We hired a car today and went on a short road trip inland to Nine Mile, the birth and resting place (Mount Zion) of Bob Marley.
Jamaica and it’s people are charming. We heard a lot of negative things about Jamaica before we came here, mainly from people who haven’t been. ‘It’s dangerous.’ ‘People are unfriendly’ even ‘hostile’. Then the sailors we’d met who’ve been here invariably raved about the place. It’s been on my bucket list for ages, so we thought we’d check it out ourselves.
Before coming here to Ocho Rio, we spent a couple of weeks hanging out at Discovery Bay. We met up with a few of the locals. One guy, Henry, who has a grandkid the age of our kids came and had dinner with us on Spacegrazer one evening. Another day I did a day walk up into the hills with Kevoy. He seemed to know every plant under the sun and told me all about their medicinal uses. He recognised many different birds by their call. One day he bought me a big back of herbs and plants for drying out and making into tea. And no it wasn’t ganja.
One thing that strikes you about Jamaica is ganja, weed, Mary Jane, pot, Marijuana, call it what you will, it’s everywhere. It’s a way of life. Walking into the beach you get engulfed in its pungent fragrance. Even the security guard had a massive joint in hand as he waved our car through the gate at the port. On our walk Kevoy permanently had one hanging from his lip.
Roadtripping
Driving up into the hills was a good break from the boat. Weirdly, the landscape reminded me of the Awakino (Taranaki, NZ). Except tropical vegetation everywhere. The abundance of food producing plants is awesome, bananas, mangos, sour fruit, all sorts of nut trees, pears, Jamaican Apples which taste like Nashi Pears, the list goes on and on with.many, many types of edible plants that I’ve never heard of.
We felt that Bob Marley’s house was commercialised. It receives bus loads of tourists and was noisy with builders doing extensions to accommodate presumably more people. Still we are glad we went, our enjoyment really came from soaking up the atmosphere of driving up there.
The cultural and historical significance was lost on the kids who afterwards asked, “So who was Bob Calamari?”
