I HAVE A PLAN...
After the "Iceland Saga" of 1992, I decided that I needed a break (!) so I started to look for something similar. Then I read that Iceland was warmed by the Gulf Stream and I thought, "THAT'S IT - JAMAICA!"
The thing that really clinched it, though, was a TV "treasure hunt" type program in which Annika Rice led two couples around the island. It's amazing where Annika's rear end can take you!
Having gathered a team, in the form of Dave Kingstone (with an E), Phil ('Iggy) Higginson and Stuart (I'll have a burger!) Gibson, we set off on Jan 25 to Montego Bay.
Situated in the parish of St. James, Cornwall, Mo'Bay is in the NW of Jamaica. Being so close to the equator, Jamaica boasts an all-year-round temperature of about 30 Centigrade - not bad for January! When we arrived, it was a staggering 31 C. The weather over the next few days was somewhat overcast, but the heat remained (although a little cooler - thankfully).
The original inhabitants of the island - the Arawaks - called it Xayamaca - Land of Wood and Water. None of their descendants survive, however, as they were wiped out within about 30 years of the Spanish invasion in the 17th century!
The Spanish brought over their own slaves from Africa. One group of these escaped and managed to evade the Spanish - and later the English - and set up home in the forested area of hills to the south-east of Mo'Bay, known as the Cockpit Country after the massive dolines found all over. These people - the Maroons - fought off the Europeans and were eventually allowed their independence. They still live on, having never interbred with the other immigrants and are now the only Jamaicans of pure-blood descent.
The present population are an interesting mixture of African slaves, Spanish, English, German, Indian, Chinese... the list goes on. "Out of many, one people".
THE WELCOMING COMMITTEE
On arrival at the airport we were met by several dozen locals offering everything from taxis to Ganja - the local word for the stuff inside their cigarettes!
During the 15 minute drive to our hotel, we decided not to hire a car! The driving is atrocious! We discovered that the locals only use two signals - horn & headlights. Sounding the horn means "I'm going to do SOMETHING" (overtake/turn left/turn right, etc) while the flashing of lights means "Look out - I'm coming through"! The quality of the cars also left a lot to be desired. Indeed, some of the battered old Ladas made my Ital look "hot off the production line"! We therefore decided to spoil our holiday by not going underground whatsoever and resigned ourselves to becoming "Sun-Bronzed Thingies"!
On the first night, we met a family from Liverpool (at the bar!). This is when Stuart first demonstrated what we had let ourselves in for.
Stuart: "Hey, Harry, you're daughter's really flexible!"
Harry: "WHAT? You mean she's like a BarclayCard?"
We then found out that his daughter, Kreesha, was a gymnast!
Kev: "The word is SUPPLE, Stuart!"
That night, at the beach party, we were handed a glass of rum punch by someone who thought that we ought to savour the flavour. It was vile! It tasted just like Um Bongo!
We also discovered a new form of "music" - reggae dance. You thought that OUR dance music was bad! The same tune (with what sounded like the same lyrics) was played all night. When some of the words were explained to us, we realised why you never hear much of it in Britain - it would get an immediate ban!
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET
The next day, we made up our minds to do a bit of shopping. As soon as we left the hotel security gates we were approached by two rastamen offering taxi rides. One of them, Michael, gave us all the usual spiel. He was HUGE, with a big beard, round black glasses and drove an immaculate Accord with blacked-out windows. Definitely not the type you wanted to meet on a dark night! However, having talked with him, he did seem very friendly and genuine. However, we still declined his offer. "Are you a soldier?", he asked, spying my green beeny hat. "No, lots of people wear these in Europe.", I explained.
Walking on, we were stopped several times, each time being offered everything and anything. One time we thought we'd never get away. This rasta walked along with us for several minutes. Eventually, he said,"Oh, well, I've asked you and you've said `No', so I won't ask you again" and walked away. "By the way," he said, turning around. "You in the army?"
Then the real pain arrived in the form of two fifteen year old kids. Having nothing to sell or offer, all they did was beg continuously for money. The next thing we knew, the last rasta was shouting at them in Patois. I don't know what he said to them but they soon left us alone! At this point, we decided we'd had enough adventure for one day and, as it had also started to rain, we set off back towards our hotel - having only covered a couple of hundred yards in about fifteen minutes. On our return, we were again approached by yet another rasta. Once more, we were "saved by the bull". Seeing one of the first two taxi drivers, I decided to try a little bluffing. "Ho, Dave, how's it going?", I shouted. (This was also guaranteed to confuse Dave, so preventing him blowing my cover immediately!) Obviously the latest ganja dealer imagined we were friends
and promptly walked away.
FROM ONE ADVENTURE TO ANOTHER
Soon, we could avoid a trip into Mo'Bay no longer. In we went to buy some beer. After getting off the bus, we headed towards the uptown area via the Craft Market. This, all our books informed us, was an area to steer well clear of as the "crafts" on sale were just cheap T-shirts and general junk. So we set off through the market like a 4 man whirlwind! "Hey, buy from..."
"You want...?"
"Hey, Soldier Boy..."
They never knew what had hit 'em! Through the gate and into the street, we had escaped - but we had to return!
Walking along the seafront, again we were faced with masses of locals trying to sell us all we could possibly not want. One approached us.
"Buy some Aloe Vera. It will help the bruising on your legs." He referred, of course, to my scars. If he can cure those, I thought, I'll buy everything he has! However, nature came to our help and a gust of wind blew it out of his hand into the sea! Further along the road, the sea crashed over some rocks, over us and well across the road. Another group of the quickly-becoming-tedious crowd were too busy laughing at our plight to bother us! We weren't bothered, of course, as the water cooled us down wonderfully.
Having collected our shopping (fairly obvious - a box with "Red Stripe" across it), we then had to reverse the journey. It's amazing how many offers we had to carry the weight for us - maybe not so surprising how many we accepted!
Buying beer in the local supermarket was much cheaper than at the hotel bars - about five times cheaper! Still, we did drink occasionally in the hotel, especially Thursday which was the Manager's Cocktail Party, when all drinks were free. We decided to stay off the Um Bongo, but I did, of course, partake of (and paid the price for doing so) the multitude of beer and vodka cocktails that I accepted!
WHERE BE DAT CROC?
Having found no viable way to go caving, we decided to spend our car hire money on tourist trips to other parts of the island. Our first such trip was with Airtours to the Black River in St. Elizabeth, in the SW of the island.
We boarded the boat for a trip up the longest river on Jamaica where, we were assured, we would see plenty of wildlife - including crocodiles.
"SHH.. There's one, over there", whispered our guide.
"It's plastic!", said one of the other passengers.
Personally, I'd have agreed with him, but plenty of others took photos - so who knows...? The trip was good, the scenery was nothing less than spectacular, but the quantity of visible wildlife was a little disappointing. It couldn't even be blamed on my eyesight, either, as nobody else saw much either!
Off the boat and back onto the bus for lunch at a country hotel (Stuart didn't like the curry!) before heading inland to the YS (..S?) Falls where we were encouraged to swim across the lake. At the far side was a cave but, as we had no lights, we couldn't do much, but it went...
Quickly does it! Straight out and onto the bus for the return journey via Bamboo Avenue where the road is lined with a 20' high avenue of bamboo (surprise, surprise!) Back on the bus, the tour rep decided that we'd prefer her brand of entertainment to the wonderful scenery and sunset outside. She proceeded to turn the tour into a second rate charabanc trip, complete with "Old McDonald had a farm"!
THE ATTACK OF THE YSS CULTURE VULTURES
Having decided that this wasn't our idea of a good time, we decided that, for our next trip, we would try one of the independent tour operators. This did not please the Airtours guide. In fact, Vivette - the new rep - told us that the Airtours rep wouldn't speak to her! Neither us or Vivette were bothered by this, however, so there wasn't really a problem. An evening was spent at a cultural show on the Great River. This consisted of several stage shows including fire dancing and bamboo dancing. Phil and Stuart decided to join in with the latter and nearly had their ankles crushed in the process!
OH FOR THE EASY LIFE
Not all of the time was spent away from the beach, however. Several days were spent participating in the various water sports. Although I didn't get out, the snorkelling was said to be fantastic as we were only a short distance inside the coral reef. The pedalo racing was quite interesting, with Phil & Dave (both keen cyclists) acting as the turbo! We turned back as waves started to lash the decks! A private trip out to the reef in the glass-bottom boat was extremely interesting - the water was crystal clear.
My activities were, without doubt, much less energetic than the planned caving. I did, however, enter the "Funky T-Shirt Contest" - and won! The winning entry... "Please don't tell my mother I go caving...". No-one else stood a chance! Phil reckoned that I should win with my shorts alone (sort of black with green cobwebs and yellow sharks - only Tordoff could have stocked anything like these!) Sitting by the pool bar was also popular, watching the Vultures flying around the sky.
RETURN OF THE NATURAL INSTINCT
Towards the end of what had turned out to be a really great holiday, temptation finally got the better of us and we decided to make a last-ditch attempt at going caving. We hired a taxi at US$100 for the whole day!
Our driver, Collin, had never been caving and it seemed strange to him that anyone would want to go underground "just for fun" (I often think the same sometimes!) So he said that he'd come with us to give it a try.
We headed up the Montego Valley into the Cockpit Country towards the village of Carlton. We decided to try to find Chatsworth Cave and set off, following the map, along what can only be described as a farm track! Still Collin drove, stopping occasionally to ask bewildered locals if they knew of any caves. Eventually, we entered an area of plantations and jungle and stopped.
We were soon approached by a man with a machete! He did, however, turn out to be friendly and agreed to show us one entrance. We let Collin do the tipping - so he gave the man about 60p. Inside the entrance chamber - well decked out with stal - we were looking for a way on when we heard someone shouting at us, wanting to know what we were doing on his patch. This one also had a machete but neither he or his friend looked very happy about our presence! It took a while, but Collin finally managed to persuade them that we were genuine. At this point, they became very friendly and invited us to return to Jamaica and stay with them! During the ensuing conversation, we discovered why they had been upset by our presence - it appears that Bananas weren't the only commodity they were growing and we must have been very close to their farm! After waiting for the rain to abate, we left with them to look at some more entrances. "There's one up this path", said Milton.
"What path?", we asked each other.
"This path", replied Milton, wielding his machete.
Sure enough, in no time at all, there was a path (of sorts!).
"Up here", he said, climbing a few tree roots. No wonder the British lost against the Maroons! After negotiating several tree roots, creepers and ants' nests, we reached a decorated shaft about 20' deep. The only way down was via the creepers - we declined. So we set off down the "path" in search of a third entrance. By now it was absolutely throwing it down but, at about 70F, we could stand it!
This cave, we were told, was supposed to go a long way. Still, Dave and Phil could only find a tight hole just inside the entrance.
"Come back to our hut and I'll cut you some cane", came the offer. We went to their "hut" - a sheet of corrugated iron with some polythene wrapped round it! Still, it was dry. Milton cut us some sugar-cane and proceeded to teach us how to chew it. I've never eaten tree before! It was very refreshing, though you can see why none of the locals have any front teeth. As the rain slowed down, we went back to the car and I exchanged my helmet for my hat.
"You a ..?", started Lincoln, Milton's friend.
"No. I'm not a bloody soldier!", I retorted before he had chance to finish his sentence. This resulted in everyone being creased over with laughter. Lincoln and Milton were also laughing, so they obviously realised what must have been happening. Collin thought I looked like Benny Hill.
"What - you mean dead?", I thought.
We left them and Collin payed them 2 pounds for their help. Our next port of call was Maroon Town, a few miles away. There we met a group of lads who "offered" to show us a cave with a river in it. Hearing this, we said "Yes" and Collin said "No" so we left him with the car and set off through the glades with these three Maroons (as they kept telling us). Reaching the entrance, it was certainly impressive. We were told that the cave went for two miles through the mountain (Oh, aye?), but there was a lake about two chains (?) in - so we would stop there! Generally speaking, the trip was a farce. They insisted in getting in the way of photography at every chance, telling Dave their idea of the best positions.
Leaving the cave, they asked if we had enjoyed the "tour" and said that they would be charging us J$1000, this being about ten times what we were thinking of! Reaching the car, Collin asked them how much they wanted. After picking himself up off the ground, he started into a full scale argument with them. We finally settled on a price of J$700, still well above our expectations. They then started accusing Collin of submitting to "mental slavery" by helping us to reduce the price!
Generally speaking, however, we had no problems with the majority of the Jamaicans and it must be pointed out that this was an isolated incident. The people were great, as was the food and especially the Blue Mountain Coffee (of which Phil and I partook of several cups each night!)
Every one of us enjoyed the holiday. I would certainly return - although I probably won't as there are too many other places to go to in that price bracket.
Yeah, man, the Jamaicans have a way to describe it - Irie, man.
ALL FRUITS RIPE!
Kev Sheard
REFERENCES
Jamaica Underground, Alan G. Fincham (1977)
BCRA Bulletin 10 pp 25-31 (1975)
BCRA Transactions 6:2 pp 70-84 (Aug 1979)
BCRA Transactions 7:3 pp 150-168 (Sept 1980)
Leeds University Hydrological Survey Expedition Report 1963 Karst Hydrology Expedition 65/66 (BOON/BROWN/LIVESEY/MORRIS/STOYLES)
Insight Guide To Jamaica Jamaica and the Greater Antilles, Crowood Travel
Guides
For more information, take a look at Alan Fincham's Jamaica
Caves Page.
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