Adventures in the Caribbean: Cockpit Country, Jamaica

Yesterday Melanie and I were up early, thanks to Miss Vanny's rooster.  We ate breakfast (another large meal!), this time with eggs, plantains, and fish cakes.

Around 7:30 Hugh and a young man named Ainsworth came by in the STEA pick-up, and we headed down the road to the start of the trail into Cockpit Country.  The trail is actually an old road, originally built by Canadian mining interests.

Hugh dropped Ainsworth, Melanie, and me off and we set out to hike across Cockpit Country.

Cockpit Country is so called because of its unique hills and valleys, which, to British colonists who were influential enough to name places, looked like cock-fighting arenas.

For all kinds of reasons the region is unique, both biologically and historically.  For example, despite high humidity (almost always 100%, apparently), there is no surface water, only water underground.  Partly because of this, the region is extremely inhospitable, which means it was an ideal hiding place for freed/escaped African slaves, known as the Maroons, who fought the British from here in the 1700s prior to treaties being signed that ended the hostility and ensured Maroon freedom.  The Maroon descendants remain relatively autonomous even today.  

The inhospitably also means the region remains almost entirely undisturbed, with the old road we were walking on being one of the few exceptions.  I believe I read that is the largest natural area in the Caribbean.  There is occasionally evidence of some farming activity, but it is quite minor.  What was much more troubling, however, was this illegal dump just a little ways down the road from where we started.

The STEA is hoping to have the entire area officially protected, since it is of some interest for mining exploitation, but thankfully for now it seems that in Cockpit Country nature has mostly been able to protect itself!

There are also all sorts of endemic birds and plants and such in Cockpit Country.  Some of the birds we saw (not all of them endemic, but mostly) included: Rufous-tailed Flycatcher; Jamaican Blackbird; Jamaican Owl; Jamaican Crow; Jamaican Tody (a really beautiful little bird in the exact middle of the picture below) . . .

. . . Jamaican Woodpecker; Yellow-billed Parrot; Doctorbird; at least one type of hummingbird; and lots of Turkey vultures (which were surprisingly cool to watch).  

Since I could not successfully photograph any of these, you can see pictures of some of them here: http://www.cockpitcountry.com/birdsEndemicExtinct.html.

We also saw a lizard . . .

. . . and lots of large snails.

There were countless flowers, and here are some of those:

And a few more pictures of Cockpit Country:

At some point Ainsworth found a breadfruit tree, and unsuccessfully attempted to find a ripe breadfruit to show us.

After three hours or so of hiking, we exited on the north side of Cockpit Country into an agricultural area, where yams were growing . . .

. . . and bananas . . .

. . . and plantains . . .

. . . and sugar cane (although really it was done growing and was being harvested).

Also, there were some goats, which we have seen all over roadsides in Jamaica!

It was another hour of walking to a place called Clark's Town, where we caught what is known as a route taxi--in essence a communal taxi--to Albert Town.  From Albert Town we caught another route taxi to Rock Spring, and by 15:00 we were back at Miss Vanny's.  We were very, very tired, but it had been a great hike, and we sure knew Jamaica a whole lot better than we would have just staying in Negril!

Unfortunately, our adventures for the day were not done, because we left Rock Spring to drive north and to the coast.  About twenty minutes from Falmouth I took the left front wheel of the car into the edge of the road and . . . thunk!

Thank God for insurance.

Unfortunately, insurance does not put your spare wheel on.  I limped down the narrow road and thankfully found a spot to pull off.  It was not ideal in that it was sort of gravely and not even or especially stable, but at least it was off the road such that it was safe.

Melanie had to figure out how the jack worked (the rental car company failed to include the car's manual, for some reason, and to me the jack seemed like a four-piece unsolvable puzzle [I am still not sure what the fourth piece was for]), but eventually we had the car jacked and the wheel off.  

But that was when this wheel adventure got most interesting, because as I continued to jack the car up to get it high enough to get the spare wheel on, a small gust of wind came along and blew the car right off the jack!

I was far enough away from the car such that I was fine, but now how was I going to get the wheel on?!

I got on the phone with roadside assistance ("helpful" man on the other end was literally reading the manual to me over the phone): "Place the vehicle on level, hard ground . . ." 

"The car fell off the jack!!!"

Later, I looked up the manual online and saw it included helpful advice, such as indicating where the "specified jacking point" is and suggesting putting the spare wheel underneath the car "in case that the jack slips."  Presumably either or both of these tips could have saved us a lot of trouble.  Then again, maybe they are intuitive to people more experienced at changing wheels than I am.

Thankfully, far more helpful than roadside assistance or the manual I did not have were three buddies who stopped on their way to Clark's Town.  I hung up on roadside assistance.

The pink-shirted fellow seemed to have dealt with cars-fallen-off-jacks before, because in no time at all he had his jack out and was using both jacks, along with his buddies sitting on the trunk to weigh the car down in the back, to get the car up high enough to put the spare on.  Brilliant!  And he did not even get his white pants dirty.

At this point, having hiked for 4+ hours and changed a tire on the side of the road, we were totally smelly and sticky, and felt like we had had enough adventures.  We did not have a particular plan of where to stay, and decided at this point we were going to treat ourselves.  

Once on the main A1 highway, we headed west toward Montego Bay and the seaside all-inclusives.  We had a ridiculous experience at Sandals, where the security guards would not let us onto the grounds without a reservation.  "Well, we want to spend the night, so can we go to the front desk?"  

"No, you have to make a reservation online."

"Okay, can we use your wi-fi to make a reservation online?"

"No.  You'll have to call."

"Okay, who do we call?"

Eventually we got a number to call, and were then told there is a minimum two-night stay.  We were not impressed!

So, we settled for a local place called Ocean Pearl that was friendly enough and did the trick.  It is not actually in Montego Bay, but close by in a town called Greenwood.  

This morning we did not feel very ambitious, so we hung around the hotel for most of the morning.  We were served breakfast by a nice lady who was very pleased that we enjoyed her food and who sat and talked with us as we ate.  

Then we went outside for coffee.  Ocean Pearl was no Rooms, and the Montego Bay coast is no Seven Mile Beach, but it was a nice setting anyway. 

After a little shopping at a grocery store nearby and showers and packing, we checked out and shared lunch at a bar by the sea, before heading to the Montego Bay airport to fly home.

Here was the route of our entire road trip:

Adventures in the Caribbean: Jamaica Road Trip

Today Melanie and I left Negril in a little rental Suzuki Baleno around 9:30.  Our Sunwing package included a week's accommodation at Rooms, but after 5 nights we want to see a bit more of the island, and so today we are heading inland to a place called Albert Town.

Our first stop was a mineral spring called the Blue Hole.  It is tucked away off the highway, and took some finding, but thankfully we got GPS with our car, and (even then with a wrong turn), we got there.

The Blue Hole is so called, because, well, it is a hole of blue water, apparently 35 feet deep:

The cool way down is to jump, but neither Melanie and I were quite up for that, so we used the ladder.

Of course the ladder also allows for some jumping opportunities:

The water is refreshing, and once you are down in the hole, it opens up quite a bit and you can swim around or clamber onto some of the limestone rocks.  There are lots of little fish in the water too, which surprised me.  I suppose they might have been introduced, but otherwise it makes you wonder how they got there.  

The spot is such that you could easily stay half a day, but we kept our visit to an hour, because we had lots more of Jamaica to travel.

We continued east, along the southern coast of Westmoreland and then inland to the parish of St. Elizabeth.

There is a river here called "Y.S."--I have not been able to get an answer as to why it is called Y.S.--and it is home to a famous tourist spot called the Y.S. Falls.  We did not have time to stop there, but we drove by it (and the rows and rows of tourist buses).

We stopped further up the road by a quaint bridge over the river, where we relaxed and ate some fruit Melanie had bought along the highway.

Perhaps this spot is not as remarkable as the YS Falls, but it felt like a piece of paradise!

From YS River we continued along the B6 "highway" in a roughly northeastern direction.  The road is narrow and windy, but lightly trafficked and the countryside is gorgeous and interesting.  

We passed through a town called Maggotty, which is a small place, but was absolutely teeming with school children in their uniforms.  We stopped here for lunch, and bought jerk chicken from a street side hut.  We paid 400 Jamaican dollars each (~$4 Canadian), which was the cheapest lunch we have had here by far.

We took our chicken down the road and ate it at the Appleton Rum estate a little ways from Maggotty.  Unfortunately we did not have time to tour the factory, but it looks like a good tour.  I did buy a bottle in the gift shop, and we certainly got to see sugar cane growing and being harvested.

From Appleton we continued on to the B10, heading more northerly, and definitely upwards as the elevation continued climbing.  We passed another river and stopped again to enjoy some fruit and the scenery.

After this stop things got hairy.  We were close to Albert Town when the GPS directed me to turn off the highway and down a hill.  The direction seemed somewhat odd, but I had second guessed the GPS a few times already and the GPS had proved right every time.  The new road was badly potted, but none of the roads were in good condition, so we went on for a little bit, maybe two hundred metres or so.  

At that point, I had bottomed the little car out twice or three times, and the road was looking only worse further ahead, not better.  I pulled over at a spot I could, and mulled our options.  I walked, rather than drove, further down the road, and eventually it was obvious that this little car was not going to make it.  A farmer, in a rather beat up pick-up, coming up the road, confirmed this: "You'll never make it in that car!"  He did tell us that the road does go to Albert Town, so the GPS was not necessarily wrong.

But now the problem was that we had come down a hill, and coming back up was not going to be easy, either.  In fact, at one point, Melanie had to get out and push!  We took it slow, and more or less followed friendly farmer as he navigated around the pot holes and rocks, and so got back to the highway.  Friendly farmer gave us directions that did not involve back country farm roads, and just a few minutes later we were in Albert Town.

In Albert Town we met up with a man named Hugh Dixon, who runs an organization called Southern Trelawny Environmental Agency (http://stea.net/).  Hugh's organization is focused on protecting the region known as Cockpit Country, and organizing tours/hikes is one of the ways STEA raises money.

We followed Hugh to a place that seems to go by both Rock Spring and Spring Garden (or maybe they are just very close communities) where we met Miss Vanny, whose home we are staying at tonight.

It had been a long day, although only 150 kilometres of driving or so!

Miss Vanny fed us a dinner of curried chicken, rice, and the famous yams that apparently Usain Bolt credits as the secret to his speed (see: https://tamersoliman.ca/the-usain-bolt-yam/).  She was particularly insistent that I eat a lot, so I ended up absolutely stuffed.