The G-Spot

Greetings again from sunny, warm Jamaica. As expected, life here is slowing like lava. Today we plan another day of doing nothing, just hanging out by the pool, swimming in the ocean, relaxing and reading. Tonight we plan another meal at Strikie T's, a sort of farewell to Treasure Beach from the guy who gave me jerk lessons oh so many days ago. It feels like we've been here for a long time now so I guess that means the vacation is taking hold.

After a brief bike ride to Fort Charles beach yesterday, we got to frolick in the water by a stretch of sand five miles long, with only Julia, me and Button Bay dog, Flower. It's difficult to put into words the place I'm writing this blog, I'm completely surrounded by flowers and looking out to a turquoise sea, listening to the surf that crashes on the rocks just below me. This is what you expect from a tropical holiday. Ah Jamaica!

Yesterday evening, Julia and I ventured out to a hotel for a buffet in honour of Mother's Day, and met up again with Fern Loukie who was with a group of friends. We listened to some young men play a rousing drum concert then headed over to Frenchman's Reef for a band with our driver Brent and his girlfriend Denise. The band was like a caricature of lame resort reggae bands you read about where the tourists get all "irie" with the performers and dance their white person shuffle awkwardly to the off beat rhythm. We left after the set because Brent wanted to go to a dance hall. We said "we're in your hands, Brent."

As we were getting into the car, one of the performers from the evening, a guy named Freddie, wearing an Oxford knit sweater, jumped into the van with us. Freddie and I talked about reggae all the way to the dance hall, a fifteen minute drive from Treasure Beach through country roads up into the hills. We finally arrived at the dance hall at about 11:30 and as Brent promised it was hopping. The assured us going in: "don't worry mon, dis place safe."

The club was built like an old west brothel with a large second floor balcony that swung right around the entire building. Bass heavy music blared from inside, but there we many people milling around outside as well. The place had the sophisticated name of "The G-Spot Drinking Saloon" and we quickly realized this was a low-end strip club, where hookers advertized their greasy ware to the oggling men. I asked Denise if people actually stayed upstairs and she said, "for a hour or so, however long it takes with the lady." So this actually was a functioning brothel, and Julia and I were there, with people we just met, in a place we could never find again, and it was after midnight. Oh well, go with the flow, I had a drink of "roots juice" with Freddie and we gyrated in the dance area among blue light and clouds of ganja smoke. It was all very surreal, but despite being only two of four white faces in a croud of about three hundred, it was all cool. We bid Freddie farewell and left at 1:00 am, and chalked it up to another truly local experience in Jamaica. That's what adventure is all about. Who knows what Negril has to offer.

Caution: goats entering property will be curried

Hello again everyone who's still following my blog from Jamaica, all one of you, that being me. Other signs of note: Big Rat Auto Parts, No Ganja Smoking Here. Life is irie here at Button Bay. This place is a little oasis with birds chirping, waves crashing and the faint sound of UB40 playing on the speakers. Yesterday we spent the entire day with Fern Loukie, a woman I contacted through Jamaica's Meet the People program and she drove us through the pastoral lands in the Santa Cruz mountains that overlook Treasure Beach. We stopped at Lover's Leap for a spectacular panorama of the South Coast, then moved on through many small hamlets, past farmlands, many goats (bones in) and enjoyed some delicious jerk chicken prepared by her cousin next to a small rum shop near her birth place. Fern took us to her beautiful home and to a friend's place with an incredible view of the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. All are "returnies" or Jamaicans who've made money overseas and are now returning to claim the land of their forefathers. Some have built palatial villas in the hills even though many are now in their seventies. As Fern said: "you want to buy a villa in Jamaica, soon all these places will be up for sale." Fern is a wonderful woman and heavily involved in charitable causes, as well as women's rights and offers "metaphysical" spiritual healing. She has given us an open invitation to return and stay with her any time: we may have to take her up on that.

Yes the camera is fucked.

We are drifting nicely into Island time and Julia has become quite a domino shark. No plans for the next few days, just chillin' out at Button Bay and maybe venturing over to Fort Charles Beach, which is about three miles of beach with nobody on it. Yes the South Shore of Jamaica is very irie indeed, no hassles and virtually no crime. Women like Fern and dedicated to keeping it that way.

No problem, mon. All good, respect.

Yah mon, Jamaica day three

Just came back from the Pelican Bar, a bar built on stilts about 1000 yards from shore. We drank Red Stripe and ate fish; yes, Floyd cooks at his bar and keeps the beer cold with a block of ice. We ventured up the Black River to observe crocodiles (we saw two), then swam at a swimming hole up river near a village. Yesterday was jerk day... yes, I was nothing short of a complete ass hole the whole day. Try it some time. Actually, I had a tutorial on marinading then cooking jerk chicken, with a local chef named Chris (who insists everyone call him "Strikie T"--though everyone seems to call him Chris). Strikie's jerk shop is just down the road from where we are, a small hamlet of Jamaican's who wave at you at say "how you doin', mon" and "respect, mon." Despite travels through Asia, I don't think we've ever had so much trouble understanding people. It's not like Jamaican's try to speak English for you, they are speaking English, you just have no idea what some of them are saying, and there seems to be grades of patois. Strikie T speaks English very well when he speaks to us, but when a neighbour walks by, they converse in some alien prose known only them, punctuated by "yah, mon... yah, mon... yah, mon."

So tonight it's off to Jack Sprat's again to hook up with some Irish folks we met at the Pelican Bar. It's about a thirty minute walk through the village, but we've heard people frequently offer you a ride. This area of Jamaica is very safe and walking on the roads, even after dark, is commonplace. Tomorrow it's off to the Appleton Rum distillery, then Friday we head over to Button Bay, which is about twenty minutes up the road or a vomit inducing half hour by boat.

All is good with us, though I tumbled into the water at the Pelican Bar while holding the camera. We're hoping ol' faithful will be alright, but our photographs may end here, with one final shot staring up at the sky as I thought to hold my hand up to keep the camera dry: hard to do when you fall face first.

I'm sad to say, I'm on my way, won't be back for many a day...

So many thoughts and feelings on the eve of our trip to Jamaica it's difficult to put them into words. For so long, twenty eight years to be exact, I've been completely infatuated with Jamaica, Jamaican culture, Jamaican history, but it all rides on my deep and endearing love of Reggae music. In my mind, no more pure, original and righteous music has ever graced the Earth, but with every passing year many more legends of Reggae's hey day die before their time, victims of violence and ill health that belies Jamaica's Commonwealth status. The musical pioneers of the 1970s: Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, King Tubby, Augustus Pablo and now, sadly, Vivian Jackson (aka. Yabby You) are all breaking bread with Jah Rastafari. So I have to get to Jamaica before it's all gone, before this flash of genius, this musical Juggernaught, born out of the convergence of ska and Jah, has passed on forever.

But with this journey comes trepidation. Jamaica, it seems, is not for the faint of heart but rather for the strong of will. For some who venture from the safe confines of the all inclusive resort--hyperbolic chambers of decadence--find Jamaica overwhelming and downright scary. Jamaica boast some of the worst ghettos in the Western hemisphere, but it was from these very ghettos that germinated the all powerful force of Reggae. So we have chosen to walk the line between the two. On the one hand, we are shunning the resorts in favour of the usual local submergence, but on the other hand, we've chosen an area, Treasure Beach, that will allow relatively easy acclimation: the recipe we've usually found best for independent travel. There will likely not be a trip to Kingston this journey, but who knows what the future holds. For the first time ever, I think we really don't know what to expect with a trip, but good or bad, in twenty four hours from now, I really don't know what the fuck I'm going to be doing.

Isn't that what adventure is all about?