Cornwall trip report

Day 1: Into Montego Bay

For work and personal reasons, I found myself running on about an hour of sleep when I arrived at MCO for my flight to Mo Bay. I was rather surprised to find that I was able to check-in for my flight online on the Jetblue website, allowing me to walk straight to the gate before showing my passport. During the rather short flight, I found the view of Cuba to be vastly more entertaining than watching the little tv screen without headphones. After clearing immigration, changing money, and donating a bag of apples to the customs officers, I attempted to secure a map of the island, to no avail. As the JTB booth was out of maps, the best I could do was a little map of Negril and Montego Bay from the car rental agency. The girl at the desk tried to convince me to rent a car, until I told her my plans to travel up-country, at which point she agreed that it might be a bit much for me to try to drive up there on my first trip to Jamaica.

I then proceeded to work on getting a route taxi downtown, which involved no small amount of wearing down the taxi drivers at the airport entrance until they left me to the apparently insane folly of striking off into Jamaica on my lonesome and pointed me in the right direction. When I found the route taxi stop, one of the drivers offered to take me downtown for J1000, and when I said that it should be more like 150 or 200, he said that I was a foreigner and wasn't supposed to pay the local price. I told him that the Transport Authority had them all busted by posting the official prices online, and he just laughed and pointed me to the next route taxi that was leaving. The driver dropped me off downtown and pointed me in the direction of church street, where my guesthouse (linkage) was located. I checked in to my room and took a seat on the veranda to take in the sights, sounds, and smells of downtown Montego Bay, a place which was at once both overwhelming and utterly familiar to me. I eventually ventured out to get some food and have a look around, and bought a veggie pattie and whole wheat coco bread from a store next door to the guesthouse. By dusk, sleep deprivation, hustlers, and tropical heat had all served to completely disorient me, and I made my way back to the guesthouse for a nap. After being gently awakened by the choir practice in the church next door, I made my way out the veranda, where several people affiliated with the guesthouse were in the midst of a heated political and religious debate. Though I was enjoying my position as a fly on the wall, they eventually asked me if I spoke english and invited me to join them for a drink, and before long, I, too, had been sucked into my hosts' conversation.

I drifted off into sleep that night, both comfortable with and overwhelmed by my surroundings.

Nice update!

Please, sir, may we have some more?

Day 2: Montego Bay

The next day, I woke up and made my way up to Walter Fletcher Beach and the Old Fort Craft Market, stopping off to buy a gleaner on the way. Two giant cruise ships sat in the harbor, but I never saw more than a handful of other tourists in the marketplaces. All of the internet places along the way were still closed, so I had to wait on that. I ended up spending quite a bit of time, and every last bit of my money, in the craft market. Though I went in looking for a hat and a handkerchief, I came out with a much larger bag of goodies, mostly purchased on credit from vendors who were eager to do some business with their first customer of the day. The vendors in the back of the market explained to me that they see little business, as most people don't make it past the front of the market. Though the sales pitches were overwhelming at first, I eventually relaxed and made my way through all of the promises I had made to visit this shop or the other.

After securing more currency from my room, I headed over to Nyam N' Jam (outside the downtown crafts market) for breakfast. They told me it would be about twenty minutes before any food was ready, so I sat at the bar and sipped on a ginger beer and watched people go about their downtown business. Some Honduran fishermen had been arrested off the coast of Jamaica, and a Jamaican fisherman had been arrested in Haiti, and these were the hot topics in the newspaper. Eventually, the food was ready, and I settled into my brown stew fish with cabbage, vegetables, and rice and peas. Having finally had a good night's sleep and a full meal, I suddenly found downtown Mo Bay substantially more manageable and less confusing. I found an internet place and assured my people that all was well, then assured myself that my bank account still existed.

I then returned to the guesthouse to mop myself off and change my clothes, something which seemed like an hourly ritual in downtown Mo Bay. After a brief respite, I decided to explore a bit further afield. After wandering around and taking in half a dozen streetside sound systems, I encountered a couple of guys who showed me around the Barnett Street market, and then assisted me in the payment of the Tourist Arrival Tax. Though I was not aware of the existence of this tax, and was not sure that I had the means to cover it, they graciously walked me through the process, and worked with me to arrive at a price that would leave all parties happy. They even assured me that this was a one-time expense, and that any future tourist assistance services would be granted free of charge. In travelling around the rest of the country, and upon my return to Mo Bay, I found that they were certainly correct on this point.

After beating myself up for playing the sucker, I ended up hanging out at the downtown crafts market, talking to some of the vendors and other types hanging around while they closed up shop for the night. One of the vendors gave me his number in case I ran into any problems up-country, as he had family in some of the places I was headed. Later in the night, I wandered around the streets of downtown looking for food, but ended up settling on a round of fruit pastries from the bakery. I also headed over to the shell station to buy a dragon stout and a beautiful road map of Jamaica with insets covering every major city and town (450).

Eventually, I dragged myself away from the sights and smells and sounds of downtown (which, incidentally, seemed much more inviting by night), and found my bed.

Day 3: To Quickstep

After packing up and clearing out of the guesthouse, I headed, once again, to Nyam N' Jam, to secure some more of whatever addictive substance they had apparently laced their food with. After eating a filling breakfast of Callaloo and saltfish with fried dumplings, and picking up a cold ginger beer for the road, I headed on down to the Barnett street transport center, which has no pedestrian access from Barnett street. After watching me search in vain for a break in the fence, a man at the adjoining gas station finally ended my confusion and pointed me in the direction of the entrance. On arrival, I was immediately approached by drivers who assumed I was headed to Negril. I told them I was headed to Sav-La-Mar, and they asked around and found me the right minibus in less than a minute. After about five minutes of waiting and letting the bus fill up, we were off.

The views heading up into the hills, combined with the smell of wood smoke, were unforgettable. Half-finished cinder block houses mingled with jerk shacks, mansions, and banana plantations. The road to Sav was in good shape, despite the heavy rains and flooding that the area had recently experienced. As with every other ride, the music on the bus was compelling, and kept at a volume which allowed one to both listen and engage in conversation.

On arrival at the bus park in Sav, I was approached by drivers who assumed, once again, that I was headed to Negril. I told them I was headed to Black River, and they directed me to the right minibus, who's driver was absent at the time. I sat in the back of the bus and chatted with the only other passengers, a young woman and her two small children. It was starting to get quite hot, so I was grateful for the vendor who stopped by to sell me a half-frozen limeade. After about fifteen minutes, another driver came up and told us to come with him, as he was leaving right away. The woman sent her older child with him to be dropped off, staying with the younger one on the first bus.

The ride along the coast was pretty. Traffic was heavy, and there were several points where road crews were working to clear out landslides. At one point, the driver pulled over and asked who had called "one stop." Nobody else on the bus had heard anything. The conclusion reached was that a spirit had needed to get off. The kid who had gotten on the bus with me was dropped off at the high school in Black River. As the driver didn't want to leave him unaccompanied, we waited a few minutes while he made some phone calls to ensure that somebody was on their way to collect him. This worked out well for those of us headed on to Santa Cruz, as an outbound Santa Cruz bus pulled in while we waited.

My biggest fear before this trip was that my childhood image of Jamaica- born of 70's and 80's documentaries, movies, and concert footage- would be ruthlessly shattered by the 21st century reality. On arrival in Santa Cruz, this fear melted away. Though clearly keeping up with the times, Santa Cruz, like many other places up-country, seemed to cling hard to its roots. People swayed in the streets to music that I had thought only punks and hippies from aforeign still listened to.

I found the Quickstep bus, and sat and waited for a while before leaving. One of the young men on the bus had recently injured his knee, and a lively discussion of stitches and gnarly injuries ensued, augmented by a recent x-ray. I bought a Sorel juice from a vendor in a vain attempt to re-hydrate. Finally, we were ready to go. The driver asked me where I was headed in Quickstep, and I told him I didn't know, as I had never been there before. I asked him if there were any places to stay up there, and he made a phone call for me, indicating with a thumbs-up that it was all arranged.

We climbed and climbed, and the bus filled to the brim with people of every age. We passed a primary school where I saw a bus full of kindergarten kids. Brave driver, that one. Eventually, the bus began to empty, as people were dropped off at their front doors. One young man on the road who looked to have been hitting the rum caught sight of me and became agitated, demanding to know what a white man was doing in quickstep. He asked the question five or six times, to no avail- unfortunately, with a solid pane of glass between me and him, I was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation. At any rate, truth be told, I really didn't have one in the first place.

Finally, the bus was empty, and we reached the end of the line in the village of Quickstep. The driver deposited me in the front yard of my host, who introduced me to a few shop-keepers in town and assisted me in purchasing and preparing lunch (beans with onions and scotch bonnets, bread, and fruit drink). I shook off the effects of the trip, rehydrated, and then promptly passed out. Later, I strolled around in the evening fog, listening to the sounds of two competing systems on either end of the road, and talked to a few youths on the street about hurricanes, work, and politics. One initially asked if I was a peace corps volunteer, though apparently the area sees quite a few tourists, as well.

Eventually, I found my bed, and drifted off to sleep after spending some time staring at the road map.

Great story telling. Waiting for more.

Regards,

Bob

Day 4 Quickstep

I arose at dawn to take in the fog over the hills and sleeping town. My host fixed up a breakfast of saltfish and beans with bammy and tea, then headed out to tend to his affairs. I asked around on the main street and found somebody willing to show me around the countryside a bit. We followed the road at the end of the village which led deeper into the cockpits. When we reached the first farmhouse, which did not quite have a full view of the road, I heard my guide call out "babylon," a point which I attempted to correct him on. The road was rocky and slick, and required some attention to avoid slipping. After five years in Florida, I found myself huffing and puffing up every hill, and quickly developed an appreciation for simply seeing them from afar. Despite these distractions, my guide and I soon entered into a lengthy discussion of the pushcart strike in Kingston, international politics, drug policy, the neglect of the quickstep district by the central government, and various small business ideas. He pointed out a few medicinal plants, and we discussed the constraints on agricultural production in the area. On the way back in, we passed a few farmers in their fields, and exchanged pleasantries.

On arrival back in the village, we headed over to one of the shops for a beer. The end of a superhero movie was playing there, and the small crowd watching it supplied ample commentary. My host and a few others were in the process of demolishing a house for salvage, and this constituted the second feature. Eventually, I took my leave to go wash some clothes (this constant chore the price of travelling light) and chill at the house. My host returned to begin work on a pre-arranged lunch, and while we watched the rainclouds drift in and waited for the curry pot to boil, he poured us a few shots of overproof. After some small talk, it soon became apparent that we had lived and worked in many of the same cities in the US, and this became a point of departure for a long series of travel and work-related tales. After curry chicken, dumplings, and boiled bananas, I hung around the yard, and the domino stadium across the road, until I was overcome with sleepiness and went in for a nap.

Later on, right around dusk, I went for a stroll in the village, stopping at the shop again for a drink of rum. On the way out, I saw a man peeling a lime and feeding his goat the peel. On the way back, I saw the goat standing there with a piece of lime peel stuck on one of its horns. My host was settling in to watch some Ghanian dramas, and I joined him for the first one, an elaborate tale of love, deception, murder, and the spirit world. I decided not to get involved in the second one, and instead headed across the road to the domino stadium, where I believe I was the only spectator. While there, I heard "Wolves and Leopards" playing down the road a bit, and wandered off into the evening fog to investigate. While the source of the music was never definitively nailed down, the feeling it evoked while I was out on the road is one that may never leave me.

What I did find was the same old shop again, where the evening feature was a heineken-sponsored soundclash on TV, like some sort of American Idol for dj's. While we enjoyed the show and commented on the different sounds, several rastamen appeared from the darkness and hung around the fringes of the shop's lights for a bit. One of them, a man who had spotted me in town earlier and replied to my sight with a string of curses, came up to me and asked, in an aggressive tone, what my mission was there. I replied, in so many words, that I was simply there to enjoy myself, relax, and meet cool people. He immediately switched his demeanor, and, smiling broadly, declared that I was alright, instructed me to take care of myself, and went about his business. When the show was over, everyone in the street exchanged a few words as if they had just left a nightclub, and then made their way home. I followed their lead and did likewise, falling asleep soon after my head hit the pillow.

Day 5 to Maggotty- Sound Fi Dead

I woke up to some old ska tunes on the radio, and took in the news while I watched the sun rise over the village. After breakfast, my host and I went down with the same driver I had come up with the day before. He had some business to attend to in the valley, and I was headed to Maggotty for the soundclash. The van stopped briefly in front of the shop, and I had a chance to bid my friends there farewell. The trip down to Maggotty was rather short and uneventful, except that someone on the bus had forgotten their phone at home, so we had to double back a bit to get it. Good thing, too, as when we came back through, her daughter was in the front yard, apparently burning through the phone's credit.

I called one-stop when the bus passed Apple Valley Park in Maggotty. It looked every bit as bucolic as I had imagined, but the river was very high (with signs warning against swimming), and the park looked to have experienced some flooding. I wandered around a bit, confused as to where to lay my head, until some guys down the road called me over. We sat and shared a snack of saltfish and dumplings talked a bit about the impending clash (they were sure Black Kat would take it, not knowing that he would prove to be a no-show), the troubles in Kingston, and various goings-on in Maggotty. A few of them were working on a new boat landing across the way, putting in concrete pilings and railing and so forth to create a proper little quay for tourist boats. One of the guys working on the landing took a break to walk me down the road to a guesthouse (poinciana), assuring me that it was the best place to stay, as they were the ones putting on the clash in the first place. He described the flooding the road had recently seen, and pointed out the telltale signs of it.

After securing a room, I sat down and had a chat with my hosts about music, the absurdly inexpensive and reliable Jamaican cellular networks, and the reasons why tourists usually don't make it very far up-country. I eventually retired to my room to shower, do more laundry, and watch the chickens in the yard from my back door. They were pretty forward in their attempts to cadge some grain from me, but quickly took shelter under a large SUV when the rain blew in.

When the rain let up, I headed out to get something to eat and do some shopping. They were beginning to set up the stage for the dance, and a few food vendors were already out cooking. I got a plate of curry goat and an orange juice and talked with some of the youth in the town center.

Later, as evening crept in, the people affiliated with the different sound systems began rolling in, getting ready, and doing the pre-game thing. I met some guys from Brooklyn who seemed surprised to see me there. I settled down on the front porch with a bottle of overproof and exchanged stories with my hosts about police, travel, and music. Eventually, it was time for everyone to clear out of the guesthouse, bar the doors and lock the gate, and head down to the clash.

The atmosphere outside the dance was so fascinating that I had to put off going in for a bit. It looked as if there were more people out on the main street than there were inside, and it seemed clear that many of them had no intention of going in. It certainly wasn't necessary to enter in order to hear the goings-on inside. Many people were curious who I was and where I was from. I met a few people who had spent time in Florida, and one guy who lived there, but returned home to Jamaica frequently. We discussed the Florida real estate market, and the phenomenon of cracker families with waterfront property holding out against the onslaught of development, clinging to their trailers by river while condos went up all around them. Some people assumed I was with one of the sound systems, and asked me if I had any wristbands. I told them I had to pay to get in like everybody else. I eventually ran into my friends from earlier in the day, and got into an animated discussion about politics and the concept of necessary evil.

Eventually, I made my way inside the dance, which was well worth the cost of admission. At the end of it all, Sentinel, a system out Germany, took the trophy. A few more tunes were spun after the official end of the clash, and then the people began to climb into cars and vanish into the night. The vendors outside, having made their money, and the people outside, having spent it, began to work together on a different level, cutting corners to insure that everyone went home satisfied. I was walking back down the road to the guesthouse, feeling a little ripped off that the dance had ended so early, and wondering why people had headed home so early, when I realized that the sky was getting lighter and the stars were disappearing.

I'm lovin it!