13th-15th April - Kingston, Yah Man

On the night of April 13th to 14th, our journey to Kingston started. We departed at 11:30 PM local time in Vancouver. We had a slight delay, but it wasn't too bad. The flight lasted about four hours, and we landed around 07:00 AM local time in Toronto (Toronto is 3 hours ahead of Vancouver). We had a scheduled layover of 2 hours and 50 minutes here. It took a while to figure out which gate we needed for the flight to Kingston, as the app showed a different gate than the boarding pass, and the departure board showed yet another gate. We relied on the gate shown on the departure board, but it was inaccessible due to closed doors. Well, we had plenty of time. The gate was changed twice more during the wait, but at least we knew which one it was. After our aircraft finally arrived at the correct gate (it was previously parked at a different gate and couldn't be moved to ours), we were able to board with a delay of about one hour. We landed in Kingston, Jamaica, at around 2 PM and experienced quite a climate and culture shock. We had temperatures of 27-30°C (for the record: above freezing) and high humidity. At the airport, we were greeted by scantily clad dancers, as Jamaica is currently celebrating 'Carnival'. Besides the dancers, about 50 taxi drivers welcomed us, and of course, they were eager to transport us. Unfortunately, there were no buses available, so we negotiated a somewhat bearable price for the half-hour drive with one of the drivers, who was probably happier with the deal than we were. We only discovered the route taxis we had originally intended to take after we were already in the taxi with driver Mark. We bought a few things and had dinner at a restaurant before we went to bed in the evening, quite tired.

The next day (April 15th), we visited the Bob Marley Museum, which is located in the immediate neighborhood. Taking pictures is not allowed here, except for a few exceptions. The visit was quite disappointing. Only guided tours can be booked here, and exploring the musician's residence 'on our own' is not possible. Our group consisted of about 20 Jamaicans and 4 'foreigners', including us. Our guide conducted the tour in the local language Patois about 85% of the time (which is related to English, but probably only has as much in common as German and Dutch). As a result, our understanding was quite limited. We don't know if this was the 'arbitrary' choice of our guide or if the tours are generally conducted in Patois. At least we would have liked to know this before paying the proud admission price of over €20. After visiting the museum, we went to the market and had a snack at a fast food restaurant. Vegetarian food is virtually impossible here unless you cook for yourself or eat at restaurants that have the word 'veggie' in their name. The market offers almost everything imaginable. In addition to grass (which is commonly known as Ganja or Weed here), there are food, all kinds of clothes, shoes, junk, sunglasses, and even school exams (and their results) for sale. I also saw a 'stand' for (very authentic-looking) Jamaican passports. Unfortunately, I couldn't verify the legitimacy of this offer - most likely, you give the trustful vendor your passport photo along with a lot of money, and she disappears with it and is never seen again. But for us Europeans, it's not quite clear why anyone would want to have a (even fake) Jamaican passport issued.

Tomorrow at 3:15 PM local time, we will take a bus to Port Antonio in the northeast of the island, which will take about 4-4.5 hours. The woman we bought the ticket from told us that we have to switch buses at some point. However, we still don't know where and in which bus we have to transfer. So the ride could be quite exciting. Maybe the bus driver knows more. By the way, my ticket lists me as 'Mike Holland' (not entirely undeserved, as I'm now too lazy to spell out my name every time). So I hope there won't be any ID checks before the journey.

It remains exciting, and I hope to be able to report from Port Antonio next time.

P.S.: Our 'accommodation curse' continues to some extent. Despite the low price, our current accommodation is in a good area of Kingston. On Airbnb, the accommodation was listed as having 'hot water'. As we have found out, this term is extremely subjective. But cold water is not a big deal here, as it's quite warm everywhere. The internet in the accommodation usually doesn't work, and if it does, it's pretty bad. But that could be a general problem on the island.