October 2013: back to Jamaica!

We got up early to go to the airport, and after a long day of traveling, arrived in Montego Bay.  We got through customs without much hassle, despite having so many suitcases and bags, which sometimes is looked upon as suspicious.


We found our rental car, a tiny little green thing, and we headed off first for lunch, and then to a shopping center to try to buy a Jamaican cell phone.  We didn’t want to be without a phone again like we were on our last trip.  We went to several stores but couldn’t find what we were looking for.  The afternoon was getting late and we needed to make our way over the mountain to Whitehouse and Linda’s house.

We found the road, wound our way up past Rocklands Bird Sanctuary, past Anchovy and up and over.  We managed around the sharp hairpin turns and tried to avoid the potholes.  About halfway over, it started to sprinkle.  Then it started to rain.  The windshield wipers didn’t clean off the window, they just smeared. It rained harder.  Bruce tried to stick his head out the window.  The rain was coming down harder and harder.  Then, it started to get dark.

Now, let me explain dark on the top of a mountain in the jungle. Dark, like, you can’t see. Anything. And here we are on a windy, curvy mountain road that we don’t know, in a tropical downpour, with kind of pitiful headlights, windshield wipers that don’t work, and we can’t see 10 feet in front of us. There is no place to pull over on this narrow road, so Bruce just has to keep going. Slowly but surely. Cars are whizzing by us on a two lane road that is really only wide enough for one car.  I have white knuckles, am afraid to close my eyes, but too frightened to keep them open.  

By some great miracle, we finally get over the mountain and to the bottom of the hill, where the road runs in to the other coast.  Bruce makes a left turn and then....THUMP....flap....flap....flap....

We had hit a huge pothole, one the size of Texas.  It practically swallowed our tiny little compact rental car whole.  We knew immediately that our tire was flat.  But Bruce wasn’t about to stop.  It was still pouring down rain, we couldn’t see anything in the dark, and it seemed that cars were flying by us at alarming speeds.  If we stopped, we would get hit on the side of the road.  Since we had been there before, we knew that we were getting close to Linda’s house so we just kept going, driving on the rim.

When we finally got there, we dashed in to the gate among the drops, and plopped down on the back porch under the roof and out of the rain.  We were exhausted and just thankful to be there.  We told Linda and her house help, Carol, the story of our journey.  We were too tired even to eat.  We went to bed early listening to the wonderful sound of the tree frogs in Jamaica, the most beautiful night sounds I have ever heard.