Jamaica - Treasure Beach (1/4)

I so loved Jamaica. I also so loved Norway and Rome. I seem to have a case of "anywhere but here". Jamaica was pretty broken in some ways due to its small and unfortunately overseas tourist-based economy (unfortunate in that the pandemic really hurt it) but it was beautiful in its land and people. It put me more in mind of Morocco than any other place I have been but without the misogyny and fear of food poisoning. 

We stayed in four places over two weeks and still didn't see all of the island. Some of the central areas were missed and the entirety of the west. It's a large island. Google maps tells me it would take over 6 hours to drive the length of it but google maps always underestimated driving times which were optimistically unaware of the poor road conditions. 

The first port of call was Treasure Beach which is the furthest west we went but considered part of south Jamaica. I was driving there late at night from the airport in Kingston and it was a brutal education in driving in Jamaica. Kingston traffic was terrible and pot holes were everywhere. For a brief time, there was relief as we took the toll road for while and this was pristine and fast. But then we hit local roads and a dreadfully bad google maps navigation detoured us into a single lane track through a jungle. It took many miles for this track to become truly unpassable and for us to turn around and decide to navigate ourselves, selecting obviously major roads that went through towns. However even these roads were riddled with pot holes. The car and its passengers got quite the shaking as many were simply unavoidable. The route took us through towns that despite the late hour were celebrating the Friday night with music with loud base that shifted our internal organs. The locals seemed to gather at roadsides and create for themselves impromptu clubs out in the open.

We eventually got to our place for the next three nights. It was gone midnight when we arrived. The rough road there seemed close to impassable but we did it (other residents seemed impressed that I drove it in the dark). The place was dark but we found our room easily as the owner left the door propped open. We found our simple room and gratefully went to bed. But found very little sleep. 

As a result of poor sleep, Amy was not up for going out the next morning but I was ravenous having had no dinner the night before. I found the key for the wifi and looked up the surrounding options and settled on Smurf's for breakfast. It was just five or so minutes walk away and had rave reviews on google so off I gamboled. The place was a small wooden building, colourfully painted, with a counter for ordering and presumably a kitchen inside. Seating was outside on a wooden deck which had a roof to it for shade. Lots of wooden benches and very few clientele meant that I could sit on my own. I ordered and chose my seat in the corner so I could people-watch. There was a mix of people keeping to themselves and also one person sitting under a tree playing reggae music on a guitar. There was also a cat that suddenly materialised on my lap without any preamble. I shooed the cat off when my omelette and freshly squeezed orange juice came and had a wonderful breakfast. I killed some time after breakfast by walking about a mile south, buying banana bread at a bakery and then lurking around the beach until the minimart opened at 10:30 where I bought some milk finally making it back to the accommodation before 11 where I went back to bed, joining Amy for daytime slumber. 

As we drove to Treasure Beach the night before, I remember thinking that this was terrible and would be a dreadful two weeks of gritting my teeth and bearing it. I am always like this though, disliking change and thinking myself better off where I am with known comforts. I know deep down though that I never regret travel. But this lazy morning in the heat and sun with impromptu reggae, good and fresh food and a cat to pet made me think that perhaps I was in danger of falling in love with this place.

But it wasn't all great as I knew there was the road to face when we inevitably left the accommodation and the accommodation itself was not great.

Prior to coming here, I looked up the location on google maps and the streetview clearly showed a house in construction. Or so I thought. Actually it was just missing walls and full of junk on purpose. This wasn't unusual for the area. Plenty of houses were essentially barely shelters. In a sense, little more was needed besides a roof to keep the occasional rain storms off as the temperature barely changed sitting in the mid twenties to low thirties (celsius). Our accommodation was two stories plus a roof which you could go up to. The back wall that faced the town of Treasure Beach and the coast was absent. The ground level had a kitchen and a table and a couple of wooden chairs plus more comfortable chairs albeit with work and rotting cushions. There was no hot water or even luke-warm water, just cold. The door to the room did not lock from the outside and the entire house, if you can call something with only three external walls a house, was open to all. And the toilet and shower which was inside the bedroom was enclosed in see-through panels (like a shower would be) that meant that room inhabitants could see you doing your business. Plus, a minor thing but notable, the room was just full of junk in the drawers and under the beds.

The accommodation had its positive qualities and the amazing view was one of them. The town could be easily walked to via stone stairs and we could get to the beach in about ten minutes. The view of the stars was also astounding.

I only napped an hour and was up for lunch. Amy however was really in a bad state. So I left her be and lurked in the communal area with my laptop and banana bread and cup of tea. Here I met our housemates. The only occupied rooms were on the ground floor. Next door was a couple who I didn't talk to though they made a lot of noise using the kitchen and also smoked weed (which in this open to the elements environment was not a bother). Opposite was Brit Olly who recognised my accent on "hello" and suddenly we were finding out more commonalities. Like me, Olly had lived for many years in the Bay Area (he was specifically in San Francisco) and had recently moved away. When he met Amy, they equally fast realised that he had lived in Brighton (and gone to university there up to a post doctoral position in economics). He'd been in investments working for a tech company before deciding to quit and travel the world getting his money to work for him in stocks. He was in Jamaica for a month just hopping from place to place without a plan.

Shot taken walking down to Treasure Beach town from the accommodation during "golden hour". Goats, cows and egrets (specifically cattle egrets, hanging around for the flies) were a common site everywhere in Jamaica but particularly here where it was a little more rustic.

As Amy still wasn't up for going out, especially as the way to town was a steep set of stairs, which were longer and steeper going up than down, Olly and I had dinner together. We went to an Italian place in Treasure Beach which did a bit of Jamaican fusion. We got a bottle and a half of wine between us and had an exceptionally fun evening talking in the way that expats in the US do about US and world politics, technology and the future of humanity and other places we had visited. 

Olly watching the sun set over Treasure Beach. This is also showing the absence of a wall on one side of the building. Behind me as I took this was the kitchen and dining area.

I slept better that night as did Amy, though there was some challenge as Saturday night was another party night and once the music ended, the dogs began and then there were also the crowing roosters and wailing cats... but still, we managed better and felt optimistic that Amy was well enough to visit somewhere. So we braved the road and went to YS Falls via Black River, a town with a proper supermarket where we bought food for lunch. It was about an hour to the falls on the pot-holed roads. The car park wasn't full when we arrived but it was overflowing by the time we left. We paid entrance fees and were taken to the falls via a "jitney" which penetrated deeper into the jungle. Something about needing this extra shuttle made the falls seem secret and exclusive.

Upon arrival, we were instantly struck by the beauty of the falls and the jungle surroundings. This was going to be the theme for the entire two weeks as every place surprised us with their unique beauty. I expected a manufactured and built-up tourist trap but we found an exquisitely maintained but utterly natural jungle with varied trees and flowers embracing stunning tiered waterfalls (seven tiers in total). We walked up steps on the side to the top tier of the falls and watched visitors use the rope swings over the pools as we ate our picnic. We then separated so Amy could swim in one of the less natural pools whilst I took to the trees with a zipline tour. The pièce de résistance of the zipline tour was the third zip that went from the top of the top falls all the way to the bottom. I didn't take a camera up there but I found this online that shows the experience.

Amy at the falls. Despite the overflowing car park proving that it was busy, we didn't feel too crowded. Plenty of people enjoying the water but it still felt peaceful.

The next day was our travel day to the Blue Mountains. We said farewell to Olly (though I really hoped we would cross paths again in the holiday, we did not alas) and braved the roads again. But we also had one last activity in the area back at Black River.- we had a river cruise. There was no one else on the boat and so we had the guide all to ourselves. Almost immediately he took us to a crocodile and trees that were full of egrets. The highlight of the cruise for me though was the peaceful mangrove section. The river is the longest navigable river in Jamaica and called "black" as the river bed has peat in it. The guide said that on occasion the gas from the peat would catch fire making for some interesting light displays at night. The cruise ended with a quick tour of the company's crocodile nursery where they bred the crocodiles before releasing to the river therefore ensuring their ability to sell the cruise on the back of the multiple guaranteed crocodile sightings. We were encouraged to hold a baby croc, which we did and was surprised by the soft and cool skin. 

Amy with the unimpressed baby crocodile.

We stocked up on supplies- in particular fruit- at Black River before leaving for the mountains thinking that surely the holiday had peaked. What could better this cruise? 

Black River's main street. The guy below is tossing up those recently delivered goods to the guy on the balcony. The bundles looked so heavy but they were being thrown up with apparent ease.