Travel / Jamaica

The Best Thing About Living in Jamaica, Part 8

The “Country”

Do you like to get out of the city sometimes?

Great. So do I. Come along then, and let’s have a weekend away from the bustling, hectic Caribbean metropolis of Kingston, Jamaica and get out to what Jamaicans call “the country”.

Which, as far as I can tell, is all of Jamaica outside of Kingston.

Is it the real Jamaica? I don’t know if I’d go that far, since Kingston is pretty real and in your face, I find. But let’s just say it’s a different Jamaica. One of the first pieces of advice I received on arrival from a local was, “every chance you get, get in your car and get out of Kingston” and so that’s what happens on many weekends.

I have been living in Kingston, Jamaica for nearly a year now. Before this, I spent three years in a large, teeming, chaotic and always hot city in a developing country on the coast of East Africa, and it sometimes does feel like a relief to be here. However, Kingston could be described the same way, sometimes — excluding the East Africa part — but definitely including the traffic part.

I love living here and have been writing about it a bit, as a non-Jamaican who has only scratched the surface of this great country.

This is the eighth article in this series, and if you are interested in reading the first 7, I’ll link some of them in the article and the others you can find at the bottom of it.

It is a lucky thing, in my circumstance as a foreigner, to be able to experience this place not as a tourist or a traveller, but as someone who can live here for an as yet undetermined length of time and soak it up as much as possible. The place intrigues me because I have found that it won’t throw its arms around you on arrival and welcome you right in, as friendly as the Jamaican people are. There is a necessary waiting game first, a period in which we get to know each other, there is a bit of a dance. It says, “I’ll wait a minute for you to show me that you are serious and only then, when you are ready, will I show myself to you.”

You may want things to happen more quickly. But, the place just will not be rushed.

You are going to need to be happy to go and find it yourself, both in terms of the country and the country. The best parts of it are found on the small roads that pass through the out of the way towns and villages. You have to wonder first about getting to a certain place — whether it’s even possible — ask a few questions along the way, maybe consult a map — a fold out map. Googlemaps very often has no idea what it’s talking about. You will have to get off the main roads, and maybe make your peace with getting lost periodically.

It is not the largest island in the world, but it seems like there are endless trips to do.

You can drive a series of backwoods dirt tracks to a jungle waterfall in St Thomas Parish

Lunchtime at your favourite jerk chicken stand, on the side of the road in the hills above Kingston

A day of hiking in the Blue Mountains through coffee farms in the clouds

An afternoon spent on a sugar estate, learning history from people passionate about the rum you are sipping

Taking a boat out to a makeshift bar on stilts out on a sandbar in the middle of the Caribbean, off the south coast of Treasure Beach.

Finding beaches close to the city that you share with no one else

They are all moments of greatness. Here’s the latest one….

Hike to Kwame Falls in St Mary Parish

Ahhh….a long weekend and a chance to explore, this time in the Robin’s Bay area of the north coast in the parish of St Mary. The road — we won’t call it a highway — snakes through the Blue Mountains northward from Kingston and if you’ve able to dodge the careening taxis and transport trucks, you will be deposited on the North Coast, just west of Annotto Bay. The drive between it and the parish capital of Port Maria is one of the most stunning in all the country, skirting the sea, as it does.

We are already off the beaten path, but to get to Robin’s Bay, you need to take another right turn, figuratively and literally. The road is still fine, mostly, but the best part is that no one is on it. There are bays and beaches and blue holes that you will have all to yourself.

A lunch of fresh grilled fish is found at Miss Curtis’, washed down a few cold Red Stripes, overlooking the soon to be derelict sprawl of the Robin’s Bay Hotel across the bay.

The view is immense, the sea is ornery and the breeze is truly tropical. An enterprising initiative taker named Rohan steps up to us and not only does he bring more beer but also wonders if we are interested in hiking to the falls near here, and if we are, then he would be happy to take us.

We are indeed interested. A fee is negotiated and a starting time is decided for Monday morning. Two hours each way, he promises. Bring water.

Monday morning arrives and we are ready. But we really are not, for what we are about to experience. The hike is easy and rolling on a good trail. A bit up and and bit down, in the trees, along the cliffs. The sea is always crashing to our right and the sight of it never gets old. The blues and whites where the ocean meets the land is a constantly changing artwork, seen from above like that.

At one point, the trail descends down onto the beach and I wonder about the feasibility and logistics of camping there. The safety issue comes to mind as well. But the remains of campfires say that it is doable, so I file it away and hope to come back to it later. After the beach — named Naked Bay — the trail ascends into the jungle. Four rivers are crossed before the falls can be heard from a distance.

The hike hasn’t been particularly gruelling but it is getting warm and a waterfall swim would hit the spot right about now.

The sound of the falls turns into the first sight of the falls and a pool of clear, green water appears and the shafts of sunlight illuminate the scene in some spots and cast it into darkness in others. Water cascades in sheets from the greenness of the cliffs that tower above.

Swim trunks on and in you go. That might be the most refreshing water known to man. An hour of swimming and laying around on the surrounding rocks doesn’t seem like it will ever be enough. There are no other people, just us and the guide. The tour bus doesn’t seem to make it this far.

The hike out has to happen sometime. It is just as magical as the hike in, the only difference is that there is a cold Red Stripe waiting instead of a private swimming hole.

It is places like this that will stick with me when and if I ever leave this place. The breath that is often taken away from you when you get out of tourist Jamaica and opt for the small roads of the country is always its own reward.