Sunday, bloody Sunday…

My plans for today have changed – instead of Port Antonio I’ve decided to go to Kingston. Got a call from my bank today at four o’clock in the morning – they didn’t seem to like my recent withdrawal and have blocked my account. After a lengthy phone call (£2/min in roaming) I’ve managed to sort it out but still I want to go online and check if everything is alright before I make any more spending. As the whole region I live in is currently deprived of internet (there is only one provider and it’s currently carrying out some maintenance works) I’ve decided to go to the capital to find some internet cafe and see few of the tourist attractions on the way. What I haven’t considered was a fact that it’s a Sunday today. I was totally surprised to find the whole city to be completely dead. There was absolutely nothing open except few fast food places and restaurants. There wasn’t even that many people around, the ones I’ve seen were dressed in their best clothes followed by a faint scent of naphthalene, going from or to the Church.  Obviously I haven’t found any place to use the internet (I start doubting they even have it on this island) – but at least I had a chance to see some nicer and more civilised parts of Kingston’s uptown.

The New Kingston is a heart of the Uptown – it’s very similar to any other City – lots of banks and posh hotels, few shopping centres, restaurants and clubs, with all the best ones along the main street – Knutsford Boulevard. Along the same street lies also the Emancipation Park – memorial to the end of slavery. At its entrance there is a fountain with two naked statues. What is missing is a sign - “We’re destroying men’s self confidence since 2002” (if you don’t know what I’m talking about look carefully at the guy’s statue).

Other important point is the Devon House – beautiful XIX cent. building, built by the first Jamaican black millionaire. Local rumour sais that nearby street – Lady Mulgrave Rd. was build on Lady Mulsgrave, the then governors wife request, so she could get to the governor’s residence - King’s House - without seeing the house owned by a rich black Jamaican.

Further alongside the same road lie the King’s house and Jamaica House, Governor’s and Prime Minister’s residences. Before I’ve managed to see the second one, the weather has suddenly changed and it started raining quite heavily. So I’ve took a taxi and came back to my little mountain refuge. On the way I’ve learn about Rasta movement from my Rastafarian driver.

Tomorrow I’ll continue my quest in search of the internet and probably go to see some of the nicer parts of Kingston’s downtown. I’m still slightly wary about going in there, in spite of my mainly positive experiences with Jamaicans so far. Jamaican people are so much different from Europeans that I haven’t really make up my mind about them. They’re all very friendly and helpful, they always seem to have load of free time to talk to you or to show you around. On the other hand their laid back attitude can be very annoying at times. For example, there isn’t any kind of schedule for busses or road taxis, they don’t even have a specified routes, if you ask a driver to take you somewhere near his usual course, they won’t see a problem in that. I’ve tried to ask people few times when is the next bus/road taxi coming, they seriously had no idea what did I expect from them; it’ll come when it does.

Most of the people here are really poor, so they try to earn on tourists as much as it is possible. Wherever you are, in a remote mountain village or in the City, tourists are a  constant target for beggars, self appointed guides, souvenirs dealers and pushy taxi drivers. People will follow you around offering their services, passing by cab drivers will sound their horns to attract attention. If you ask for a price of anything the first number you hear is always at least one third higher than the regular one. It doesn’t really seem to come with a intention to cheat or trick you, though. They’re always happy to haggle. It’s just the way things seem to work in here. I have a vague feeling that my tomorrow trip to the downtown may be an interesting one…

Slumdog millionaire

I’m sitting at the moment on my balcony in some desolate place in Jamaican Blue Mountains. After tropical paradise of Antigua I decided to see something different and went to Jamaica. I started to regret that decision even before boarding a plane. My luggage was searched at the airport, however much less thoroughly than the other passengers – possibly because I was the only white person boarding this plane. In Jamaica I was pleasantly surprised with Kingston Airport – it’s one of the cleanest and nicest airports I’ve seen so far. I’ve encountered first trouble during the immigration check. “So, you were born in Austria, live in UK, have Polish citizenship and fly here from Antigua? Can you please sit there, sir, there will be an officer with you in a minute.” It was much less serious than it looked – I just had to answer few question about my reasons for visiting Jamaica and pay 20US$ visa fee. I left the airport expecting my guesthouse to send a cab for me like they were supposed to do. They didn’t, so I was forced to use the ridiculously overpriced airport cab. After a short discussion I’ve managed to haggle the price down from initial 93 to 60US$. I’m sure it’s still a rip off, but at least I haven’t been robbed and dumped somewhere in the sewers on the way. Short trip trough Kingston slightly freaked me out. The Uptown is a reasonably nice place, but horses won’t drag me to the Downtown. Most of the Kingston is a slam, seriously, I haven’t ever seen anything like that. Ruins, dirt and stray dogs everywhere. It’s supposed to be reasonably safe for tourists, except for few really rough areas – but somehow I don’t really trust that.

Place I’m staying in is located high in the mountains – about 40 minutes by car from Kingston. The distance isn’t really that great, you can see Kingston Harbour from here – but it’s difficult to get here. Roads are really bad – it’s basically just a collection of potholes with some asphalt in between. Additionally no one seem to have heard of hard shoulder in here, so our trip war rather exciting. When we have finally arrived, I’ve found out that my room is literally hanging over the Mount Edge (as the name of the guest house suggests). I’ve found a small lizard and a large cicada in my room (at least I hope that it was a cicada, they look kind of similar to cockroaches), but the view from my balcony is almost worth it.

The place is very small and completely isolated, there’s only one more person except me staying in here at the moment – constantly stoned German  medicine student. The nearest village is Papine – small place on the outskirts of Kingston. It takes about 25 minutes drive in a cab to get there. Taxis are the only mean of transport in the mountains. They take as many people on the way as possible, so by the end it’s getting pretty crammed in there. But thanks to that, they’re pretty cheap (150J$ – around £1.50 – for 30 minutes ride). The cars are usually incredibly old and tattered – forget about luxuries like seat belts or wing mirrors – which is slightly scary – as it doesn’t seem anyone heard about highway code here. People here are really nice and talkative, I’ve spend my short, bumpy trip to Papine listening to a life story of one of the other passengers. He spoke with a very strong Jamaican accent, so I could understand only every third word or so, but I kept nodding politely wondering if he’s going to leave anytime soon. I’m pretty sure that something fell out our car on the way – but after a short stop, when driver had examined his car from the outside – we’ve resumed our trip with maybe more squeaks and screeches than before. Our destination, Papine is a small place with few shops, vegetable market and one bank. The biggest problem I had there was getting some money. There are four cash machines, two of them only taking cards from local banks and one broken. I’ve managed to find the fourth one by pure accident, when I’ve already given up looking. This one took my card without complaining and for a moment I could feel almost like a millionaire with 30 000$ in my pocket (Jamaican dollars of course – roughly worth £270).

 

After short meal and some essential shopping I’ve decided that I had enough of excitement and called it a day. On my way back I’ve bought some freshly roasted coffee straight from the plantation (Blue Mountain coffee is considered the best in the world). Tomorrow, I’m planning to see some more touristy places; Port Antonio, Blue Lagoon and Long Bay.

Sun, sea and unlimited alcohol

I’m starting to reconsider decision on not continuing my career in academia after (if) I finish my PhD. There are some advantages in staying at the university after all. Conferences in exotic places are definitely one of them. Caribbean, sun, sea and unlimited free alcohol, all paid from university founds.

This year Zing Organometallic conference is hosted on Antigua, small Caribbean island, which as few people underlined has 365 beaches, one for every day of the year. Resort where the conference takes place is all inclusive (free booze!) with nice private beach and free water sports. Conveniently enough flights to Antigua from Manchester are only on Fridays, so we had a whole week for ourselves. Additionally during the three days of the conference we had a huge, six hours break in the middle, between morning and the evening talk sessions. We couldn’t really complain that there’s not enough of free time.

Surprisingly (at least for me – as I usually consider lectures as waste of time) most of the sessions were really good. The few that weren’t that painful really as the conference centre had wireless, so lots of people were browsing internet or checking email. There were few interesting individuals (or freaks, like my boss called them) at the conference that probably deserve a short mention. The first one is little hunched ancient Romanian lady. She was late for the first session in spite of being already in the Resort at least since the morning. She came in the middle  of the first talk stinking like a tobacco factory and fell asleep snoring loudly almost immediately. She didn’t bother coming to any other of the sessions except the one she was talking at. We’ve seen her occasionally in the  Resort, usually during meals, when she was stuffing leftovers into her handbag. She didn’t really speak to anyone (except the other Romanian person that came with her) and we’ve found out why during her talk. Her English was poor at best. She read her introduction from a piece of paper and then proceeded to reading contents for her slides from the screen. She had numerous slides, consisting mainly of text in quite a small font. If chairman wouldn’t make her finish when she was running out of time, her talk would probably took an hour or longer. Obviously she wasn’t really happy with that and she spend the next talk talking in loud indignant Romanian to her companion.

The other probably person worth mentioning is a mysterious Russian looking guy with a questionable sense of fashion. According to the abstract booklet he was supposed to present a poster, however I haven’t seen him doing that. He seem to take the casual elegant dress code too literately. For the whole time of the conference he was wearing a polo shirt (same one everyday) with a dash of elegance in a form of purple tie. We’ve tried to spot him at the beach, to see if he’s also wearing a tie, but we haven’t seen him there.

Another person that will remain in our memories for long wasn’t really related to the conference. He just happened to stay in the same resort. We didn’t got his name, but knowing that he’s Canadian and that he’s rude – we called him Terrence. We met him on the beach, he just came to our parasol, pushed our sun beds away and pushed his one into the shade. At first we didn’t really know what he wanted and if he’s being serious. But he pointed to us that we weren’t using them at the time and he wanted some shade. Why did he wanted to lye in between five stranger will remain mystery, especially that there was lots of shade from the palm trees around and another empty parasol just next to us.

 

He went to sleep after some extensive verbal abuse from my boss (never seen him being so rude). He left after a while, obviously not appreciating noise we were making. Not that we were much more noisy than usual, but me made a point in playing bit-bat almost above his head.

If you happen to know Terrence – please contact me immediately – as we’d love to know who he is.