Newsletter - Xmas 200

This newsletter was written after a last-minute Christmas trip to Jamaica in 1997.

So... Jamaica.... yeahhhh....!!
Here's the scoop!
Disembark at the airport in Montego Bay after long (but cheap!) Airtours flight - 757 hopping via a grey and frozen Bangor (Maine, not Wales) then down to the warm & sunny Caribbean. Fight our way through baggage reclaim & customs... bit of a nightmare due to a couple of other flights arriving at the same time. I'm convinced that Airtours do the 'cheapo' trick on all concerned - i.e. not just passengers but airports etc as well - consequently our baggage is last to get taken off the plane, and therefore by the time we've got it there are monster queues to get through immigration... heigh ho - perhaps I'll pay full price next time.... NOT!
Get directed to 'Bus number 2' by the Airtours reps... also find out that we're to spend our 2 weeks in the 'Caribbean Isle' hotel in a place call Runaway Bay (this was a late booking cheapo deal where we took pot luck on where we'd be staying). As we sit in the coach, frantically search the Jamaica guide books to find out where this is... turns out it's a small place about 2/3 of the way from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios... (whatever THAT means!)
Arrive at said hotel around 5:00pm local time (10:00pm by my body clock)... check in, unpack a bit then head down to the bar for beer and a mooch around the hotel. Initially a bit disappointing, I have to say... I guess I'd been spoilt by the places I'd been to in St Lucia and Grenada - this was pretty small (21 rooms - which I think is good) but in the twilight the bar and restaurant area looked pretty uninviting. Being tired and having no idea what else was around, ate in the hotel - was a buffet and the food was OK, but by the time we got there there wasn't a huge amount left... retired to bed and snored a lot (I think)
Next morning, had breakfast then met up with Airtours rep for briefing... breakfast was similar to the previous nights meal - sort of a haphazard buffet with lukewarm tea and coffee....
Turns out that 6 of us had arrived on the same flight and were in the same hotel.. the other folks were as uneasy as I was about the hotel and surrounding area - some of them had been for a recce and found that Runaway Bay was a small rural community with what seemed like very little in the way of 'night life'... All of us independently asked the rep if there was any chance of us moving to somewhere else for the second week. For the rest of the day, decided to get together, hire a local mini-bus and head into Ocho Rios to find out what's down there...
Get into the bus - meet up with Daniel the driver - he does us a good deal where he'll take down to the market in Ocho Rios (or 'Ochi' to the locals) and then let us wander around and he'll wait then bring us back - but first we get him to take us to somewhere we can eat local food - we're all starving! Daniel does the biz and takes us to a great 'Jerk' restaurant... sounds kinda wierd but 'Jerk' is a style of food preparation in Jamaica - basically pork, chicken, beef or fish marinaded then barbequed and served with interesting veggies like breadfruit or roast yam, and a VERY hot spicy sauce... delicious, filling and cheap! We sat outside in the warm sun, cooled by the soft breeze with the scent of local flowers all around us.... washed down the food with a few Red Stripe beers, and suddenly everything seemed much better!!
Our 'partners in crime' (or sometimes 'partners in grime') were Avril (a staff nurse from Scotland) and Ann-Marie (an Irish radiologist - there's probably a joke about that..), Devon and Judith (born in Jamaica but now running their own Caribbean restaurant in Bristol) and the next day we were augmented by Marie (partner in a wine importing business). Devon and Judith's local knowledge was a great help - they'd scouted out the local stuff at Runaway Bay and introduced us to various delights including patties (like flattened cornish pasties filled with spiced beef), fresh mangoes and Jamaican breakfasts... (more of which later)
Did the obligatory wander around the craft market - and despite the warnings from guide books, tour reps, etc didn't really get hassled at all... was prepared for a Moroccan/Tunisian style hard sell approach, but everything was much more laid back and friendly - suspect that the advice had been over-cautious - also read later that there had been a campaign a few years ago to get the street vendors to lighten up and not to hassle the tourists so much - whatever happened, the result was fine.. no real 'hard sell' at all.
Return to the Caribbean Isle, then head 100 yds down the road to 'Aunt May's' restaurant and bar for dinner... this is on the advice of Devon and Judith, who tried this place out for breakfast... have good meal (various things on offer including curried goat) with cheap beers (70p a bottle for Red Stripe) and return there for breakfast the next day. This is where we encountered the Jamaican breakfast for the first time - ackee (a local fruit that grows everywhere and is a bit like..... well, nothing else on earth really..) with salt fish, boiled green bananas, plantain fritters and dumplings. Wow! With a pint of pineapple juice and a huge mug of coffee, this was to become our regular way of starting the day.....
So things started to slip into a gentle rhythm... leisurely wake up whenever (usually around 10:00am due to late night partying... !) wander down to Aunt Mays for brekkie - if no explorations planned, head back to hotel beach/pool and catch some rays... maybe a swim to cool off... mid/late afternoon, head down to the pattie shop for a lunchtime snack - (patties cost around 30p each and are just perfect for this). On the way back, stop of in our favourite bar for a nice cool Red Stripe and chat to locals as we munch patties in the shade (it's too hot out of the waterside breeze to sit in the sun). Then wander back to the hotel as the sun goes down, quick wash & change and head out for dinner & general partying.
The hotel actually turned out to be 'sort of' OK... in that the rooms were spacious, airy with an excellent view over the nice private beach and were well looked after by the maids. (Showers and hot water could be a bit intermittent however!). The local Jamaican staff were friendly and reasonably efficient (in a laid-back, stoned, Jamaican sort of way) - we ended up going out and partying with them several nights (more of which later...). The main problem was with the management - these were (wait for it...) Germans. Now, I'd expect a hotel managed by our Euro-pals the Germans to be clinically efficient... but not so in this case! The organisation and service was pretty abysmal whenever we put it to the test (which was not very often!). So basically we made use of the good bits of the hotel (ie the rooms, sometimes the bar, the local staff and the beach and pool) and did everything else better & cheaper in the local bars/restaurants/clubs. The other thing we soon found out was that the other resorts were much more commercialised etc and that Runaway Bay really was a pleasant and relaxing haven - so we told the rep that we'd be OK staying there after all.
So that's the background to the 2 weeks out there - whenever we weren't doing anything else, we'd be vegging out as described above. What I'll do now is describe what we did when we WEREN'T vegging out....
1) SERIOUS New Year's party... 3 days into our trip it was new year's eve... the hotel had organised a bash and we started out there.. but it rapidly became apparent that this was as well-organised as everything else in the hotel. Luckily we had a contingency plan - the folks at Aunt May's (who had been busy shipping in a MONSTER sound system into the back garden as we sat there overlooking the sea and having yet another huge breakfast) had invited us to join their local party... so we did!
Good decision...!! this was a real local's gathering, with a barbeque set up for jerk chicken and pork, cheap rum & Red Stripe, LOUD reggae, a makeshift casino in the car park and other attractions such as stoned rastas passing round family-size spliffs... we were there till around 4:30 am...
Lots of fun here - I was being continually made offers for any one of my 3 'wives' by the local Jamaican guys... Ann-Marie was definitely the favourite - one guy was up to 7 million Jamaican dollars, a house by the beach (With a helipad... inspired bargaining by Avril there) and a boat if I'd sell him Ann-Marie. Needless to say, I didn't sell her (cos Avril and Linda wouldn't let me...)
2) Dunn’s River Falls & Bob Marley’s place - At the new years bash we got talking to a local guy called Stanley - turns out he had a mini-bus (imagine my surprise…) and he did us a good deal for the following day - basically he said he’d pick us up and take us to the famous Dunn’s River Falls, then pick us up later and take us wherever we wanted to go for the rest of the day… and really cheaply!
So off we went (only SLIGHTLY jaded after the new years celebrations…) to Dunns River. This is the place you’ll no doubt have seen in any Jamaican tourist brochure or video - 600 ft of very pretty waterfalls cascading over large rocks through picturesque rainforest type flora. Basically the thing you do is strip down to your swimming cossies and climb all the way up… (taking care to avoid the chains of hand-in-hand americans from the cruise liners which dock down the road in Ochi…). Great fun and a bit scary at first - we’d had a bit of a tropical downpour earlier in the morning so the water was coming down rather quickly and in large amounts… your recommended to hire a guide but we decided to wing it on our own… the intrepid Ann-Marie leading the way in the manner of an amphibian mountain goat.
After that went down to the bar on the beach for patties and Red Stripe - then met up with Stan the man. Turns out that Bob Marley’s Mausoleum is ‘just down the road’ from Runaway Bay, so we ask Stan if he can take us there… turns out to be 15 (Jamaican) miles up into the hills (never trust a Jamaican when it comes to stuff like time or distance) - over an hour in the bus climbing steep hillsides with sheer drops by the side of the narrowing heavily pot-holed road… some pretty spectacular views on the way up though….
Arrive at around 5:00 pm and get the full Rasta tour of the place. This was where Bob Marley was born and spent the early years of his life before moving to Kingston… lots of things referred to in his songs are there… our Rasta guide points these out and sings the relevant bits of the songs, providing extra bits of local colour and legend as he goes. The tour finishes in a recently-built chapel which contains Bob’s body - seems he was enbalmed and then interred 6ft ABOVE the ground in a tomb of Italian marble. Sounds tacky as I write this but at the time the whole experience was very interesting and also moving. BTW it seems from our guide that the Rasta view of Bob’s death is definitely conspiracy theory… they don’t believe he had cancer and are absolutely convinced that various shady government agencies engineered his demise.
We emerge from to shrine to find Stan the man immersed in Red Stripe and rice and peas (another local delicacy) in the bar across the road… we have a beer to let him finish his meal.. he comes into the bar where the guides from the Bob Marley place are now off duty and rolling up SERIOUS monster conical spliffs using just the crumbled heads of the locally grown marijuana plants (no tobacco involved)… smells amazing… so of course Stan (unprompted ) does the biz and gets the necessary bits to put together a little sample spliffette for us… we get into the bus, and as it starts to roll down hill back towards Runaway Bay Stan lights up, takes a couple of huge tokes then starts passing this around (so he can start doing that difficult steering stuff…)
So, picture the scene if you will… early evening, the sun has gone down so it’s pretty dark - and getting darker by the minute… of course there are no street lights (I think I saw 3 all the time I was in Runaway bay) and we know that the road is a twisty turny potholed thing with sheer drops on the bends. Our driver has been drinking, and is now passing around a VERY potent naughty Jamaican Woodbine… what would YOU do???
Of course we did the right thing… we took several long tokes each on the wacky baccy and there was (as the locals say) “Noooo Problem”…. Arrived safe and sound back in Runaway Bay (somehow it didn’t seem to take so long coming down…) and floated around for the next 2 hours…
3) Stan takes us for a local ‘pub crawl’ - following the success of our first trip (geddit, geddit?) with ‘Stanely’s Tours’ he offered to take us out one evening - no fare, just buy him beers - doing a ‘locals’ night out around the pubs and clubs he’d normally frequent in Runaway Bay.. how could we resist??
So around 9 we meet up in Aunt May’s, and off we go… first stop is the ‘Twin Rocks’ bar… local place, rastas and locals playing (wait for it…) Bar Billiards (!) - except they play it in macho Jamaican style…. There is no such thing as a ‘delicate’ shot in Jamaican pool, snooker, golf, or any sport I can think of.. basically the name of the game is to whack anything mobile as hard as you can…. If you know the game of Bar Billiards, you’ll realise that this approach might be a bit of a disadvantage… however, the guys who were playing were obviously extremely skilled at this - very hard fast shots going DIRECTLY into the holes… no stray bounces or riccochets..
We look on, amazed by this… in the meantime Stan’s clued us in on what the locals drink - for 5 of us, you buy a quarter bottle of over-proof rum, 2 bottles of coke (that’s the expensive bit…) lots of ice, a twist of lime each… around £3 a round and very potent… so after a few of these Linda and Avril pluck up the courage to take on the guys at bar billiards… and proceed to BEAT them!!!! Oh-ooooohhhh - time to move on…
The next bar is more of a ‘club’… pool table, flashy decor and a small disco area out the back… more rum & cokes, chat to locals… try (unsuccessfully) to sell Avril.. Ann-Marie smooching with local chap in the disco. Late supper of jerk chicken at £1 a portion from street vendor… excellent stuff!
Move on to next bar which is a very quick visit to see the local ‘exotic dancers’ … (I think ‘emetic’ was more appropriate than ‘exotic’)… 2 very bored Jamaican ladies wearing G-strings and not much else… their ‘act’ (if you can call it that) involved shuffling around to loud reggae/soul music and sort of stroking themselves and playing with their garments… one was very skinny, the other was pretty large… we didn’t stay long!
Next stop - the ‘Las Vegas’ bar… good place, relaxed, friendly locals… more rum & cokes… gets to around 2:00 am - then Stanley decides he just HAS to show us this ‘amazing view’… Into the bus and he drives us up into the hills again.. (only 10 minutes this time).. shows us a) the amazing view - out over Runaway Bay etc with the clear sky and amazing starscape overhead and fireflies twinkling all around us in the bushes and trees - spectacular stuff… he then briefly shows us the house he’s building… currently one floor of a shell of blocks… apparently the way they do this in Jamaica is to get the land ASAP then slowly build the house buying bits as they can afford it… of course there’s little rain and no snow, frost or anything so there’s no real requirement to get these things topped out quickly…
Finally Stan takes us even FURTHER up the hill to show us yet another amazing view and to meet his pal Randy who’s a young rasta who lives in this little shack on top of the hill behind Runaway. I got the impression that it was pretty normal for Stan to turn up in the early hours of the morning with a few friends… Randy seemed pretty unsurprised about the whole thing and proceeded to roll (yet another) joint which got passed around for awhile… eventually got back to the hotel around 4:30 am (again!)
4) Negril… did a day trip to Negril which is a resort on the far western tip of the island… pretty famous place, very commercialised.. 7 miles of brilliant crescent-shaped beach which is mostly owned by pubs, restaurants and all-inclusive resorts… spend some time swimming and soaking up the rays before heading up to Rick’s Café - tourist trap on top of the cliffs looking directly west - everyone gathers there to sip Banana Daquiri cocktails and watch the sun go down.… there are also some ‘cliff divers’ who jump or dive the 50-60 feet from the terrace into the lagoon there… I assumed that these were professional folks who did this as a tourist attraction but NO! - these were just drunken tourists who thought it would be a good thing to do!!! (rather them than me!)
Main problem with Negril is the distance…. 3 hours in a bus over narrrow twisty lumpy roads.. not so bad heading out there in daylight when there’s lots to see - a real pain heading back in the evening !! broke the journey both ways by stopping off in Montego Bay, but still a pain! Arrive back at the hotel around 11:30 and just have to have a beer or 2 to wind down after the journey….
5) Rafting - a real highlight! Again, most tourist brochures and videos feature this bit of Jamaica… long rafts made of bamboo with a guy sort of punting at the front…. 2 people sit on the seat at the back and you get a couple of hours of leisurely drifting downriver - lots of chat about local history, flora and fauna from your boatman chappie… also lots of stalls selling food, drinks, souvenirs etc as you wind downstream… they’ll even swim out and bring you a cold beer as you go past!!! Very relaxing - and interesting… saw lots of local stuff (including an impressive Blue Heron for all you twitchers!)…
6) Caves… just up the road from Runaway Bay in Discovery Bay (where Christopher Columbus landed) there is a cave system extending 7-8 miles.. we did a brief walking (or more correctly, crouching) tour of around ¾ mile and got to see underground lakes, weird rock formations etc… They actually nmade part of this place into a night club - but we heard from the locals that on opening night there was a real problem that scared people off - when the started up the disco (guess what… LOUD heavy reggae with a MONSTER bass sound) all the bats which live in the cave went crazy and started flying around - resulting in lots of scared customers.. there were certainly a lot of bats in there - we heard and saw loads of them!
That’s probably about it… overall impressions - a great place, friendly people, lots to do and see (but also great to just veg out). Don’t believe the bad news you may have heard re crime, mugging, hard sell street vendors etc.. certainly where we went thwere was no problem (though I believe certain poarts of Kingston can be a bit dangerous)
It’s a big place - 150 miles end to end (east/west) and 50 miles across… but the standards of driving and road maintenance make it seem much bigger…
That’s it for now.. may follow up with additional stuff I forgot… am meeting up with Avril, Ann-Marie etc soon to do a photo-swap so I’m sure there’ll be lots I forgot

© Copyright Cooke-Shuttleworth Enterprises 2001


This newsletter was written after a last-minute Christmas trip to Jamaica in 1997.		So... Jamaica.... yeahhhh....!! Here's the scoop! Disembark at the airport in Montego Bay after long (but cheap!) Airtours flight - 757 hopping via a grey and frozen Bangor (Maine, not Wales) then down to the warm & sunny Caribbean. Fight our way through baggage reclaim & customs... bit of a nightmare due to a couple of other flights arriving at the same time. I'm convinced that Airtours do the 'cheapo' trick on all concerned - i.e. not just passengers but airports etc as well - consequently our baggage is last to get taken off the plane, and therefore by the time we've got it there are monster queues to get through immigration... heigh ho - perhaps I'll pay full price next time.... NOT! Get directed to 'Bus number 2' by the Airtours reps... also find out that we're to spend our 2 weeks in the 'Caribbean Isle' hotel in a place call Runaway Bay (this was a late booking cheapo deal where we took pot luck on where we'd be staying). As we sit in the coach, frantically search the Jamaica guide books to find out where this is... turns out it's a small place about 2/3 of the way from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios... (whatever THAT means!) Arrive at said hotel around 5:00pm local time (10:00pm by my body clock)... check in, unpack a bit then head down to the bar for beer and a mooch around the hotel. Initially a bit disappointing, I have to say... I guess I'd been spoilt by the places I'd been to in St Lucia and Grenada - this was pretty small (21 rooms - which I think is good) but in the twilight the bar and restaurant area looked pretty uninviting. Being tired and having no idea what else was around, ate in the hotel - was a buffet and the food was OK, but by the time we got there there wasn't a huge amount left... retired to bed and snored a lot (I think) Next morning, had breakfast then met up with Airtours rep for briefing... breakfast was similar to the previous nights meal - sort of a haphazard buffet with lukewarm tea and coffee.... Turns out that 6 of us had arrived on the same flight and were in the same hotel.. the other folks were as uneasy as I was about the hotel and surrounding area - some of them had been for a recce and found that Runaway Bay was a small rural community with what seemed like very little in the way of 'night life'... All of us independently asked the rep if there was any chance of us moving to somewhere else for the second week. For the rest of the day, decided to get together, hire a local mini-bus and head into Ocho Rios to find out what's down there... Get into the bus - meet up with Daniel the driver - he does us a good deal where he'll take down to the market in Ocho Rios (or 'Ochi' to the locals) and then let us wander around and he'll wait then bring us back - but first we get him to take us to somewhere we can eat local food - we're all starving! Daniel does the biz and takes us to a great 'Jerk' restaurant... sounds kinda wierd but 'Jerk' is a style of food preparation in Jamaica - basically pork, chicken, beef or fish marinaded then barbequed and served with interesting veggies like breadfruit or roast yam, and a VERY hot spicy sauce... delicious, filling and cheap! We sat outside in the warm sun, cooled by the soft breeze with the scent of local flowers all around us.... washed down the food with a few Red Stripe beers, and suddenly everything seemed much better!! Our 'partners in crime' (or sometimes 'partners in grime') were Avril (a staff nurse from Scotland) and Ann-Marie (an Irish radiologist - there's probably a joke about that..), Devon and Judith (born in Jamaica but now running their own Caribbean restaurant in Bristol) and the next day we were augmented by Marie (partner in a wine importing business). Devon and Judith's local knowledge was a great help - they'd scouted out the local stuff at Runaway Bay and introduced us to various delights including patties (like flattened cornish pasties filled with spiced beef), fresh mangoes and Jamaican breakfasts... (more of which later) Did the obligatory wander around the craft market - and despite the warnings from guide books, tour reps, etc didn't really get hassled at all... was prepared for a Moroccan/Tunisian style hard sell approach, but everything was much more laid back and friendly - suspect that the advice had been over-cautious - also read later that there had been a campaign a few years ago to get the street vendors to lighten up and not to hassle the tourists so much - whatever happened, the result was fine.. no real 'hard sell' at all. Return to the Caribbean Isle, then head 100 yds down the road to 'Aunt May's' restaurant and bar for dinner... this is on the advice of Devon and Judith, who tried this place out for breakfast... have good meal (various things on offer including curried goat) with cheap beers (70p a bottle for Red Stripe) and return there for breakfast the next day. This is where we encountered the Jamaican breakfast for the first time - ackee (a local fruit that grows everywhere and is a bit like..... well, nothing else on earth really..) with salt fish, boiled green bananas, plantain fritters and dumplings. Wow! With a pint of pineapple juice and a huge mug of coffee, this was to become our regular way of starting the day..... So things started to slip into a gentle rhythm... leisurely wake up whenever (usually around 10:00am due to late night partying... !) wander down to Aunt Mays for brekkie - if no explorations planned, head back to hotel beach/pool and catch some rays... maybe a swim to cool off... mid/late afternoon, head down to the pattie shop for a lunchtime snack - (patties cost around 30p each and are just perfect for this). On the way back, stop of in our favourite bar for a nice cool Red Stripe and chat to locals as we munch patties in the shade (it's too hot out of the waterside breeze to sit in the sun). Then wander back to the hotel as the sun goes down, quick wash & change and head out for dinner & general partying. The hotel actually turned out to be 'sort of' OK... in that the rooms were spacious, airy with an excellent view over the nice private beach and were well looked after by the maids. (Showers and hot water could be a bit intermittent however!). The local Jamaican staff were friendly and reasonably efficient (in a laid-back, stoned, Jamaican sort of way) - we ended up going out and partying with them several nights (more of which later...). The main problem was with the management - these were (wait for it...) Germans. Now, I'd expect a hotel managed by our Euro-pals the Germans to be clinically efficient... but not so in this case! The organisation and service was pretty abysmal whenever we put it to the test (which was not very often!). So basically we made use of the good bits of the hotel (ie the rooms, sometimes the bar, the local staff and the beach and pool) and did everything else better & cheaper in the local bars/restaurants/clubs. The other thing we soon found out was that the other resorts were much more commercialised etc and that Runaway Bay really was a pleasant and relaxing haven - so we told the rep that we'd be OK staying there after all. So that's the background to the 2 weeks out there - whenever we weren't doing anything else, we'd be vegging out as described above. What I'll do now is describe what we did when we WEREN'T vegging out.... 1) SERIOUS New Year's party... 3 days into our trip it was new year's eve... the hotel had organised a bash and we started out there.. but it rapidly became apparent that this was as well-organised as everything else in the hotel. Luckily we had a contingency plan - the folks at Aunt May's (who had been busy shipping in a MONSTER sound system into the back garden as we sat there overlooking the sea and having yet another huge breakfast) had invited us to join their local party... so we did! Good decision...!! this was a real local's gathering, with a barbeque set up for jerk chicken and pork, cheap rum & Red Stripe, LOUD reggae, a makeshift casino in the car park and other attractions such as stoned rastas passing round family-size spliffs... we were there till around 4:30 am... Lots of fun here - I was being continually made offers for any one of my 3 'wives' by the local Jamaican guys... Ann-Marie was definitely the favourite - one guy was up to 7 million Jamaican dollars, a house by the beach (With a helipad... inspired bargaining by Avril there) and a boat if I'd sell him Ann-Marie. Needless to say, I didn't sell her (cos Avril and Linda wouldn't let me...) 2) Dunn’s River Falls & Bob Marley’s place - At the new years bash we got talking to a local guy called Stanley - turns out he had a mini-bus (imagine my surprise…) and he did us a good deal for the following day - basically he said he’d pick us up and take us to the famous Dunn’s River Falls, then pick us up later and take us wherever we wanted to go for the rest of the day… and really cheaply! So off we went (only SLIGHTLY jaded after the new years celebrations…) to Dunns River. This is the place you’ll no doubt have seen in any Jamaican tourist brochure or video - 600 ft of very pretty waterfalls cascading over large rocks through picturesque rainforest type flora. Basically the thing you do is strip down to your swimming cossies and climb all the way up… (taking care to avoid the chains of hand-in-hand americans from the cruise liners which dock down the road in Ochi…). Great fun and a bit scary at first - we’d had a bit of a tropical downpour earlier in the morning so the water was coming down rather quickly and in large amounts… your recommended to hire a guide but we decided to wing it on our own… the intrepid Ann-Marie leading the way in the manner of an amphibian mountain goat. After that went down to the bar on the beach for patties and Red Stripe - then met up with Stan the man. Turns out that Bob Marley’s Mausoleum is ‘just down the road’ from Runaway Bay, so we ask Stan if he can take us there… turns out to be 15 (Jamaican) miles up into the hills (never trust a Jamaican when it comes to stuff like time or distance) - over an hour in the bus climbing steep hillsides with sheer drops by the side of the narrowing heavily pot-holed road… some pretty spectacular views on the way up though…. Arrive at around 5:00 pm and get the full Rasta tour of the place. This was where Bob Marley was born and spent the early years of his life before moving to Kingston… lots of things referred to in his songs are there… our Rasta guide points these out and sings the relevant bits of the songs, providing extra bits of local colour and legend as he goes. The tour finishes in a recently-built chapel which contains Bob’s body - seems he was enbalmed and then interred 6ft ABOVE the ground in a tomb of Italian marble. Sounds tacky as I write this but at the time the whole experience was very interesting and also moving. BTW it seems from our guide that the Rasta view of Bob’s death is definitely conspiracy theory… they don’t believe he had cancer and are absolutely convinced that various shady government agencies engineered his demise. We emerge from to shrine to find Stan the man immersed in Red Stripe and rice and peas (another local delicacy) in the bar across the road… we have a beer to let him finish his meal.. he comes into the bar where the guides from the Bob Marley place are now off duty and rolling up SERIOUS monster conical spliffs using just the crumbled heads of the locally grown marijuana plants (no tobacco involved)… smells amazing… so of course Stan (unprompted ) does the biz and gets the necessary bits to put together a little sample spliffette for us… we get into the bus, and as it starts to roll down hill back towards Runaway Bay Stan lights up, takes a couple of huge tokes then starts passing this around (so he can start doing that difficult steering stuff…) So, picture the scene if you will… early evening, the sun has gone down so it’s pretty dark - and getting darker by the minute… of course there are no street lights (I think I saw 3 all the time I was in Runaway bay) and we know that the road is a twisty turny potholed thing with sheer drops on the bends. Our driver has been drinking, and is now passing around a VERY potent naughty Jamaican Woodbine… what would YOU do??? Of course we did the right thing… we took several long tokes each on the wacky baccy and there was (as the locals say) “Noooo Problem”…. Arrived safe and sound back in Runaway Bay (somehow it didn’t seem to take so long coming down…) and floated around for the next 2 hours… 3) Stan takes us for a local ‘pub crawl’ - following the success of our first trip (geddit, geddit?) with ‘Stanely’s Tours’ he offered to take us out one evening - no fare, just buy him beers - doing a ‘locals’ night out around the pubs and clubs he’d normally frequent in Runaway Bay.. how could we resist?? So around 9 we meet up in Aunt May’s, and off we go… first stop is the ‘Twin Rocks’ bar… local place, rastas and locals playing (wait for it…) Bar Billiards (!) - except they play it in macho Jamaican style…. There is no such thing as a ‘delicate’ shot in Jamaican pool, snooker, golf, or any sport I can think of.. basically the name of the game is to whack anything mobile as hard as you can…. If you know the game of Bar Billiards, you’ll realise that this approach might be a bit of a disadvantage… however, the guys who were playing were obviously extremely skilled at this - very hard fast shots going DIRECTLY into the holes… no stray bounces or riccochets.. We look on, amazed by this… in the meantime Stan’s clued us in on what the locals drink - for 5 of us, you buy a quarter bottle of over-proof rum, 2 bottles of coke (that’s the expensive bit…) lots of ice, a twist of lime each… around £3 a round and very potent… so after a few of these Linda and Avril pluck up the courage to take on the guys at bar billiards… and proceed to BEAT them!!!! Oh-ooooohhhh - time to move on… The next bar is more of a ‘club’… pool table, flashy decor and a small disco area out the back… more rum & cokes, chat to locals… try (unsuccessfully) to sell Avril.. Ann-Marie smooching with local chap in the disco. Late supper of jerk chicken at £1 a portion from street vendor… excellent stuff! Move on to next bar which is a very quick visit to see the local ‘exotic dancers’ … (I think ‘emetic’ was more appropriate than ‘exotic’)… 2 very bored Jamaican ladies wearing G-strings and not much else… their ‘act’ (if you can call it that) involved shuffling around to loud reggae/soul music and sort of stroking themselves and playing with their garments… one was very skinny, the other was pretty large… we didn’t stay long! Next stop - the ‘Las Vegas’ bar… good place, relaxed, friendly locals… more rum & cokes… gets to around 2:00 am - then Stanley decides he just HAS to show us this ‘amazing view’… Into the bus and he drives us up into the hills again.. (only 10 minutes this time).. shows us a) the amazing view - out over Runaway Bay etc with the clear sky and amazing starscape overhead and fireflies twinkling all around us in the bushes and trees - spectacular stuff… he then briefly shows us the house he’s building… currently one floor of a shell of blocks… apparently the way they do this in Jamaica is to get the land ASAP then slowly build the house buying bits as they can afford it… of course there’s little rain and no snow, frost or anything so there’s no real requirement to get these things topped out quickly… Finally Stan takes us even FURTHER up the hill to show us yet another amazing view and to meet his pal Randy who’s a young rasta who lives in this little shack on top of the hill behind Runaway. I got the impression that it was pretty normal for Stan to turn up in the early hours of the morning with a few friends… Randy seemed pretty unsurprised about the whole thing and proceeded to roll (yet another) joint which got passed around for awhile… eventually got back to the hotel around 4:30 am (again!) 4) Negril… did a day trip to Negril which is a resort on the far western tip of the island… pretty famous place, very commercialised.. 7 miles of brilliant crescent-shaped beach which is mostly owned by pubs, restaurants and all-inclusive resorts… spend some time swimming and soaking up the rays before heading up to Rick’s Café - tourist trap on top of the cliffs looking directly west - everyone gathers there to sip Banana Daquiri cocktails and watch the sun go down.… there are also some ‘cliff divers’ who jump or dive the 50-60 feet from the terrace into the lagoon there… I assumed that these were professional folks who did this as a tourist attraction but NO! - these were just drunken tourists who thought it would be a good thing to do!!! (rather them than me!) Main problem with Negril is the distance…. 3 hours in a bus over narrrow twisty lumpy roads.. not so bad heading out there in daylight when there’s lots to see - a real pain heading back in the evening !! broke the journey both ways by stopping off in Montego Bay, but still a pain! Arrive back at the hotel around 11:30 and just have to have a beer or 2 to wind down after the journey…. 5) Rafting - a real highlight! Again, most tourist brochures and videos feature this bit of Jamaica… long rafts made of bamboo with a guy sort of punting at the front…. 2 people sit on the seat at the back and you get a couple of hours of leisurely drifting downriver - lots of chat about local history, flora and fauna from your boatman chappie… also lots of stalls selling food, drinks, souvenirs etc as you wind downstream… they’ll even swim out and bring you a cold beer as you go past!!! Very relaxing - and interesting… saw lots of local stuff (including an impressive Blue Heron for all you twitchers!)… 6) Caves… just up the road from Runaway Bay in Discovery Bay (where Christopher Columbus landed) there is a cave system extending 7-8 miles.. we did a brief walking (or more correctly, crouching) tour of around ¾ mile and got to see underground lakes, weird rock formations etc… They actually nmade part of this place into a night club - but we heard from the locals that on opening night there was a real problem that scared people off - when the started up the disco (guess what… LOUD heavy reggae with a MONSTER bass sound) all the bats which live in the cave went crazy and started flying around - resulting in lots of scared customers.. there were certainly a lot of bats in there - we heard and saw loads of them! That’s probably about it… overall impressions - a great place, friendly people, lots to do and see (but also great to just veg out). Don’t believe the bad news you may have heard re crime, mugging, hard sell street vendors etc.. certainly where we went thwere was no problem (though I believe certain poarts of Kingston can be a bit dangerous) It’s a big place - 150 miles end to end (east/west) and 50 miles across… but the standards of driving and road maintenance make it seem much bigger… That’s it for now.. may follow up with additional stuff I forgot… am meeting up with Avril, Ann-Marie etc soon to do a photo-swap so I’m sure there’ll be lots I forgot © Copyright Cooke-Shuttleworth Enterprises 2001