I took a notable trip to Jamaica this past week, although I probably shouldn't, I'll recount the events in this report. I was only down for a few days but I can already see that this is one of the most dysfunctional countries that I’ve visited. Given my experiences in Belize and the Virgin Islands, I would expect nothing less from a major Caribbean nation. It‘s the pretty much the definition of a third world cluster**** down here. All I brought was a backpack, some clothes and a fishing pole. Other than renting a motorbike and finding a beach, I had no plans for this trip.

As soon as I landed, my first obstacle was getting through immigration, where I was thwarted on my first attempt due to the fact that I had visited Thailand in the past 6 months and could be a risk for malaria. I was sent to the Bureau of Health desk, where I protested that I was only in Bangkok and there was no malaria there. She gave me a response about how Thailand is in Asia, therefore it is backward and diseased, which made me think that she had global perspective only a couple notches above that of N!xau from the Gods Must Be Crazy. I told her something like “compared to here, Jamaica is Endor and Bangkok is the Death Star.” My quick wits did much to piss off the locals before even leaving the airport. Little did I know that in a mere 24 hours I would be persona non grata in yet another Caribbean country. To avoid deportation I agreed to go get a malaria shot and report back to the Bureau of Health.

So anyway, I walked out of the entrance onto a shady Latin American-style highway. I was accosted by numerous dreadlocked , red-eyed, menacing-looking people of African descent asking me if I wanted to buy weed. I instead kept walking and found my way to the nearest bar where I drank Guinness and awaiting my traveling companion, a Canadian who has been on an adventure or two with me before.

I met a guy at the bar that I immediately had a positive vibe from. He seemed about 40 and physically reminded me of Dave Chapelle, as he had the same skin tone, thin body, and eraser-shaped bald head. He introduced himself as Patrick. Finally my buddy called, and I told him to make haste to the bar, which he did. Patrick said he would guide us around the island and gave his sidekick, Marcus, a call. Soon Marcus pulled up in a late 90s VW. He put my mind to better ease when I saw that he was a small man, dressed like a white tourist in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.



I wanted to rent a motorbike, as I knew it was the only way to get away from these hustlers, so we started the hour and a half drive to Negril. When I stepped into the car it reeked of weed, so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone by getting my herb for the trip from these guys as well. I just sat back and waited for the inevitable first joint to get rolled and passed, which wasn’t a long at all. Whenever I smoke strong weed in an unusual situation, it’s common that I have amazing revelations about something, and this time was no exception.

The first thing I thought about was how given that the town I grew up in was, to put it lightly, a sheltered environment, I naturally trust middle-to-upper-class white people to a greater degree than I should, and how all of this traveling and interacting with the locals was good for deprogramming myself. Patrick and his sidekick Marcus were going to prove to me that you don’t need to go with the big American companies to have an honest and enjoyable experience in Jamaica, and that you can find trustworthy people in poor countries with bad reputations. Hell, I had just discovered a new form of informal tourism for travelers with a passion for illicit substances and some semblance of a nutsack, the virtues of which I would introduce to the world with my writing.

Once I regained self-awareness from this state of weed-induced mania, I knew that these guys had a quality product. The problem with renewed self-awareness is when the driver is joint-in-mouth and insists on slamming on the breaks to holla at every hoochie on the side of the road, it‘s better to be blissfully ignorant. When he is flying down single lane stretch at 85mph and passing liberally into turns, it‘s best not to be there in the first place.

As I was intermittently bracing myself in the back, they were having a conversation in the front using their dialect of extremely broken English. The only word I could understand consistently was “transmission”, so I decided to inform Patrick that his passion for slamming on the brakes and gas all the time could be the reason for his transmission problems, which was followed but devastatingly awkward few seconds of silence.

Other than that we were getting along pretty well in the beginning. Patrick was clearly surprised that I had showed up with one backpack and no plans other than to get a motorbike. He praised my relaxed nature and I definitely had him on my good side. Marcus also seemed amiable and also a lot more knowledgeable and better spoken than I expected. They asked me what I did and I didn't want to tell them that I basically traveled the world doing filthy things so I said that I worked in a restaurant kitchen, mainly so they wouldn’t assume I had substantial money. My buddy was a cop in Canada and picking up on my vibe, said he did the dishes at the same restaurant.

This wasn’t magical hippy land, this was a poor Caribbean country with little-to-no industry. These guys were trying to make money, and this ride was going to cost me. Furthermore, they were far more likely to be dishonest due to the fact that they had chosen to operate on the black market in the first place. Maybe someday there would be legit, weed-focused fishing expeditions somewhere in the world, but for the time being I would have to deal with random shady characters.

But wasn’t that the reason I was there to begin with? To find out how the average Jamaican lowlife survives? To test my courage and wits against the finest hustlers that one of the great hustling nations of the Caribbean has to offer? To do some legit exploration and learn a few things that you can’t while browsing Wikipedia?

Yes, those were the reasons... at least until the next joint got passed back to me. A few puffs later I went on another cycle of super high hippied-out trust. And why wouldn’t I? They were playing the we’re-in-Jamaica-and-we-both-smoke-so-we-are-automatically-cool as often as possible. Once the high would wear off, I would be back to extreme skepticism, inevitably followed by determination to come out on top (not get ripped off too badly pretty much). This would happen with each new joint I smoked for the rest of the night...

Part 2 will feature a cockfight, "the Marley incident" and my plan to escape and salvage my experience with these guys for a semi-reasonable price. Part 3 will actually contain some fishing reports, with pics.

Good way to get killed.

I was cruising down a windy oceanside road in the back of a VW with two Jamaican hustlers toward Negril, the beach area 70km west of the airport with motorbike rentals when Marcus turned to me and asked me if I was into cockfighting. I told him that of course I was and we turned off the road into some shady shanty town. Inside there were greasy toothless men shouting over two chickens fighting, lol. I placed a bet on "El pollo diablo" and won $10,000 Jamaican, which isn't that much, but judging from some of the characters in here, enough to shank me over. So we headed down to the motorbike rental in Negril. Patrick and Marcus wanted some of my winnings for taking me so I tossed them a couple hundy.



The wheels started to fall off as a result of a comment I made that led to what I have been referring to as “The Marley Incident” in my mind. At some point I zoned into the music and realized that it was none other than Bob Marley. I said something along the lines of, “hey I realize you guys are trying to create ‘the authentic Jamaican experience’ but you’re probably tired of playing Bob Marley for tourists all the time, so if you want to listen to something else go ahead.” To which he responded in a slow-paced suspicious tone, “ya got-ta problem with Bob Marley, mon?”. I wasn’t quite sure if he was joking, but I figured that there’s no way that he actual thought, let alone cared, that I didn’t like Bob Marley. So I decided to play along and said with a completely straight face, “yeah man, Bob Marley sucks [Bleeeeep!].” The next thing I knew we were fishtailing our way to the shoulder, coming to a stop facing away from the center of the road at a 30 degree angle. He then turned around and said in a similar tone, “ya can’t be sayin’ that a-bout Bob Marley, mon.” I still wasn’t completely convinced that he was serious, but nevertheless decided to go on a long rant explaining how bad Marley sucked, which not truly understood by the offended party. Thankfully my buddy changed the subject pretty quickly, before they killed us both.

It wasn’t long after that we arrived at the motorbike rental place, which was essentially a hut on the side of the road. It seemed reasonably legit, mainly because the girl who worked there spoke American English. The bike I got was a Honda Click. The bike was my only way to escape these guys at some point, so I desperately needed it.

When I stepped out of the rental hut, Patrick and Marcus were with some old dude, whose role was to play the ‘poor Jamaican weed farmer from the mountains’. They pulled out a branch of super high quality weed, which they said was a half-ounce for $20,000 Jamaican. As I was considering how much weed should actually cost in Jamaica, they were giving me this sales pitch about how it’s the best stuff the country has to offer, how you can buy a pound of [Bleeeeep!] for $5000 but you have to pay for quality, how I wouldn‘t have to worry about it for the rest of the trip, and about how I would be helping the poor Jamaican farmer. I was like a lamb to the slaughter, to the point where I told him that I had $16,000 left in my wallet, information I would normally never reveal during a negotiation. Not surprisingly, he said that $16,000 was fine and immediately took the deal.

After that we went to a local place for lunch. I got a pretty nice fish dish and when we were finished Patrick, feeling generous after the weed transaction, was good enough to pick up the bill. As we left it was about 5:30 and the sun was setting. I had assumed the accommodation they were going to show me was close by, but once again it was much further than I had expected, all the way back in Montego Bay on the same road that we had come from. The bike that I rented made the trip perilous due to its instability in the wind and inability to handle a pothole without causing a catastrophic accident. Not only this, but it was excruciatingly cold, and the fact that I was stoned as hell wasn’t really helping my paranoia. With each car that passed, I would imagine the type of damage that would be done to my body if I was hit.



The hotel, which was called the Pink House, was much better than I expected, featuring a nice garden and pool (though it was really more of a couple’s bed and breakfast than a hotel). At $40 per night the price was reasonable, but after paying for the 5 days bike rental and the weed I had no more cash left. Patrick and Marcus didn’t hesitate to take me to the ATM, but I could see the look of dismay on their face when I told them that I maxed out for the day. I was surprised by this as well, and when I checked on the internet I found out that the bike rental place had withheld $500 from my account as a deposit. I now had the excuse I needed to get the hell away from these guys, who had been making plans for the entire week, assuming they would be able to continue their parasitic relationship with me. Unfortunately for them they wouldn’t be able to squeeze blood from a stone. I put on “the poor restaurant worker” act and was like “hey sorry guys, but I don’t think I can afford to hang out with you anymore.” My traveling partner had nothing but Canadian money, he didn't convert it, like usual.



The problem was that they were expecting money for the ride from Montego to Negril, and they knew I was leaving in 5 days and would need money for the rest of my trip. They wouldn’t get out of my hair so I told them I would get the money out of my account the next morning, which he agreed to do. Patrick still didn’t trust that they were going to get paid, so he demanded to take my bike as collateral. This was a pretty tough decision for me. I was actually pretty positive that they would show up with the bike the next day, mainly because they obviously knew the woman who owned the hotel and she was clearly running a legit business. Also Jamaica is the type of place where everyone knows everyone, and they would stick out like a sore thumb driving around in a stolen bike, so it would probably get back to the owner of the bike somehow. With my max potential losses a mere $500 for the deposit, I decided to give them the bike for the night and they agreed to come back to the hotel at 9am.

The weed they sold me was so fresh that you could stick it to the ceiling, come back an hour later, and it would still be there. Unfortunately, this was pretty bad for rolling joints. I managed to craft a loose one, but then realized that I didn’t have a lighter. It was too far to walk to a store, so I went upstairs and asked, but all they had was a box of matches with 3 sticks left. Stick 1 went out immediately in the wind. Stick 2 lit the joint, but because the weed wasn’t dry enough, it did that thing where the paper burns fast but the weed doesn’t come with it because it’s too moist. By the time stick 3 was gone I had gotten a hit and a half at best. I tore up the un-smoked joint in anger, lamenting that I couldn’t even smoke the weed that I had gone through so much trouble to get. This, combined with their shadyness, made me determined not to give those guys a cent the next day.

In part 3, I hustle the hustlers, take off with the bike, hit the beach and do some fishing.

When I woke up the next morning I borrowed a lighter from the landscaper, smoked a J, and really managed to convince myself that they weren’t going to show up with the bike. The woman who ran the hotel, an old dark-skinned Jamaican, helped to reassure me that they would while she made me a really awesome breakfast of eggs, toast, and tropical fruit.

Eventually Patrick and Marcus showed and we sat around the pool smoking spliffs. At first they were doing their normal thing, playing Mr. Nice Guy, and almost had me convinced that I should pay them for their ambiguous services. But then I busted out my weed and they greedily grabbed some of my precious nuggets to fashion their own joints for later, we set me back on the path of not paying them anything.

They got in their car and I got on my bike (which I noticed was significantly lower on gas than when I left them) and we headed to the Shell station where there was an ATM. When I got there I stepped off my bike and said, “Can you guys explain to me exactly what I am paying you for?” Patrick responded that it was for the ride from the airport to Negril. I then told him that I should have easily covered that with the $16,000 that I paid for what turned out to be a quarter of weed after it was ravaged by them this morning. He then gave me some BS about how all of that money went to the farmer. Then I was like, “come on man, how much of that money actually went to the farmer? $4000? $5000? $6000?...” while I gauged the look on his face with each increment that I went up (I’m thinking it was $6000ish). He got a bit defensive and started attacking me about how the day before I seemed like I was going to pay and then I changed on him. Then he said that he would let me off easy, for $30,000 Jamaican. At that point it seemed like we were going to be in a stalemate for a while. Patrick took a seat on my bike while I elaborated point-by-point his many unscrupulous business practices. I made sure to add about how I have to work long hours in a restaurant kitchen to make the type of money that they had hustled from (nothing like using their own tactics against them).

Next, out of nowhere, came my saving grace. A Toyota Corolla pulled up and two guys got out saying, “this is the police, open up the bike!” Patrick added, “Whachu gonna do now, mon? The cops are here and you’re stashin’.” I responded, “Ok, I don’t believe these guys are cops, but I’ll open up the bike,” knowing that I stashed the weed in my shoe. Then one of the guys claiming to be a cop was like “Ok, give me the key.” From my experience, I knew that the bike key was the key to leverage in this power struggle so I said, “nah, I’ll open it myself.” One of the guys then took the effort to show me a fake looking badge, claiming that I had to listen to everything he said, and that I would have to give him the key. I said that I’ll be happy to down at the station, to which he responded “Ok let’s go the station, mon.” I called his bluff and said “Alright, let’s go.” Next, I hopped on my bike and headed off down the road toward the airport and Negril. About a kilometer later I doubled back onto a smaller road that ran parallel to the main drag, got past the Shell station, and then booked it on the main road for Ocho Rios (100km east of where we were) to hide out for a couple days. The bike was cranked to the max and my buddy was riding bitch, holding my man-bobbies with a kung-fu grip. I was pretty paranoid the entire way there that I was being followed, but this was overwhelmed by the uniquely awesome feeling that comes with making a movie-esque getaway.

We stashed the bike in the bushes at Ocho Rios and slept on the beach the rest of the trip. There was no way we'd go back to the hotel with hustlers and the fake cops looking for us. After the first two days of fishing, I caught a bonefish and just a bunch of small crap.



So we hired a boat for $15,000, money well spent. My buddy caught this...



Then we got a couple of snapper...



We gave one to the captain and kept 2 for dinner and found a restaurant to cook them for us.



After hanging out like some beach bums drinking rum and smoking weed for a couple of days, we brought the bike back in to the shop. While we were trying to hitchhike back to the airport, who rolls up other than the cops in the Corolla. Seems like that they had tracked us down via the bike and the shop owner called them on us. Turns out they were real cops after all and did some checking into my visa status and I was to be deported for failing to get the malaria shot and reporting back to the Bureau of Health, this was going to be after I cleared up of my eluding of them earlier and whatever else they could pin on me. Once they found out my buddy was a cop in Canada they were more cordial, so we agreed that I'd give them all the money on me for a ride to the airport and I'd promise never return to Jamaica again.

Then on the way back into the US&A, I got pulled aside for "special screening" and was about to get a pat down from some greasy looking thug. Just to make things super uncomfortable for him, I said "I'm a raging homosexual, so make sure you pat down my package." I was only joking but he did for a lot longer than seemed normal or necessary.

So Jamaica sucked, not as bad as Thailand, I don't know if I should even get into that story.

Great reading, but I think there is a common thread to your travels that may lead to some instability to your experiences!

Been to 56 countries and never had the experience you had, Thailand was great and so was the fishing! Think I need to read your Thailand story!

I, too, would like to hear the Thailand story.

Enjoyed your writing. I have never been attracted to Jamaica. Well, I can't say never, but for many years now the place just scares the Hell out of me. I've never enjoyed being a tourist, aka, the ugly American, as I think it only displays the very worst in our country to the world. That said, folks is folks, and there are always those around who are honest and truthful and unpretentious.....but they are hard to find in tourist towns.

give me country folk.....every time.....every where.

GBL's first sentence seems insightful to me. just sayin'

Thats some awesome stuff there. Sounds like the plot to the hangover3 movie.

Wow FP, that's quite a story. You are a very trusting individual - on many levels.

quite the adventure, your pictures suck balls though mon.

I'm not a photojournalist, those are cell phone photos and from a disposable underwater camera. Having an expensive camera is a good way to get killed in a dirtbag country.

Well done FP. Enjoyed the read.


Streamer

lol

Yer pretty funny, man.

Go to Jamaica. You'll know within 10 minutes what he's talking about. If you enjoy staying in an all inclusive resort and not doing anything else you might enjoy it. I was in Negril for a marathon a few years ago and couldn't get out of that dump fast enough. Hanging out in a hotel in Atlanta was a big improvement.

An interesting morning's read for sure.

It helped to bouy the winter spirits a bit with the snow and hail falling around here.

However, your bone'r is looking like a herring. I'm talking picts now!

That's what she said.

Thanks for the story FishPrince. Very interesting and now I can take Jamaica off of my to-do list. I would not be able to handle the hustlers and assorted sponges...no matter how good the ganja.

My daughter spent 3 months in Jamaica about 10 years ago now, after finishing her undergrad degree, along with Bolivia, Uganda, and SE Asia. There are places you just don't go alone at night, or in daylight if you're a woman, especially around Kingston. She spent most of her time in the hill country working with farmers. There are a bunch of reasons why Jamaica is such a depressed country, chief among them the "economic terrorism" waged by the U.S. on the country, destroying local industry to make it more dependent on imports from the U.S. It's a natural and logical consequence that Americans aren't the most popular visitors there.

You ever thought about getting your own website?

Nah... that would be too much work and what would be the point? Can you even imagine how terrible it would be?

no lighter, knife hits off a stove works good in a pinch.
hella sketchy story man.