There is a smell of rum and a hint of piracy in Ocho Rios, Jamaica’s main cruise ship destination. The rum is free and can be sampled even before you exit the port. The plunder is something you discover quickly, and starts right outside. Before you exit there is a choice of what you can do in Ocho Rios.

DESTINATION    PRICE

Dunn’s river falls,    22 dollars

Green grotto,     22 dollars

Coyaba gardens,    22 dollars

Is it 22 for a return? I asked at the taxi rank outside.

“Yaaa maan”. Duh druhver will stay wid you and bring you baak,maan”

‘ Do I pay now?’ ‘Yaaa maan. We take duh money in advance. Dat’s duh policy of duh company.’ I gave him 25 thinking I’d get back the change, but he went on .

“My name is Richard, Wayoniem?

What?

‘Wayoniem? That’s ‘what’s your name’, in patois. Patois is what we speak in Jamaica . Yaaa maan. For E.g. we say ‘waayago’ for ‘where do you want to go’ It’s a kind of speedy English maan.’ I was in his  SUV taxi climbing steeply, through tropical jungle, into the hills of Jamaica. i was on my way to Coyaba gardens, one of the main attractions of Ocho Rios. Outside the window, were coffee gardens and sugar plantations, with large white estate houses ‘Owned by duh Americans and cultivated by us. We Jamaicans are still duh slaves, yaaa maan’ said Richard.

I was making notes on  his patois and the scene outside when the  taxi took a sharp turn and stopped at the entrance to the gardens. ‘Here’s your change’ he said returning a dollar (instead of three) and opening the door added

“You have to pay a ten dollar fee, for the gardens and the guide.” 

I don’t need a guide.

”Its still ten dollars, and in Jamaica it is customary to tip.”

I will leave you here and come back in one-hour maan.  But —————- before I could remind him of our deal, Red Rackham was gone.

And that is the first thing I got to know about Ocho Rios: the Jamaican knows your dollar better than you do

But that is where I will stop cribbing. For the second thing I got to know about Ocho Rios is that it is the Garden of Eden, paradise.

The Arawak Indians called it Coyaba, their name for heaven

On the afternoon of 3 may 1494, Columbus in the well tried little caravel, ‘Nina” with two others the ‘San Juan’ and the ‘Cardera’ set a course for Jamaica, arriving on Monday in what is now St Ann’s bay (near Ocho Rios).Columbus called  it ‘Santa Maria’ on account of the extreme beauty of the country .Columbus thought Jamaica the fairest island that ‘eyes have beheld; mountains and the land seemed to touch the sky, all full of valleys and plains.’

Coyaba is a garden and a museum of the Arawaks, once the natives of Jamaica. From the entrance it  is a long walk through the garden. Trees of every kind flank the road : There are rosewood, and mahogany trees, reaching up to the sky , their leaves forming a canopy that blocked the sunlight. Then there are cedar trees , with their  lowest branches forty feet above the ground. Between them are breadfruit trees, and Mahoe trees with yellow flowers and violet berries; the list is endless. At points along the way the road broke off into smaller paths. Lining these paths were ferns,bamboo, ginger lilies , and crotons. There were orchids and a variety of palms; so many in fact that I didn’t know their names. All along the foliage was thick, sometimes obstructing the pathway. Every now and then I would push the leaves, to clear the way and as I did so a brilliantly colored humming bird would flit to a higher branch. Occasionally, there was a break in the foliage or a gap between the trees .Looking through this I could  see the blue bay of Ocho Rios, and in the distance, the waters of the Atlantic.

Ocho Rios is a corruption of the Spanish word, las chorreras, meaning bay of waterfalls. One of the waterfalls is inside the garden and I went to take a look . At the entrance was a pavilion, where I sat for a while and listened to the sound of falling water.  Further ahead the water tumbled over rocks  and disappeared towards the bay. The rocks here were as flat as tabletops and I was tempted to step in . I rolled up my pants and entered. A few minutes of this and it’s too much, the water was cold and  rapid. .A little hut, close by, beckoned me to step out for hot ‘blue mountain coffee, “Jamaica’s best” and “perhaps the best in the world.”‘

Back in the parking lot, Richard was waiting for me , to take me back to downtown Ocho Rios. We drove back along another route, through the heart of the School district. And it is here that I got to know the third thing about Ocho Rios:It is really a microcosm of Jamaica.

 It is lunchtime in St Ann’s School and Children with chocolate faces and frizzy hair are running towards a stall in the corner. Even in the middle of November it was hot , and “Granny Jamaica” is sitting under an umbrella in a large straw hat, selling bananas and peanuts. Outside, on the highway, Jamaican women were carrying fish in straw baskets, for sale in the market.  Somehow this prompted a discussion on Jamaican food. ”Jerk food is traditional Jamaican food maan : jerk chicken, jerk Pork, jerk fish , yaaa maan’ said Richard ,and I interrupted “what is jerk?” ’Jerk is duh way dey cook maan, wid a spicy sauce maan- very popular.’

We were at the edge of downtown Ocho Rios. I decided I would walk from here, and look at the architecture. Lining the main street were brightly colored buildings with bay windows and white picket fences. Many of them were made of wood and functioned as offices or trading posts. As I walked along , looking at the signboards, I realized it was like walking through a bit of Jamaica’s colonial past . The names on the signboards were distinctly British : Burma Shell, Lloyd’s, P & O , and to complete the effect  smartly uniformed guards  stood outside the buildings  directing ladies in straw hats and summer dresses.  This  feeling of ” Britain -in the caribbean’,lasted, however,  only for a few minutes. I was in  the middle of downtown Ocho Rios at the entrance to the craft market. And this is where I got to know the fourth thing about Ocho Rios.

It is reggae, Bob Marley, dreadlocks and drugs.

. At the entrance to the market, a duo was striking up a jingle. . “Put your left leg out, put your right leg out, and shake your leg

Inside, the market is crowded with stalls selling souvenirs: wood carvings of reptile’s masks, straw hats, and baskets. In every corner was a wooden rack, propped against  a tree or the wall with CD’s,  and cassettesof Bob Marley. His songs” Could you be loved and be loved” and “No woman no cry,” played on the speakers  and his  Neolithic face, stared at me from posters pasted on the walls . This is not surprising for I am after all , in his backyard: He was born my brochure said ‘in a place nearby  called Nine miles.’ At an early,  age he left home, studied music and formed a band called the wailers. They went on to popularize his unique brand of pop called reggae, across the world and as a result Marley’s fame grew .When he died in 1961, Marley was a cult figure.

Even though he is no more, here in the market, I never felt far away from him.Many of the men in the shops looked like him and wore his dreadlocks.

“Come in brother, it costs nothing to look.” said one look-alike, with long dreadlocks. He was inviting me to look at the wooden carvings in his shop. There was hardly anything inside. ‘Come right in, we Jamaicans are very friendly people,’ he said and then pointing to a small room at the back added ‘I got more inside,’ I got the feeling that it was an invitation to greater plunder, or drugs, and moved out.

Outside at the entrance, was another Marley look-alike. As I came up to him he moved his hands about in his pockets , indicating he had something I might need. As I passed him he whispered. “Blackstone, Blackstone, want some?” Before I could ask what it was (I later learned, that it was a cheap Viagra, sold on the black market), there was a buzz in the market, and an excited whisper in patois. The Jamaican messaging service was warning of some danger. I walked on, looking over my shoulder, to see what was happening. A police car appeared and was cruising slowly along the street, searching for peddlers. I looked for the people, I had just met. But they had vanished or suddenly transformed into innocent tour guides. The car swept by and nothing happened.

Ocho Rios was Eden again.