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What does it look like over there?

Part Three - Life Out A Road

Much has been made of the Great American Road Trip. Dozens of Hollywood movies have little more than driving across our big country as their plot, with a couple explosions and some sex thrown in, of course. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let the following serve as a sample of the sights and adventures that can be encountered on

the Great Jamaican Road Trip

When I lived in the Negril environs I traveled to Sav at least once a week, for various reasons: sound systems, motorcycle parts, great fresh fish, to buy lumber or milled items on the road to Sav...this picture is a few miles past Little London, moving towards Savanna La Mar

Tobacco drying hut in Saint Elizabeth
near Black River

I see your true colors shining through...
and that's why I love you...

Along the road near Hopewell, Saint James

A home in Portmore

West End Road, Negril

the Negril Craft Market, downtown one

in Lucea, Hanover
Bongo Ray's new and improved
Vital Ital

Cows & goats catching shade
near Tryall

A cow at an airport, near Negril

No matter where you go in Jamaica, a cow, goat, dog, chicken, or even peacock is sure to jump out in front of you eventually, and I have the road rash knees to prove it.

...and horses, did I mention horses?

Although horses
won't normally jump
out into the road
in front of you
like a chicken will.

These were lingering around Tryall area.

These Tryall cow,
goat, horse shots
were taken during
one of my
many motorcycle
"falls-hunting" trips

The Roadway Cafe, the Jamaican drive-through

dining "out" J A style

Every Jamaican is a chef it seems and some
of the best food in Jamaica can be had
in the MOST informal settings

The Tanpipe
(stand pipe, as in standing upright, a village "fountain")

This traditional gathering place is fading fast as more
Jamaican homes become modernized with indoor plumbing.
But back in the day, when one large tanpipe serviced
clusters of houses, certain times a day you could
buck up on quite a group, especially women
with laundry bins, waiting their turn,
indulging in
the labberish of the moment

Catch them while you can, THE COUNTRY BUS, another wonderful dinosaur falling
by the wayside as Jamaica modernizes its transportation systems
with modern new buses from Japan and Germany

The Pushcart Man

They come in all sizes and shapes and serve as everything from moving men, to couriers, to mobile stalls to sell everything under
the sun and the kitchen sink too

Firestone

Midas

Pep Boys -

J A Style

Every back country road has an expert mechanic working out of a wood hut with $10,000 of tools.

strictly J A Style

JAMAICAN ROADS - they fall into categories:

THE LANE

residential, often unpaved

"check fi me up a me gate
dung de bottom a de lane deh"

The Hill Road

"Me a go meet oono a de
top a de hill deh"

The Cove Road

There are a thousand of these in Jamaica, you usually can't go wrong if you look
for your friends at
the nearest one

this one is between Orange
Bay and Green Island

The Highway

Just like in the first world, two or more wide lanes, usually with less potholes. There are more of these in Jamaica than most visitors realize, because the greater portion are around Kingston, where the greater portion of the people are.

The Coast Road

usually scenic, with tourist attractions and photo ops all along the way, as well as vendors, some permanent, some driven off as soon as they get comfortable.
This spot is near
Lucea, on the MoBay side.

The Jungle Road

may be wide, may
be narrow, paved
or unpaved, smooth or pot-holed. But
all jungle roads remind you that
you are not in
Kansas anymore, Toto.