendar house….365 windows, 52 doors and 12 bedrooms. After John and Rose’s death, ownership of the estate passed to a nephew’s wife, Annie Palmer. 

Annie was allegedly an evil white witch possessing extreme powers of voodoo. At Rose Hall, she brutally murdered three husbands, each one after a shorter marriage than the previous, as well as slaying an unspecified number of lovers. With an insatiable thirst for violence and brutality, Annie herself then fell victim to one of those lovers in a murderous rage. 

This woman’s propensity to evil did not begin or end with murder by her own hand. She would order the execution, by beheading, of slaves, purely for her own entertainment – she would gleefully watch their execution from her balcony. Any slave guilty of “transgression”, for instance being a few minutes late in emptying her commode, would be punished either by beheading or by being dropped into the dungeon and left to die by starvation. Apparently she liked to hear their screams of despair from beneath the house. Nice lady huh.

Annie imported bear traps to Jamaica, not to catch wild beasts but to ensnare any of the 2,000 slaves on the estate should they make a run for freedom. She finally met a gruesome end herself, murdered and buried in the grounds by her long time lover and murderous accomplice. What stories the walls of this grand house could tell.

There are several postscripts to this sinister history. Firstly, when the uprising came, nearly all of the great houses of the plantation owners across Jamaica  were razed to the ground, but such was the fear of the ghost of Annie Palmer, nobody had the courage to light the flame under Rose Hall, which instead fell slowly into disrepair until a wealthy American, John Rollins, set about restoring the place in the 1960s and making it the great house it now is once again.

Secondly, when the builders moved in during renovation, they found that the stains on the bedroom wall were splashes of blood. Such was the brutality of one husband’s murder that the evidence was still there over a century later.

After Annie’s death, the next owners witnessed their maid plunge to her death from Annie’s balcony, seemingly pushed from behind by some unseen force. They sold up and moved out.

And last but not least, now that the sumptuous house is open to visitors, there have been numerous examples of a mysterious female figure appearing in photographs – a white apparition reflected in a mirror, a face at a window, a dark image on a stairway. Visitors have felt a presence when alone in a room, workers have heard cries from behind locked doors.

In recent times, skeletal remains positively identified as those of Annie Palmer have been exhumed and re-buried just outside the house in an attempt to reconcile Annie’s remains with her soul. But maybe the restless soul still walks this sinister property.

Modern day research into this tale of horror has established that Annie was an orphan brought up in a witchcraft influenced environment, but by the same token has established that Annie spent a lifetime eating her meals off lead plates. Was lead poisoning in some way responsible for her state of mind?

Last word, perhaps, goes to, of all people, Johnny Cash. Cash lived for many years in Cinnamon Hill, a house just above Rose Hall on adjoining land, and became close friends with the Rollins family during restoration. In true Johnny Cash style, he penned “The Ballad Of Annie Palmer”, telling just a little of this terrible sordid tale.

We’ve studied our photographs carefully. Not a ghostly figure anywhere. But that’s not to say that Annie isn’t there, lurking in the shadows, just waiting for her next deadly opportunity…

Southwards To Treasure Beach Where The Pace Of Life Is……

If you picture yourself visiting the West Indies, what does that picture entail? Do you see yourself in an all-inclusive resort where everything is catered for and you are safe and comfortable? Or maybe on a cruise ship sampling the feel of different islands? Or do you imagine a tranquil hideaway where life is slowed down, where calm and peace rule, where you sip rum cocktails watching the sunset, where there’s hardly anyone on the beach, where you fall asleep to the sound of the waves and wake to the gentle sound of the surf and the smells of the village bakery? Our Jamaica tour continues….

For our last day in the Falmouth area we find ourselves heading again to Montego Bay, where to the dismay of the crowds in the Doctor’s Cave Beach bar, Brazil dramatically exit the World Cup on penalties. Jamaicans feel a strong affinity with Brazil. “Brazil play football the way Jamaicans live life, so we all love Brazil”, one guy explains. Yep, we get that. Well, apart from the fact that Brazil aren’t pulling on a spliff as they take the field.

The exotically named Montego Bay actually takes its name from Bahia Mancheca, so named by the Spanish, as the port here was a major point of export for animal products back then, and “mancheca” is Spanish for lard. Good job someone chose “Montego” because somehow “Pork Fat Bay” isn’t quite so exotic, is it.

And so we leave behind Falmouth, its fun excursions, the beaches of Montego Bay and our delightful hosts Michelle and Junior and head west and then south towards our next destination. By coincidence, we are again travelling on the day of an England match, so again it’s one eye on the clock as we head across the island. The drive across to the south is wonderful, the outcome of the football less so as England add yet another glorious failure to our long history of such. Oh Harry we feel your pain.

Leaving that behind we take our first wander around the little community of Treasure Beach, aptly named as it turns out, a delightfully quiet village tucked around a series of coves on Jamaica’s south coast. Houses, cottages and villas are comfortably spaced apart with many set in their own grounds, the bumpy narrow lanes wind around the properties where birds and butterflies go quietly  about their business.

The change happens pretty quickly. We’re not here long before we can feel our pace dropping to match the Treasure Beach vibe, so very laid back even by Jamaica standards, a new level of “laid back” altogether. Everyone and everything moves slowly, from the ambling locals to the few American expats who’ve made this their home and sit chatting all day, wiling away another day in paradise without ever breaking their smile. Fishermen are unhurried, boatmen laze waiting for business, people take time to chat, men lay in hammocks strung between trees or sit on chairs in the shade. Even the mongoose eyes us up deliberately before disappearing into the undergrowth. This place is about as chilled as you could ever imagine.

Ganja smoke fills the air. “Soon come” is the answer to the question. Any question. Every question.

Each cove has a couple of low key beach bars, lush greenery cascades down the hills right to the waterfront. The Caribbean is calmer and clearer than at the north coast, more of an Aegean or Mediterranean blue, the sky more open, the horizon more clearly defined, the winds so much more gentle. These may not be the pure white sands of Montego Bay or Negril, but this is a beautiful tropical coastline, this time without the crowds. We have these beaches almost to ourselves. So, so chilled here.

Life moves slowly. It’s so relaxed here that people even speak more slowly. If we think we’ve seen life at a slow pace before, this is down several more notches on any scale. It doesn’t take long to be part of it. We fall asleep to the sound of the gentle surf washing on to the sand; we wake at first light to the same sound. No need to rush when so little changes.

Soon come. Soon come.

Our nearest town is Black River around 35 minutes drive away: a town which somehow has everything you need whilst still retaining something of the laid back vibe of Treasure Beach. It’s here that we take a river safari, inland from the river mouth and upstream through mangroves, water ferns and bullrushes, into some serious crocodile territory. Our boatman tells us there are an estimated 800 crocs living here, a few of which come and take a closer look at our boat as we glide through the dark waters which give the town its name.

Sundown is just after 5.30pm here in Treasure Beach, more often than not accompanied by blazes of orange sky. Darkness follows quickly and the sultry evenings are long as surf lines foam white against the blackness. Frenchman’s Bay bar, Jack Sprat’s and Jake’s are all great places to sip Red Stripe or cocktails, watch that sunset and eat fresh fish; the kingfish steaks are particularly good: probably the meatiest fish we’ve ever eaten. And as for Dark’n’Stormy, a mix of dark Jamaican rum and cloudy Jamaican ginger ale….well, it’s just one of life’s treats.

The reggae beats, never too loud, morph into something more soulful after dark, merging with the rolling waves, disappearing altogether somewhere around 9pm as eyelids close all around the village. Early nights breed early starts: the pre-breakfast Caribbean is already warm soon after sunrise.

Christmas inches closer, less than two weeks away now, but there isn’t much evidence here; a few coloured lights draped around a beach bar which for all we know are there all year, plus a handful of oversized baubles on a palm tree. Oh, and one odd looking inflatable Santa in an inflatable speedboat with an inflatable mackerel in his hand. Mercifully there are no reggae versions of Slade, Wizzard and George Michael doing the rounds. 

We don’t expect Christmas would change the pace here. We don’t imagine anything would change the pace here. 

“I want to live here”, I say to Michaela as I gaze out across the bay.

“Oh Phil you’ve said that in fifty other places too”.

I suppose I have. But…..maybe just for six months or so….

It is, though, nearly time to move on…not just from Treasure Beach, but on from Jamaica, to see what Panama has in store.