Drive With Me from Montego Bay to the Treasure Coast

Ride with me from Montego Bay to Treasure Bay, across the vast mountainous hump of this large-feeling island, in a comfortable large eleven passenger Ford van.  We zigzagged out way up around and across the heights until finally we were on our way home.

The big van lurches around corners, whisking by the drivers from the other direction by inches.  A village called Anchovy, and two girls who turned away, waving their arms, as we tried to shoot photos from the passing roadway.  An old Vespa scooter with a man holding a bunch of lumber, dragging it close to the ground, a grizzled rastaman.

A man walks down the road toward us smoking a big spliff.  Groups of men hanging out.  And the people who walk up the road, as if they’re on their way to something, not phased when a car skids by them, missing them by inches.  At one small settlement, traffic stopped and I looked right into a man on the street’s eyes.  Whitey, he said, then I waved and smiled and didn’t shoot his picture.  Trade off.

Put on the gas, we think, so the driver does and then a goat is in the road, and nimbly jumps, pop, right up to the curb beside her to avoid having us hit her.  Then deftly jumped back down.

Tiny shacks, churches…bars, churches. I am told later that Jamaica has the most churches and bars in the Caribbean. And many of them are no bigger than ten feet wide!  Shar’s bar.  Temple of Jesus Christ.  Bar. United Church of Anchovy.