Jamdown Sundown. My whispered chronicles of the Caribbean

Keeper of the Waterfall

My first experience in Jamaica was as an ordinary passenger aboard a 16-deck cruise liner making leisurely touring the Caribbean islands with a stop in Caracas.

The “Star Princess” docked confidently at the port of Ocho Rios – one of Jamaica`s three main resort towns, not the largest but perhaps the coziest in the eyes of both tourists and locals. For staff of the Russian Embassy, Ocho Rios is the closest “beach” destination to the capital, Kingston (just over an hour’s drive along a modern – toll – motorway built by the Chinese).

Incidentally, Ocho Rios was never actually crossed by those “eight rivers” that gave the charming town its Spanish name, near which Christopher Columbus is believed to have set foot on the island once again on June 20, 1503 (after its discovery in 1494).

It`s thought the settlement was originally named by its discoverer “Las Chorreras” (meaning “waterfalls”, as it`s home to the island`s most famous cascades, Dunn’s River). The English, who invaded Jamaica in 1655 and defeated two years later the Spanish at the Battle of Las Chorreras, simply adapted the acoustically challenging word.

The very the name “Jamaica” is believed to derive from itself comes from “Xaymaka” (“land of wood and water”) in the language of the Arawak Indians who inhabited the island before its discovery by Columbus. According to historians, the native inhabitants of Las Chorreras retained far from favourable memories of the Spanish visitors, who plundered mercilessly and abused the local population in every way, condemning them to slavery while also infecting them with diseases brought from Europe that proved fatal to the islanders. But that is another story, to be recounted later.

Today, Ocho Rios warmly welcomes tourists and cruise ship passengers from around the world. To further boost the appeal of Jamaica’s northern coast, Usain Bolt, for instance, not so long ago, in September 2016, riding on the wave of his phenomenal success at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, opened another restaurant in Ocho Rios (after Kingston) bearing his name, with a culinary-musical-sports theme and an ambition to expand this budding franchise not only across North America but also into Europe and the Middle East. Perhaps it might even reach Moscow, where Bolt famously triumphed in the 2013 World Athletics Championships…

But now, for us passengers aboard a cruise liner, the long-awaited moment had arrived – disembarking onto solid ground. Thousands of tourists from around the world poured out of the ship`s cavernous belly onto the welcoming Jamaican shore, hungry for new impressions poured onto the hospitable Jamaican shore, hungry for new impressions of the island where there are “no problems.”

For our seasoned group of five globetrotting friends, the first challenge was selecting one driver from the twenty-odd local “taxi” services – mostly co, pact limousines and minibuses, many dubiously licensed – someone who seemed even remotely trustworthy and personable.

After a few minutes of scrutinizing faces and visually assessing the vehicles offered to “wealthy foreigners”, our choice fell on a young road warrior named Justin. He won us over with an exuberance that even by Jamaican standards was off the charts, coupled with what appeared to be a genuine – as we later confirmed – desire to showcase every nook and cranny of Ocho Rios and its surroundings, including its “secret” spots, within the short docking window.

Every time Justin pitched an excursion option at a reasonable price, and we responded with cautious, almost imperceptible nods, he`d throw his arms around us (Jamaicans place great emphasis on tactile connections in interpersonal interactions), as if to convey just how overjoyed he`d be if we chose him as a driver and guide for our tour. Of course, we chose him, at least in order to put an end to the drawn-out selection process.

First, we drove along the costal road to the “must-see” local attraction – the grand Rose Hall estate, located 15 km from Montego Bay, Jamaica`s second-largest city and its de facto tourist capital, boasting the most developed resort infrastructure. Built in 1770 for a local plantation owner, Rose Hall now houses detailing the history of its wealthy slave-owning former residents.

But its fame stems from something else: legend has it that the house is still haunted by the ghost of the White Witch Annie Palmer, who during her lifetime allegedly poisoned three of her husbands using various, highly inventive methods, along with several enslaved people for good measure. For which she paid the ultimate price, accepting death at the hands of one of her tormented slaves named Takoo. However, no historical evidence supports this “horror story” – though it undoubtedly draws extra crowds of tourists to Rose Hall.

In my opinion, far more interesting is the nearby planter`s estate, Greenwood Great House, where descendants of its earliest owners still reside among splendidly preserved antique furniture and vintage music boxes. At one time, their ancestors held over 2,000 enslaved people. Surprisingly, local lore claims this is the only plantation estate in the area not burned down by rebelling slaves in retaliation.

In Montego Bay, which boasts Jamaica`s highest concentration of hotel accommodations, lies the country`s foremost international airport, named after Donald Sangster. It handles the majority of the island`s tourist influx – over two million visitors annually, predominantly from U.S., Canada and the UK. This fact guided our decision to propose establishing an honorary Russian consulate there. The position was later assumed by Francis Tulloch – a well-known political and public figure in the country (in the past), lawyer and entrepreneur (in the present) and genuinely a refined, approachable gentleman who commands respect and trust.

This city, entirely tailored to affluent foreign visitors, retains charming Georgian-style stone buildings and wooden cottages. Here, one finds There are also countless souvenir shops along with a selection of restaurants, some aspiring to haute cuisine standards. Most importantly, Montego Bay offers no shortage of pristine beaches and top-tier resorts – or more modest hotels – for every budget and preference. Combined with its superb golf courses and vibrant nightlife, these attractions paint quite the complete picture.

But we didn’t stay long in Montego Bay. Justin suggested returning to Ocho Rios, where, he claimed, “real fun” awaited us. First, the Dunn’s River Falls, cascading nearly 200 meters into the sea, and Mystic Mountain Nature Park, whose summit can be reached via a zipline – which, in my estimation, caters more to thrill-seekers – soaring 700 meters above the see level.

Had we wished, we could`ve swum in Dolphin Cove alongside its docile inhabitants. But two of our group – inclined toward adrenaline (including our dauntless female companion) – opted for the zipline, while the remaining three descended toward the Little Dunn`s River Falls, still cascading into the Caribbean, albeit with milder force than its big “brother” – planning to lounge there until returning to the ship.

A narrow, winding path unexpectedly led us to a patch of grassy shore strewn with pebbles, where a rudimentary shack stood midway toward the falls. In front sat a mythic old Rastaman, his dreadlocks tangled as if untouched for decades. Despite the hit, he had draped multiple layers of once-colourful Jamaican garb – now uniformly dulled to muddy brown – over himself like regal rags. A makeshift field kitchen sat nearby: a lopsided grill, a couple of chipped enamel pots, and battle-worn mugs bearing rust stains, plus other mismatched utensils harder to identify.

The old man tracked our movements warily as we approached the falls just meters from his hut. He gaze lingered while we debated wading into the waterfall`s chilly pool to begin climbing its slick stones – a canonical (though hazardous) tourist ritual. Wisely, we chose brevity over misadventure and soon retreated to relax beneath the shade of short yet lush shoreline trees.

The old man approached, clutching a coffee-smelling mug and inquired raspily:

– Where you be from?

“From the ship,” we replied cheerfully, gesturing towards the enormous “Star Princess” gently swaying on the Caribbean waves to reinforce our point.

– No, which country? – the old man impatiently clarified his question. – Russia? Frost, Lada, Lenin… – everything that came to his mind at that moment.

“The rocks are slippery,” our new acquaintance observed, completely unrelated to his previous sentence.

– We noticed…

“Need sandals,” the old man continued, producing from behind his back with a broad gesture something resembling tattered flip-flops with tears in various places. Naturally, we wisely declined this offer, politely thanking him.

The elderly Rastaman seemed to be not at all upset about having lost the opportunity to earn some extra cash from Russian tourists, who are seen there, understandably, not as often as Americans or Englishmen.

– That’s how I live, – the local old-timer mentioned, once more without any connection to what had been said before. – 20 years in one place, next to the waterfall. And I can’t live without him. And he can’t live without me…

– Where will he go if, for example, you ever move from here? – one of us asked naively.

– No, I won’t be here and he won’t be here, – the old man solemnly proclaimed with insistent confidence. – He and I are firmly connected: I am his keeper. I decided so once, 20 years ago, and since then I have been here…

Of course, one could have chuckled to oneself upon hearing these speeches. But we remained quite serious. Jamaica, after all, is a mystical island with unique landscapes, waterfalls of unique beauty, and cheerful inhabitants, who seem to be always slightly “on edge”.

Few people know today that there, on the island, a subspecies of black magic called voodoo is still practiced in some places – the so-called Obeism, which in slavery times was, among other things, an instrument of revenge by slaves on white rulers, and is now officially banned (but politicians have long been flirting with the idea of lifting this ban or at least weakening it). The Keeper of the Waterfall – there was, as it seemed to us, something typically Jamaican, Caribbean, in other words, unreal-real.

Well, how could it be otherwise, because the waterfalls on the island are a generous gift of nature, first of all for tourists. Because the locals, of course, would not think of fanatically overcoming in rubber slippers, measuring out almost 600 steps, the basalt cliffs and falling vertical streams of Dunn’s River Falls, and even paying a lot of money for it, by Jamaican standards.

While we were pondering this, the old man, having seen off with his eyes a group of Jamaican children rushing towards the natural bathing pool at the foot of “our” small waterfall, turned around and headed towards his shack. Without letting go of the cigarette from his mouth, he climbed heavily onto a battered hammock stretched between the trees surrounding the hut and froze in a half-reclining position. His face, furrowed with deep wrinkles, gradually acquired an even more philosophical expression, detached from current reality, and seemed to freeze for the nearest haven’t been wearing this mask for half an hour.

By the way, some researchers claim that the hammock was invented in Jamaica. But as far as I know, there is no unambiguously confirmed historical evidence on this matter. Historians agree that the word hammock itself came to the world from the language of the Arawak Indians who inhabited the Caribbean, including, as noted above, Jamaica. So there is some scope for imagination in this regard…

It was time for us to tear ourselves away from contemplating the bright pictures of the waterfalls and seaside and get ready for the return journey to the ship. The “taxi driver” Justin, having driven up to us, had already picked up our friends along the way, deeply impressed by the “Tarzan tour” over the Jamaican jungle, and with a playful, exaggeratedly broad gesture invited us into the car.

This was my very first acquaintance with Jamaica. At that time I did not yet know that three and a half years later I would find myself there again in a completely different, non-tourist capacity and not for one, but for a whole 1450 days.

James Bond’s “Father’s” Favourite Island

One of the most expensive hotels in Jamaica (though, in my opinion, not the coolest) is the aforementioned “GoldenEye” in Oracabessa. On its grounds is a five-room villa (also rented to wealthy guests) where the creator of James Bond, who bought a 15-acre plot on the island’s north coast in 1946, found refuge whenever he wanted to escape London.

In this house were written, beginning in 1952, all 14 Fleming`s novels about the British super agent. In 1995, “Golden Eye” gave the name to the 17th film about James Bond, who was played by Pierce Brosnan – in my opinion, the most suitable actor for this role after Sean Connery. Film fans could see “James Bond Beach”, located not far from Fleming’s residence, in the first of the “Bond” films – “Dr. No”.

Matthew Parker, the author of a book published in the UK in 2014 about the Jamaican period of the life and work of the “father” of agent 007, says, Ian Fleming always enjoyed the view of a small beach behind his villa, the opportunity to catch fish or lobsters for breakfast right there in the sea, challenging barracudas, moray eels and sharks, the privilege of feeling there, literally, at home.

The writer’s hospitality in Jamaica was eagerly used at various times by his colleagues in the literary “workshop”, including Noёl Coward, who eventually became a neighbor of Ian Fleming on the island, Truman Capote – another fan of Jamaica, as well as the once famous movie screen hero-lover, Hollywood actor Errol Flynn, who also bought a land plot in the eastern part of the island (“Navy Island”).

“GoldenEye” even became a kind of temporary “visiting” headquarters for the government in London at the time of the Suez Crisis during the month-long visit of the British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden in 1956.

Few people know that after the death of Fleming in 1976, the “GoldenEye” villa was owned by the king of reggae Bob Marley for a year, and in 1980, after it was bought by local multimillionaire Chris Blackwell, it became part of a hotel complex, which operates and is popular to this day.

As Parker testifies, “Jamaica made Fleming a different man from the man he had been in Britain. In the six years between the building of ‘GoldenEye’ and the writing of his first book, he studied Jamaica as thoroughly as he had explored the sea and coral reefs near his home.”

It is possibly true that Fleming and “GoldenEye” contributed greatly to the fact that the blessed island – “the oldest and most romantic of the former British colonial possessions” – discovered the tourist industry and began to make good money from it.

Christopher Columbus, as we already know, was the first of its overseas visitors. For the famous navigator, if we are to believe the entry in the ship’s log, Jamaica seemed “the most beautiful of the islands ever seen before. It seems that the land here touches the sky!”

Indeed, the island has many remarkable, specific and unique features. For example, three thousand species of flowers bloom here. There are more than 200 species of orchids alone, 73 of which grow only in Jamaica. There are also more than 1,000 species of different trees, 500 species of ferns, and the famous “Fern Gully” – a three-mile-long road running from north to south along a winding dry riverbed. As for sugar cane, bananas, mangoes, bamboo, breadfruit, trees and even coconut palms, which are common in Jamaica, as in almost every tropical island, are all crops brought by the colonizers. Before they arrived, the Arawak Indians grew mainly maize and sweet potatoes for food.

Jamaica is home to the world’s third-largest beautiful butterfly, the swallowtail, and the second smallest bird on the planet, the pygmy hummingbird (with a total body length of 6—7 cm, including the beak). And the pennant-tailed hummingbird, the symbol of Jamaica, is endemic, it means that it is not found anywhere except this island. There are also 21 endemic species of frogs. As for snakes, only five species of them remain in Jamaica from the former diversity (all of them are completely safe for humans), the rest were entirely destroyed by mongooses, brought to the island by the British in 1872 to protect sugar plantations from rats. If there is anyone to be afraid of here, it is crocodiles. Certainly, they live in only two places in Jamaica, are actively fed by the organizers of tourist routes and are lazy and satiated enough to cause any trouble to visitors. But caution when dealing with them still, of course, does not hurt!