Potential Tropical Cyclone 22

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I hadn’t paid too much attention to the dates before my flight back home when I discovered I had one extra night in Jamaica. I thought about staying in Portland for one more night but luckily I decided to spent the extra night in Morant Bay, about one hour from the my last hotel near the airport. I didn’t know it yet, but this saved me from getting stuck in Portland or Saint Thomas Parish after the main road washed away due to 48 hours of relentless rain in the days before potential tropical cyclone 22 hit Jamaica. I expected strong winds but it was just raining and raining.

Want to ready my Jamaica journey in chronological order? Start here.

“Spending Thursday night trapped between floodwaters in her vehicle in Golden Grove, St Thomas, with her four year old child, was not something Tiffany Sobah anticipated”
— The Gleaner, Saturday, November 18, 2023

Morant Bay

It was just too wet to walk around Morant Bay comfortably. The town is engraved into the minds of Jamaicans because of the Morant Bay rebellion in 1865 led by Baptist deacon and activist Paul Bogle. The formerly enslaved population was suffering from an economic crisis and received few civil or religious freedoms. The rebellion is well documented. It resulted in the hanging of Paul Bogle. He is now considered a National Hero. Jamaican dancer Gerald Levy adopted the artist name Bogle to honour Paul Bogle. The name now lives on as Bogle dance, a dance choreographed by Levy in 1991.

The attack on the cout house, St Thomas in the East, Jamaica by William Heysham Overend.

Bogle · Buju Banton, original 1991.

I arrived way too early at my last hotel on Friday. The owner couldn’t remotely open the gate and door for me because of a power cut. There was no electricity and she was living in Kingston. I had to wait until 4 pm for the cleaning lady to arrive. So I waited for almost four hours next to the road in the pouring rain. There wasn't even a bar. Luckily a liquor store was open so I could order some Red Stripe beer, watch the trucks go by and say hello to the people walking past me. Only on Saturday, my final day in Jamaica, the sky cleared.

A short postscript. Looking back to my two-week journey it struck me that Jamaica is a very unique place on this earth. Its people are very creative, something I learned from the Jamaican music I listened to in the past thirty years. But the creativity also spills over in the living language, patois, and the resilience people show when earning a living. Which left-hand drive mountainous country in the world would import those big right-hand drive USA rigs made for the wide and open American highways? Only in Jamaica. No boy cyan make we run left Jamaica.

Nanny of the Maroons

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The year 1655 was a crucial year for Jamaican Maroons. When the British defeated the Spanish, many enslaved Africans escaped into the mountainous interior of the island, sometimes mixing with native Taíno. These Maroons formed rather independent communities from the British and were slowly gaining power to the chagrin of the British. By 1720, a spiritual leader named Nanny, emerged in the Blue Mountains, uniting several villages, which later became known as Nanny Town. ‘Queen’ Nanny fought a successful guerrilla war against the British. Meanwhile the British were also engaged in fighting the Maroon warrior Cudjoe in Westmoreland Parish, which led to a peace treaty when the British realised they could not defeat the Maroons.

Nanny refused to sign the Peace Treaty of 1740, but was able to relocate to 500 acres of land, at a site which late became known as Moore Town. Her body is said to be buried in Moore Town. I visited Nanny’s memorial in Moore Town.

Nanny of the Maroons.

Moore Town is really small. Apart from a cultural centre, which was closed on the November day I arrived, there is really nothing expect scattered residential housing. There was a small shop, which sold cheap but cold Red Stripe beer for only 250 dollars per bottle. I drank beer and watched the roosters parade around in the rain. Some men were repairing a car, hammering loudly.

When I wanted to go back to Port Antonio there was no taxi in sight. I decided to start walking back. The mountain road was beautiful and I didn’t mind the occasional light rain shower. The whole distance was quite far. I got to a junction and started chatting to somebody. I ended up in a small bar and bought several people a beer.

The discussion below was the result of somebody asking me how much I paid for my plane ticket. The man in the pink shirt offered me a ride back to Kingston. Along the way we stopped at a house, were he bought two pigs for Christmas.

Barbecue and jerk

When the Spanish settled in Cuba, Dominican Republic and Jamaica they adopted the Taíno word barbakoa for the raised wooden structure the Taíno used to slow cure meat on hot ash. The word entered the English language as barbecue.

The practise of slow roasting heavily seasoned (jerk) meat is said to have been preserved by Maroon communities who learned the practice from the Taíno, although it is believed that the Maroons used underground fire pits to prevent the smoke to become visible. The jerk seasoning preserves the meat and gives it extra flavour. The practice of roasting seasoned meat is called jerking. The jerk seasoning consists at least of pimento and Scotch bonnet peppers.

Traditional Jamaican jerk is made on a fire pit below sticks of pimento en sweet wood. The meat is placed on the wood and then covered with metal sheets to capture the flavourful wood smoke. It is quite a difficult proces because you need to maintain a low but stable temperature for many hours.

Boston by day.

On my first night in Portland I walked to one of the Boston jerk places. Boston is famous for its jerk, but it is really a cluster of several jerk places. I opted for pork instead of chicken. It was served with ‘festivals’ (=fried bread) and of course I ordered a Red Stripe. The ladies in the background were rather loud. The loudest lady proclaimed to nobody in particular that she was a Christian and that her Lord commanded her to have sex every day and twice on a Sunday. I couldn’t hold my tongue and I told her that I became tired by just listening to her.

She didn’t believe I had so little stamina and when I confessed I was living not far from the red light district in Amsterdam, she really didn’t believe me. I joked that I didn’t want no ‘double trouble’ and everybody got the Beres Hammond reference. The ladies were screaming with laughter. In the end she forced me to buy her a drink. I made it back to my hotel alone, as planned.

Pork jerk and festivals.

Boston jerk kitchen.

Of course I had to remember the name of one of the men the night before - Shane - and he took this as an opportunity to drag me to a small bar a few hundred meters from the road and fleece a couple of beers out of me. Shane was a ‘habitual line stepper’ to quote Charlie Murphy, and the man in the foreground pulled a chair for me so I could drink my beer in peace.

Jerk Chicken in Port Antonio

After the Boston jerk pork I had to try the jerk chicken. This place is just outside the town center of Port Antonio. The chicken is grilled in large batches in old oil drums.

The rain intensifies Potential Tropical Cyclone 22

Portland, Port Antonio

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After visiting the Blue Mountains I decided that Port Antonio would be a good place to spend a few days. When I booked my hotel I didn't realise I booked a hotel near Boston Beach, almost half an hour by car from Port Antonio. Luckily both are on the coastal highway and it is one of the main taxi routes. The hotel was another homestay owned by an Italian guy who married a Jamaican. Both were very welcoming.

The man who drove me from the mountains to Port Antonio claimed to be a maroon and he even had a more outrageous claim: he could command the voodoo of the coconut.

It didn’t become clear what voodoo powers were enshrined in the coconut. He was not so lucky when playing cards when we made a short stop for a Red Stripe beer. He lost a few thousand Jamaican dollars within minutes and blamed “different rules” of the game up in the mountains. When we arrived in Port Antonio he overcharged me. By then I already decided that my photo of him playing cards was worth the extra money. I advised him to be careful for the power of the coconut.

Port Antonio

The capital of Portland predates the British rule of Jamaica. The Spanish called the port Puerto Anton. Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland, decided in the early 18th century that the city would become a naval stronghold. A fort had to protect the settlers from attacks of the Spanish from the sea and the Maroons from the mountains. But it was in the 1880s that the town started booming when banana boats dropped off wealthy American tourists.

Fish N Rundung

I first had to find breakfast in Port Antonio. After walking around for a while I found a small place with Fish ‘n’ Rundung on the menu for a 1.000 dollars (6 euro). Rundung is Jamaica for any food cooked down (‘run down’) in coconut milk. So fish ‘n’ rundung is a piece of fish simmered down in coconut milk. I’m pretty sure the fish I had was fried before the simmering proces. It was served with cooked banana, stewed vegetables, fried dumpling and some fritters.

By the time I finished my breakfast they wiped Fish n Rundung from the menu. Apparently I had the last Fish n Rundung of the day.

Port Antonio has a population of just 13.000. It just takes an hour to walk the town and there is not much to see. There is a small harbour for yachts but the only building is off limits for the general public. You need to own an expensive yacht to be able to drink a coffee in the building.

In Port Antonio I found refuge in a small Ital restaurant with a view towards the sea, which gave me peace and quiet from the busy road. I asked for a natural juice and the patron picked a bunch of guave fruits from a tree and returned after ten minutes with a glass of freshly make guave juice.

The blessings of travelling off-season. I was the only customer in the Survival restaurant.

I’m not 100% convinced this is guave, but is is what I remember.

Fresh guave juice.

It was too early for lunch so walked for a couple of hours along the coastal highway to return in the late afternoon.

Kidney breakfast

The next day I went to the same breakfast place. They only had ‘kidney’ on the menu. I wasn’t sure if they meant ‘kidney beans’ or ‘kidney’ as in meat. It was the latter and it was incredibly tasty. The kidney was served with fried dumpling, cooked cassava, banana and pumpkin. Jamaican food is rather basic but when cooked right it is packed with flavour. I never had such a good tasting kidney gravy. I asked to see the cook to thank her in person, which I did.

Blue Mountain cowboy coffee

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At Section (alt. 4.000 feet), located on the mountain pass between Buff Bay and Kingston, there is a small coffee house, which has been a family business for over 100 years. The man who built the business was the honourable James Dennis and his legacy is now being continued by Hopie. When I arrived Hopie was roasting coffee beans in a Dutch pot over an open wood fire.

I paid for accommodation and meals for the duration of my stay.

My first cup of Blue Mountain coffee.

I was lucky enough to see a tiny rasta bird, also know as the Jamaican tody (Todus todus). This bird is beneficial for the coffee producers because it provides some pest control by eating the coffee berry borer, a small beetle who lives inside the coffee fruit.

Mountain spring water, straight from the source.

The view from the coffee roasting shack was meditative.

Dinner in the mountains

Preparations for the evening meal started in the afternoon by boiling a pot of beans on the wood fire.

In the kitchen Hopie made dumplings for boiling. In a second pot Hopie boiled banana for the bean stew.

The seasoning of the one-pot bean soup/stew consisted of coconut milk powder, seasonings from an instant soup package, some butter, spring onion, parsley and scotch bonnet pepper. Hopie also added okra.

Everything comes together in one pot: boiled beans, banana, dumplings, okra and the seasoning.

Sunday morning

Best moment of my journey. A mug of freshly made Blue Mountain coffee in the morning. The proces is quite easy. The coffee is made cowboy style. In a coffee pot hot water is simply poured over the coarse grind. The coffee is then poured in a mug.

While I was drinking my coffee breakfast was prepared. Hopie fried saltfish with onion, thyme and pepper, just like you would do to make ackee and saltfish. But instead of ackee he added a can of boiled beans.

The saltfish and beans are served with boiled banana and yellow plantain.

The image of James Dennis is prominently featured on the walls. The photo of the couple is even older. If I have understood it correctly these were the owners a generation before James Dennis.

Before roasting the coffee berries are simply dried on the floor.

The cultivar grown in the mountains is Coffea arabica.

Mountain hike

Since the Blue Mountains are populated you will find many single track foot paths. I went on a hike with one of the men handing around the coffee house. We first followed the main road for a couple of hours. This road is so quiet it almost feels like a hiking trail. Then we ventured deeper into the mountains. Without somebody local, chances are you will find yourself being lost.

On the map I could see that Kingston wasn’t too far away from Section. Yet, when we reached Holywell Park I was amazed to see all of Kingston in the distance.

The coffee plants.

When we almost made it back to the coffee house we visited Henry’s ‘Ever Ready Lawn’, a local dance floor. Family was cleaning the place because one of the elders passed away. The big wooden speakers were out of commission, but the selecter made due with a smaller speaker and a laptop.

The riddim in the video is the Smile riddim made famous by Garnett Silk (Hello Mama Africa, 1993). The version in the video is Come Back Home (1993) by Beres Hammond.

It was fun recognising al the songs being played on the sound system. One of my favourites: Marcia Griffiths version of The First Cut is the Deepest from 1996.

The basic aromatics for Jamaican cooking are thyme, spring onion and lemon. Because of my hike I didn’t watch Hopie cook the chicken and rice and peas.

Next location: Portland, Port Antonio

Ackee breakfast

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Only a few hundred meters from Michael Fabulous’ house in Boscobel there is a tiny beach, we are really talking about five meters between the rocks and the concrete wall of a hotel, so it was possible to take a swim before breakfast. Without the hotel this would probably be a pretty nice beach.

View from the sea towards the beach.

To get to the beach I had to walk through somebody’s backyard. The backyard was filled with chicken and goats. All I could think was: “curry goat”.

Ackee breakfast with roasted breadfruit

The day before we roasted a breadfruit from the garden on the gas stove. The roasted breadfruit is sliced, put in salted water to enhance the taste, then simply fried in oil.

Ackee and saltfish is considered the national breakfast of Jamaica. Ackee is the fruit of the Ackee tree, native to West Africa. The name also has its origins in West Africa. In the Akan language the fruit is called akye fufo. But in Africa the fruit is commonly not eaten because it is toxic. The unripe fruit contains hypoglycin A and hypoglycin B, which are converted in the body to methylenecyclopropylacetic acid. This compound is potential lethal. But when the ackee ripens the concentration of hypoglycin A and B may be 100 times less than the unripe fruit. After picking the ripe fruit the outer shell and the black arils are removed. The soft yellow seeds are then boiled for a short time before the ackee is ready for use.

The taste of ackee and saltfish is mainly provided by the saltfish. Ackee has a beautiful texture and what makes ackee and saltfish so appealing is the mouthfeel of the ackee.

The dish is very easy. Heat some oil and fry saltfish, or tinned salted mackerel, with onion, bell pepper and hot pepper. Then you mix everything with the prepared ackee fruit. The ackee doesn’t need to cook long. Simply serve the ackee with fresh fruit, crackers and fried breadfruit. It is a very satisfying breakfast.

Sun Valley Plantation

I became curious when I saw the name Sun Valley Plantation on the map. I tried to arrange a visit but they emailed me the following: We are closed on Thursdays but since you don't mind doing a half tour let's see what can happen. So yes you may come.

I arrived at the right time, because the owner just started a tour for a group which turned up last minute. The plantation commercially produces coconut for the local market but they have a garden showcasing many different plants. Sun Valley is owned by Lorna and Nolly Binns. Nolly's father bought the property in 1966 to grow bananas for export. The banana export isn’t economically viable anymore.

Lorna Binns, I presume.

Bamboo is not native to Jamaica but was imported by the British to use as supports for banana trees so they won’t fall over.

In 1988 Hurricane Gilbert destroyed the plantation. Only by the grace of special low interest loans the lost trees could be replanted. Gilbert was the second most intense tropical cyclone to hit Jamaica. The mysterious invasive reindeer who roam Jamaica’s forests are actually just six white-tailed deer, who escaped from a tourist attraction during Hurricane Gilbert. Now the population is an estimated 6.000 deer and hunting is encouraged.

A nutmeg and mace, the reddish seed covering.

Annatto is native to the Americas. The seeds can be used for colouring and flavouring food and is used in many parts of the world, as far as Vietnam and the Philippines. In St. Mary is a town called Annotto Bay, because of the abundance of Annatto trees in the area.

Geddes Town, St Mary

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Michael had an idea. Why didn’t I visit Geddes Town to meet Boycott, a friend of his? A cousin could drive me there for 2.000 dollars. He explained to me how such a meeting would be executed. My visit would be announced ahead of time. I had to bring 5.000 dollars, so Boycott could buy some rum for his friends in the village. This seemed like a perfectly good plan. When I arrived Boycott was waiting for me, I slipped him the 5.000 and soon he bought a couple of bottles of rum and cranberry juice.

Wray & Nephew is the rum of choice for most Jamaicans. It’s available everywhere at 1.200 dollars per bottle, about 7 euro. It can be mixed with cranberry juice to make it more easy to drink. Wray & Nephew rum is 63%. I could not drink more than three glasses over the whole afternoon. I declined to smoke. Boycott could manage both smoke and drink at the same time.

Cheers!

Lunch was provided by this lady who was operating some kind of home cooking restaurant from her back yard. She made me some rice and peas and KFC styled fried chicken.

Botanical lessons

During my stay I we talked a lot about all the plants growing in the village. The tree and the fruit below is called noni and is native to Southeast Asia and Australasia. The fruit is bitter and was commonly only eaten in times of famine. In Thai cuisine the leaves are used for curry like kaeng bai-yo or in som tam. In Jamaica noni fruit, also known as duppy soursop, is mainly used as a herbal medicine. Duppy is a haunting spirit of the dead.

In the gardens yam is grown. To determine if the yam is ready to harvest you have to look at the green tops. If they become dry and black the yam might be ready.

Michael Swaby, World’s Best Innovative Coconut Farmer

At one point a car stopped and a man stepped out. Before saying anything he lifted his white tank top and flashed his big gun at me. I was like: “Who are you?”. “Google me”, he said. So I entered “the world’s best innovative coconut farmer” in the search field and indeed, I found Michael Swaby on YouTube. “If you are so famous, I will take your photo’, I said. Thumbs up!

After hours of drinking we took a walk around Geddes Town. I noticed Boycott had trouble walking and he explained his body was smashed up in a car accident not too long ago.

The village provides everything, from fruits and vegetables to meat. Some people raise pigs.

Jamaicans love to argue. If I understood the argument correctly the man sitting down was convinced there were people living in the sky and under the earth. The other man was having none of it and demanded proof.

We talked about geopolitics and Boycott was sharp on these issues. Whether it was the war in Ukraine or the war between Hamas and Israel, I found myself on the same page as he was. I was a little sad to leave the village. I couldn’t take note of all the different plants Boycott explained to me and its uses. When I left Boycott calculated how much he spent of the 5.000 dollars.

Next post: Port Maria

Boscobel and James Bond Beach

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I didn’t feel like loosing myself in a big city, so for me to book the next hotel near Oracabessa in the Parish of Saint Mary was a natural choice. I ended up in Boscobel, less than a ten minute drive by shared taxi from Oracabessa. When I arrived at the hotel it turned out to be another homestay owned by reggae singer Michael Fabulous, born Lansfield Clarke, and his wife Tina. Michael had success with hits like “One Way - and that’s Jah Way”, “Smokey Joe” and “White River”.

I really enjoyed my stay with Michael. In the mornings we spent an hour or so talking. One day he made me ackee breakfast. He has a side-business organising things to do for guests. For me he arranged a two night stay in Section at James Dennis’ Blue Mountain Coffee Farm and a visit to his cousin Boycott in Geddes Town.

Slow starting mornings with tea and a smoke

Michael toured the world since the 1990s and, of course, he also performed in Amsterdam. In his song Smokey Joe he gives props to Amsterdam in the introduction. He stayed in my old neighbourhood the Bijlmer when he visited The Netherlands.

Michael Fabulous performs on a regular base in Africa. He brought some seeds from Ghana and was trying to germinate these in a pot. By the looks of it, successfully.

In his backyard he has a breadfruit tree.

One night Michael travelled to Kingston for the crowning of Admiral Tibet as a life time achievement. Admiral was born in Freehill, Saint Mary, not far from Boscobel. Micheal kept his presence a secret until the very moment Tibet was crowned. Skip to 09:00 minutes in the video for the crowning.

Boscobel

Boscobel is the town near Ian Fleming International Airport and the Northern Coastal Highway runs right through the town. The highway is a two-lane road and has food stalls and small bars along the road. I had my first “hot soup” from the rasta below. Hot soup is a watery bean soup and can be vegetarian or boiled with bones. It usually costs around 500 dollars (3 euro).

Rasta selling hot soup in Boscobel for 500 dollars.

I spent a couple of late afternoons in Boscobel sitting outside a little bar, sipping Red Stripe beer, listening to 1990s dancehall music playing from big speakers next to the bar and watching the people and traffic. I’d rather spent my days like this instead of visiting another waterfall.

Grilled breadfruit ready to use.

I asked several Jamaicans what people do for a hobby. Everyone had the same answer: partying. I have never visited a country featuring so many small bars, practically everywhere you’ll find tiny bars along the roads. Often you will see the following sign: “It’s my intention to apply for a spirit license at the next licensing session to be held in [insert name parish] for this premises”. This also seems to apply to taxi drivers. One time I was waiting for a taxi when a car with white numbers plates pulled up. I asked him why he didn't have the mandatory red taxi number plates. He said he intended to apply for a taxi licence. He also intended to have the passenger seat belt repaired.

One afternoon I decided to visit Ocho Rios, which has a cruise ship terminal. I got off the taxi when we crossed White River. This is the song title of one of Michael’s songs and I wanted to see the river. I had to walk to the town center of Ocho Rios after visiting White River. It was a hot day and after half an hour the heat got to me. I had to sit down to drink some coconut water, this is my favourite drink when it’s hot. During the summer of 2023 I had the chorus of Buju Banton’s song in my mind: “Sip, sip, sip, sip..”

“Sip, sip, sip, sip
Coconut water, good fi di heart”
— Buju Banton, Digital Release date: 06/09/2023

Reggae dancehall star Shabba Ranks was born not far from Ocho Rios in Sturge Town, Saint Ann. It is hard to overstate the popularity of Shabba in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Saint Mary was home for quite a few reggae artists: Capleton, Ninja Man, Sizzla, Lady Saw, just to name a few.

James Bond Beach

Once upon a time James Bond beach was just a stretch of beach owned by Ian Fleming after he bought 15 acres of land in 1946 and named the estate Goldeneye. Jamaican heiress Blanche Blackwell lived next door and she and Ian Fleming became very close friends. In 1961 Fleming offered Blanche Blackwell’s son Chris the job of location scout for the first James Bond movie Dr. No.

The beach in 1962.

Chris Blackwell didn’t stay in the movie business but co-founded Island Records and was instrumental in making Bob Marley an international star outside Jamaica. In 1976 Chris Blackwell bought Fleming's Goldeneye estate including the beach.

I heard rumours that the beach was closed but I was stubborn enough to see for myself. There was a big gate, I opened the doors and sneaked in. The place was deserted apart from a couple of men. I started chatting with one of the men. He worked as a security guard and I kept him talking for more than an hour. He had stories to tell. He knew Bounty Killer, birth name Rodney Basil Price, from his early days. Among his brothers Bounty was the timid one when growing up. And he was thrifty. He made himself a piggy bank out of a metal box. Other stories concerned extreme police corruption and the shooting of Spragga Benz’ son in 2008.

James Bond beach in 2023

I learned that James Bond Beach was closed due to COVID. Basically it never re-opened after the dangerous phase of the pandemic was over. But because the beach was closed I could enter the beach for free. Normally you had to pay a fee to enter. The downside was that the Moonraker Bar was also closed.

The Moonraker Bar.

Ambition

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I felt the familiar feeling of being pushed forward by an invisible hand when the airplane braked hard. I had just landed at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica. It was dark at 9:51 pm.

My booking on Booking.com turned out to be a homestay. The house was located in a fairly quiet part of Kingston. There was a comical confusion at immigration when the officer asked me the name of my hotel. “15 min from the airport in Kingston Jamaica”. Yes, but the name of the hotel? Me: “I think it is called ‘15 min from the airport in Kingston Jamaica’”. The immigration officer, a bit weary, asked me to call the hotel for the name. Yes, just a moment. “15 min from the airport in Kingston Jamaica”. That was the official name of my hotel.

Shane, my taxi driver who picked me up from the airport, was also the partner of Tamara, the host. The next day Shane drove me around Kingston. Tamara founded the company Sehai All Natural, food Manufacturer of natural seasoning and natural juice in Kingston. She couldn’t afford to produce a new batch of seasoning because food prices at the market were too high at the moment.

I only stayed two nights in Kingston thinking I would return to the city when I had to catch my flight back. But I travelled directly from Portland via Morant Bay back to the airport. So, my experience of Kingston was rather brief.

The porch of my homestay ‘15 min from the airport in Kingston Jamaica’.

Tamara and her products. She made me breakfast twice and by the taste of her cooking I’m convinced her seasoning will taste wonderful. I hope she can grow her business.

The first morning I had to find an ATM. ‘Just don’t walk with your telephone in your hand’, my host warned me. How dangerous is this place, I wondered? I knew about neighbourhoods which shouldn’t be visited unaccompanied like Tivoli Gardens and Seaview Gardens. Later I learned that some neighbourhoods can be even more dangerous for Jamaicans. When I asked a young man if I could just walk into any neighbourhood in Kingston he said: “You might get away with it, but I can’t visit those neighbourhoods”.

Not a coffee but a coffee cup filled with sweet bean porridge.

Sweet porridge stall for breakfast.

Ninja Man, aka Don Gorgon, performing in the early 1990s. This is the dancehall music I fell in love with. Ninja was the baddest DJ of the time. The man jumping on stage seems planned as part of the show. "No don't ever do that security, leave him alone, put him back!! Poor people put me Yah, so if poor people wan skank with me skank and galang.”

Beverly Hills

One Kingston neighbourhood I knew from the lyrics of Ninja Man is Beverly Hills from the song Ambition (album Kill Them And Done, 1991). I was curious to check Beverly Hills out for myself. It is one of the richest neighbourhoods of Kingston, situated high on a hill. Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness owns a house in Beverly Hills.

View from Beverly Hills to Kingston.

Kingston at the waterfront. In the distance the spit of land on which Norman Manley International Airport is built. The water in between used to be part of pre-1692 Port Royal, once called the “wickedest city on earth”. The city sank into the water due to the proces of liquefaction during the earthquake. One third of Port Royal survived the earthquake only to be destroyed by fire 10 years after the earthquake. Kingston was founded by the survivors of the 1692 earthquake that submerged Port Royal.

Port Royal was the home port of many English and Dutch privateers who were commissioned to attack Spanish vessels. The most notably name was Henry Morgan who was operating from Port Royal. It was during the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660) that the Commonwealth of England launched the Western Design against Spain's colonies. The idea was that Jamaica would never be secure until Spain acknowledged England's possession of Jamaica in a treaty. The wealth of the privateers and buccaneers was spent in Port Royal.

Port Royal earthquake 1692 by Jan Luyken and Pieter van der Aa

Jamaicans don’t seem to have the habit to sit down in a restaurant. This small vegetarian restaurant had only a couple of chairs inside, which remained empty. Food is often served in a plastic lunch box and most people will just take the box to their cars and eat on the go.

Veggie Campus on Skibo Ave, Kingston.

Kingston’s modern city plan reflects its original 18th century utilitarian origin. Professor Colin Clarke studied Kingston’s urban development and social change. Both streets and plots were designed to meet commercial requirements. The main thoroughfares, wider than the rest at 66ft, formed free-flowing transport routes between the port and plantations in the hinterland. Further reading: Kingston, Jamaica: Urban Development and Social Change, 1692-1962 (University of California Press, 1975).

Junction King street and Harbour street in 2023. It is easy to imagine how the processed sugar was transported from the sugar mills to the port.

The junction marked in red on a Kingston map of circa 1740.

Marked in red are the places I ended up visiting in Jamaica. After the second night in Kingston I took a minibus to Portland. I didn't realise my next hotel was situated in a different parish so when the minibus turned right instead of left when we reached the coast, I had to get off. Since I was sitting in the back and the bus was packed like a can of sardines, there was no way I could reach the door. I had to climb out of the window of the bus, Indiana Jones-style. Next post: Boscobel and James Bond beach.

Jamaica

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My journey to Jamaica began in 1990 when I took a girl home for the first time and I was embarrassed to play her my heavy metal music cassettes. Luckily a roommate had a couple of Bob Marley cassettes lying around, so I played those albums for the entire weekend: ‘Catch a Fire’ (1973) and ‘Kaya’ (1978). The girl, Huwaida Jibril, was visiting from Somalia and when she disappeared into the bloody civil war of Somalia, which intensified in 1990, I started listening to the lyrics of Bob Marley. I never saw her again and those songs were all I had. I also discovered war had not ended with World War 2.

In the same year I started paying attention to the music my neighbours were blasting from their balconies. Within months I taped albums of Shabba, Buju, Ninja and discovered a whole new world. That of dancehall, by the late 1980s basically a form of digitalised reggae music with heavy bass and wild dance floor antics. Since the early 1990s I knew I had to visit Jamaica one day. In this post I am collecting ideas for my upcoming journey.

Spanish conquest and slavery

As many Jamaicans are living outside Jamaica in diaspora, as on the island: almost 3 million, more than 92% of them are descendants of West-African slaves. On his second voyage in 1494 Christopher Columbus briefly visited the island south of Cuba only to shipwreck on the island on his fourth journey. The Spanish settled on the island in 1509 and managed to wipe out the Arawak, or Taíno, population within fifty years. The Spaniards replaced the Arawak Indians with African slaves. Some of them escaped and settled in the wild interior country of Jamaica together with last remaining Arawak.

The Spanish never managed to develop their settlement and when the English landed on the island in 1655 the Spaniards soon surrendered. This can only be understood in context of the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660). A few decades later the English had named the island Jamaica, planted sugar cane to satisfy the new sugar rush back in England, and imported African slaves to work on the plantations. 400 years after the start of the slave trade Jamaica gained independence from the British on 6 August 1962.

But after a short economic boom due to foreign investments in the 1960s, the economy stalled. In the 1970s the country faced braindrain when many qualified people left the island. According to Jamaican government statistics between 2012 and 2017 the household poverty incidence was between 13,7 and 21,6 percent in rural areas. Before the recent pandemic tourism contributed to a third of GDP.

“Look down on my shoes, can you see my toes?
The struggle that we live, nobody really knows
Stop and ask yourself, would you live like that?
And if you had to then, you wouldn’t buss gun shot?”
— Bounty Killer, Look, Bug Rhythm (1999)

James Bond and early tourism

Dr No is mostly remembered for its scene on the beach with Ursula Andress. The beach is located in Oracabessa on the north coast and has changed quite a bit because of tourism. The movie scenes from Dr No were partly responsible for the tourism boom.

Sadly, many beaches are not accessible by the locals. The law that regulates Jamaican rights to access the beach and use the sea is a colonial era law called the Beach Control Act of 1956. In 2020 the Jamaican government stated that “In Jamaican common law […] there is therefore no general right of bathing, or to walk along the foreshore, except where acquired by custom or prescription, nor is there any general right to fish except as provided in Section 3(3) of the Beach Control Act, 1956.”

To protest this colonial law a people’s movement called JAMAICA BEACH BIRTHRIGHT ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT is advocating for an amendment of the Jamaican constitution.       

The James Bond movie Dr. No was filmed just six months before independence.

Mountain hiking

Jamaica is also famous for the Blue Mountains national park. One starting point for hiking could be Newcastle JDF Camp, about 28 kilometers from Kingston downtown. Along the road are many guesthouses.

 

You can map Jamaican artists on the map. Barrington Levy spent his early days in the parish Clarendon and went back to the village James Hill in later years.

 

Seaview Gardens is a somewhat notorious neighbourhood home of Bounty Killer, Shabba Ranks & Elephant Man. I am not sure how safe it is to walk into alone.

 

Food

This part of this post will be long. From YouTube: Yvonne & Whitneys Kitchen. Address: Station Lane, Old Harbour Bay, St. Catherine, Jamaica. This small restaurant is run by Whitney (daughter) and Yvonne (mother) and by the look of it, the food seems amazing: curried goat, steamed fish and bammy and more.

From Kingston it takes well over half an hour to get there (40 km).