06 June 2009
'Don't like Jamaica...'
'...I love her.'
Partway through my Jamaican visit this 1970s 10cc tune came back to me, but my Jamaica Tourism Board minder had never heard of it, and even suggested (teasingly) that she thought I was making it up. But this is the 21st century, the small but comfortable hotel I was in (Sunset Resort, on Treasure Beach) had broadband, and by the next morning I'd downloaded a copy of the song, transferred it to my iPod, and gave it to her to listen to over breakfast.
She wasn't impressed, and indeed I hadn't remembered that the whole thing is slightly mocking.
I'm not particularly keen on these trips that introduce me to a country I've never visited before (and in this case a region previously unknown to me). It doesn't seem reasonable that after a week I'm going to come back with something intelligent to say. But of course this is wrongly conceived, since intelligence is about the last thing most (thankfully not all) editors and readers (ditto) want from their travel sections. But there are times when such trips become necessary either to assist the bank account or because editorial interest is turning in a particular direction and stories on a particular region is all that they want.
The whole thing was very poorly handled by Jamaica's New York-based agency, with long lacunae between email replies, a complete failure either to produce story ideas or promote Jamaica in any way despite being invited several times to do so, and final agreement on a trip only reached a week before it was taken, and long after one deadline had gone by.
I saw a draft itinerary only five days before departure, and was given merely 1.5 hours to comment (!) before the USA shut down for the long holiday weekend. It was only then that I discovered that my piece on driving round lesser-known corners of Jamaica was going to amount to no more than being driven around Jamaica with the permanent company of a minder. Had I been aware of this earlier I might well not have taken the trip.
But it's just as well I did, because no sooner had I arrived then things actually clicked into action. My guide, the amiable Claudia, was not of the 'minder' kind, was not in denial about Jamaica's reputation, and indeed would have been hard put to deny some of its problems since only a few minutes after leaving the airport when we stopped so I could use a bank machine, someone immediately offered me some dope. She was justifiably horrified, not that I was in the slightest bit bothered about it, and drove the man away. This was, however, the only time anything of this kind happened to me in a week.
It's always tricky when you have to have someone with an agenda at your elbow for a week, although some countries' tourism boards, and apparently Jamaica's is one, will only operate in this way. But Claudia's agenda was principally to make sure I got the stories I wanted, and it rapidly became clear that very little of my requests had been transmitted to Jamaica at all. As a result within two days we'd abandoned the existing skeletal itinerary and Claudia was spending large parts of the day on the phone to various people rearranging and reconfirming in general thoroughly sorting things out. If, en route from A to B, I spotted a turn-off to something that looked interesting, there would follow a rapid discussion about it, and an immediate change of plan if that's what I wanted. I very quickly forgot to be peeved that I wasn't driving myself and musing privately into my dictaphone. In terms of flexibility I might just as well have been driving, and while loneliness can sometimes be a problem on these trips, Claudia was very good company.
As I saw in the second half of the trip, the way most visitors treat Jamaica it might as well be the Costa del Sol, or parts of the Mexican coastline. They fly in, are collected from the airport and taken to an all-inclusive resort where they frolic on a palm-fringed beach, eat three largely foreign meals a day and drink all they want. The only Jamaicans they speak to are those working in the resort. Some take brief tours to what are inevitably the most self-consciously made-for-tourists sights on the island (although some of these are well-done). This is my idea of hell, and I simply cannot see the point (whether in Spain, Mexico, Jamaica, or anywhere else), but of course some people just want a one- or two-week break with reliable sun, sand, sea and sometimes something else beginning with 's'.
Fine, and in terms of travel writing there's nothing easier than spending three nights in each of, say, three resorts, do little more than lying around on the same all-inclusive package for a story that practically writes itself. But it's not for me.
Instead I used the excellent Sunset Resort on the south coast's Treasure Beach as a base from which to visit assorted better- and lesser-known sites in the surrounding hills, whose originally Idaho now gone-native owner volunteered to take me off in various directions, and when I came back one day feeling slack, bullied me into taking a half-hour boat ride out to a small bar on stilts. I was very glad he did, as both the trip out on a high-speed fishing boat, and the early evening spent looking down to rays and up to the sunset was a highlight.
Other high points included various roadside food stops, for jerk chicken, jerk fish, and goat curry; a day spent watching a local limited-overs cricket match (with a lively crowd of about forty), and Greenwood Great House, which I'm hoping may trigger a return to Jamaica for further work. Having seen two of the surviving great houses I'd certainly like to do something on them.
Due to someone's inability to notice that May has 31 days, it was discovered (including by me) partway through the trip, that there was a day with nothing scheduled. I was at the Hilton-run Rose Hall Resort and Spa and so ended up with a day of doing precisely what most other visitors to Jamaica do: absolutely nothing.
I rediscovered that I am now absolutely incapable of this. I put my trunks on, went and got towel, headed down to a less popular end of the beach, went for a three-minute swim, sat under a palm, and in under 15-minutes all-in was back in my room, sorting out some of my notes, doing admin email, etc. The hotel room was large, well-furnished, solid and pleasant, and lacked the self-consciously tropical motifs of others I saw (Jakes, Negril Escape). The tropics were easily visible from the balcony: white sand, turquoise water, and all
It seems to me that you can't lose with Jamaica. If it's beach time you want, there are plenty of beaches to choose from. If you want culture and history there's plenty of that, too. Possibly the ideal combination is a beach resort used as a base from which to reach the rum factories (e.g. Appleton), river trips, waterfalls, great houses, local seafood restaurants (esp. Little Ochie), small non-touristy towns with no pestering vendors, and local nightlife.
One of the most likable aspects of the country was being able, despite having a dramatically contrasting skin tone, simply to blend into the crowd, something that despite the relative lack of contrast in China, is practically impossible to achieve there. A more easygoing people more interested in simply exchanging views and making you feel comfortable you couldn't hope to meet.
Ah well. Enough rambling. I've a deadline, as usual.
To return to the title of this entry, although I did like Jamaica it really wouldn't matter if I didn't. That's not the point of this kind of travel, which is to come home with the material needed for the stories in question. Fortunately, I did that, too.
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