Jamaica

We went there on Honeymoon but it was just like coming home.The nice people on the British Airways flight told us to reclaim our bags as we left the plane in Miami, then changed their minds and said wait in the transit terminal. So we did, thinking this was strange, the flight was announced and then it said gate closing, we started saying what was happening, then someone from Air Jamaica appeared gave us all hand written boarding passes and said run this way, we ran straight onto the plane.The flight was like a bus trip, a man was trying to put a large suitcase in the overhead storage tried every options rotating by 90 degrees each time and then a stewardess comes running up to him and grabs it gives him a look and runs off with it he just sat down.There was an amazing purple orange sunset over Cuba.Flew in from Miami to Norman Manley International, Kingston, Jamaica and all passengers who changed flights lost their bags it was Christmas Eve.No bags fighting for a bit then chilled, we could not see the pictures of the bags they would not let use get within 30 feet of them, filled in a form and hoped. Then off to downtown Kingston, no windows but grills and off to sleep. Then Shelley's dad shows up and says they are going up country now. Might be coming back on Thursday! We are helpfully told and look rather lost at each other.I will never travel with just only a Dundee cake in my hand luggage again!We are left to fend for ourselves i try and calling my brothers godfather get the wrongnumber and leave a message on an answer phone, latter we discover he does not have an answer phone, there must have been a very confused Jamaican listening to that call. We call Betty the only other person I knew in Kingston she says come over thank god.Next morning wake UK time and there are bars between the floors, we want to go home. Cannot get anything to drink Betty gets up after a few hours and we have something to eat. Uncle Lennie arrives.Call the airport they have the bags. We will go there says Uncle Lennie after one stop.We have to go via a do, turns out to be in Chelsea Gardens, everyone dressed tothe nines, Editor of the Gleaner, Olympics Stars, and so on given a egg nog more than 100% rum do we want food there pork!, managed to hide the cup, and given another..... by 10am out of it.Down to the airport, find bags Uncle Lennie goes missing…Lunch, and i am given a glass of white rum, i drink it.... Christmas was Lunch was fun No one said much Auntie Mavis was being her usual self.I don’t remember after thing after that suppose I passed out at 3pm?We stayed at 22 Gibson Drive over Christmas, trying to escape but everything isclosed. Do manage to hangout at the pool bar at the Sheraton and Devon House.Eating amazing ice creams and drinking coffee well I did.I felt safe out in Mona up by the University but didn’t want to go into Barbican which was just down the road. You could hear the M45 rounds at night. The comforting radio the next morning told us all about who was shot and died last night.After much searching of the Yellow Pages we found someone who actually found someone who picked up the telephone, so we organised a trip to Port Antonio. We went river rafting on bamboo boats and got drowned, heavens opened. We had to buy clothes we were so wet.On the way back i could feel a low level sound vibrating through my feet, even though I was in a minibus, it was a mobile sound system mixing desk on handle bars and speakers everywhere on a push bike. I was truly impressed.We had seen this car in the middle of the garden and one day asked whose it was and was told it was Angela’s. We were allowed to borrow it, each time you put it into gear, it jumped out but it kept going so we drove off to the beaches at Hellshire and had salt fish and bammy and exchange money.Waited till 3:02 and the heavens would open up. Trying in vain to drive the window screen wipers were even less than bald, easier to wipe the screen with a hand, but we stopped and gave up waiting for the downpour to end. Navigating with a 1972 map was impossible the area had been built up so we stopped at a petrol station and brought the most up to date map.Taken via numerous stops at one point there is a traffic jam, Uncle Lennie speeds up and goes down the wrong side of the road straight into a police road block, he just gets out and shakes the hand of the inspector in charge and chats, latter he mentions my wife taught him in school and I am a Justice of the Peace. No need to worry then. We spot a train and he stops. Uncle Lennie said he better ask for directions but his stops were actually run refuelling stops for him, he never asked me if wanted any more after Christmas Day. We pick up some of his friends from a gambling den and this strange woman, in high heels and make up, she whinges on for ages wanting to drop us off in the middle of nowhere, but in the end we are dropped off in Spur Tree asking for Livvy Brown the Teacher, no one knows him as that, but some helpful local says that everyone has gone to church and will be back in a while, there are some Browns down the road, so we go there and find Auntie Winnie, she tells us that Uncle Livvy has been looking for us and why didn’t we send a telegram, because we didn’t know they still had telegrams, later Uncle Livvy comes home and says locals know him as Livvy Brown of the Rent Board; he works there in Mandeville.We stay in Spur Tree for a while and then are dropped off at Williamsfield; the railway line ran from Kingston to Montego Bay, but the line was single track and the only passing place was at Williamsfield.An interesting journey back to Kingston, the train would stop at halts and stations, people would get on sell things, we could not make out what it was, packet covered in plastic, they would cut it open and put yellow shape in it. When they got closer to ask we asked it was? a Jamaican bread roll (like a current bun) but more spicy and cheese was the yellow form we had seen being put into it. The train continued it journey into Kingston more stops and less and less people, then we arrived in Kingston station, no lights it was very scary, everyone as a group bunched together and moved on masse down to the Post Office square and agreed to whatever the taxi drivers said, usually it was $10 back they said $40 I said okay. Just did not want to be there.We had finally found a rental car, and went there one afternoon and said we would pick it up tomorrow morning at 9am, but by midday they said they were still servicing it, and suggested we go for lunch come back at 2pm, we came back at 1:30pm we could see a red car with it wheels off, but 4pm it was ready, we were given it with the engine running I should have thought that was strange, it was an automatic I had never driven one, we drove off hoping to get the Spur Tree hoping to get there before it got dark, due to no lights on the roads outside the towns. I happened to look at the fuel gauge and it was almost empty so we filled it up ourselves no point going back and complaining probably take another day refuelling it. I couldn’t start it, helpfully the people at the garage told us how to start it and off we drove to Spur Tree arrive just before it got too dark. But not before cutting up a police jeep, I mention they have guns and the wife shows them two fingers must have thought local. You do not want to the local women mad!The Browns were so nice. After dinner we watched a thunderstorm goes below us down the valley and the fireflies light up the darkness.We travelled went of via Savannah la Mar and saw a sign mentioning cow penis soup, onward to Negril with 7 miles of white sand, reading the menu by the street light and the locals tried to by my wife. I was just offered women and ganja daily on the beach.In Negril we want to make a phone called the only public phone was out of order, so we tried shops and finally ended up in a all in resort, for $20 local they allowed us to make a call, dialled the number and realised it was local not international, still charged us $20, local calls were free.We went to the Post Office in Negril, there were three women behind the counter, chatting and not bothered by us waiting, I had been told what you have to do is go up to the counter and bang your fist down and say stamp, I was give a stamp and paid for it and the women returned to their conversation.Arriving back in Spur Tree, the left wing mirror explodes and fires itself straight through the window screen and it shatters and falls in on us, i realise what is happening and think turn right as there is a 1000ft drop in front of us. The next day I wandered around Mandeville, trying to buy a window screen, in the end I brought one and replaced it, the guys in the garage would lift the bonnet and just say Shit, i just smiled.From Spur Tree, we ventured over the Cockpit country to Brownstown and to Discovery Bay, at Brownstown there was this sign post point in 5 different directions all to Discovery Bay, we were confused and asked some local women who were standing there they said they were waiting for the bus to go there and we said we are going to meet some friends there and offered them a lift, being Sunday we thought it was only the right thing to do. They did take us directly to our friends (Muriel Lynch (Rackham) and daughter) and we drop them off and thanked them.We stay in Shelley’s Friends Hotel in Runaway Bay, the bed is huge, lying on the bed lying stretched out we could not touch each other let alone the edge. It over looked the sea. We chat to some Canadians at the bar, turns out later they were about to rip off the hotel. We just think why some people are so mean! They do not give Mriga a full glass of rum and she spends the night diluting it with coke.Go boating inside the Runaway Bay caves, very strangeOcho Rios is where the big liners do Jamaica in an afternoon. And Dunns River Fallsas featured in Doctor No. The freezing water of the falls goes out into the sea, it is worth climbing up.We liked living into any small town with a Welsh sounding name and taking a picture of the Post Office for my dad as he wanted them, we would speed in suddenly stop and speed off , sometimes we would get shouted out by locals thinking we were from the other political party, and election was due. Malcolm Manley about to come back into power when we were there, the pro American Edward Seaga was supposed to make a call for the election but said nothing and even stopped the chefs from cooking when we were in Negril. The car was getting worse, but we managed the pass a Toyota Minibus as it hit a huge pot hole in the road, just by Firefly where Ian Fleming used to live. These buses would come out of nowhere at very high speed and music pouring out of the windows.The next day I thought what that on the ground the brake fluid was leaking everywhere,We got that filled up, the brakes had been getting squashy, checking the break fluid, they found that the transmission fluid was almost all gone too. Winding our way through the Cockpit Country we often had to use the brakes on hairpin bends, but we were finding the car was cutting out when you touched the brakes, we didn’t not feel safe at all.We glided in to Spalding with no power as the engine had died and stopped at a garage topping up all brake fluids and transmission it was leaking like it was going out of style. I wanted something to drink so went into a shop, the woman behind the counter was having a screaming row with this man, I just stood there and waited, I learnt that he had been gambling last night and was trying to run off with out playing his debt, the woman in the shop wanted to be paid before he disappeared to American.20 Minutes later he paid up and she apologised to me why? It turned out I was just polite did not say anything just waited my turn unlike the Americans I was told, I brought my drinks and returned my bottles later.We were honestly getting a little bit worried about the car and thought it might be best to give it back, so we drove back to Kingston, but had to stay somewhere else as we could not find anyone at 22 Gibson drive.The hotel was strange, all the walls were covered in dark wood, we had a meal, a egg cup full of boiled rice, a few carrots a boiled potatoes and tomato sauce. This was supposed to be the vegetation option!We returned the car and thought no more about it. But thinking about it changed mindsAnd when back, to discover they had encashed the security deposit they never told us when we called up and told them about the window screen. We paid for the window screen and got it fitted we never asked them for money, they would not pay us back either. We had an interesting morning debating the fact of a so called road worthy car with them, in the end they refunded use some money (just one day hire and petrol) and we had to help the poor girl who was trying to refund us as she could not swipe the card correctly. They would not shift on the security deposit, so we ended saying we would stop it, they claimed we could not say that. I managed to freeze that on my card took me some 18 months to sort out no help from Visa who did manage to give me back 10% at one stage as they divided instead of multiplying.I think the only place we found it easy to eat vegetarian food was at a shop run by Rastafarian Women, lovely spicy patties.Everything in the shops was imported after Hurricane Gilbert almost destroyed the island, all the chickens were blown away and there were hardly a top to the palm trees that remained. The banana crop failed. It was a bad time for the island; you could not buy Blue Mountain coffee. I loved the place, the locals would speak to my wife and i would have to explain what they were saying, once i said anything, people's attitude would change i was not American or Canadian. I was asked about my Guardian T-shirt was it the South Carolina Guardian? No the Manchester Guardian I replied, lost on Americans.Went to Bob Marley's at 284 Old Hope Road, sitting in the kitchen with the people, being told Bob never smoked grass, i gestured to my wife its growing outside the door! Found a ticket stub to the first ever concert i went to in 1976 first ever Rastaman Vibration Tour in Bristol on the wall of an upstairs room.At 5am Uncle Lennie would always return from a night with Mrs Williams his friend and undertook his daily task watering the lawn with a hose in one hand and a glass of pure white rum in the other, the mosquitoes loved there morning soaking and sampled the poor tourists continuously day and night.We arrived early at the airport, checked in seconds, Air Jamaica had lost their computer system and said they would try their best to get some vegetarian meal, they did. So unlike British Airways; who failed with ten months notice! We found doors open beyond the security checks you could have walked out with no problem. The customs guys thought we were carrying a block of ganja but it was a chopping board, had 7 bottles of rum so over the limit, on the flight to Miami via Montego Bay, the man next to me told me about Shelley’s dad one of Seaga’s men, we were wise to avoid him. At Montego Bay Airport we saw so many light planes still hanging from trees.I got a hard wood walking stick in Jamaica, in Miami airport, the guards with guns stayed away from me why?