Two nights ago I flew above the southeast corner of Jamaica, pressed my face to the plane window and thought to myself that, rather like its current favourite son Usain Bolt, this great island is pretty big. The flight path to Kingston (from London, at least) covers little of the country, because the capital lurks only 30 miles along the south coast — but the landscape that stares back at incoming arrivals is — nonetheless — astonishing in its variety.
In fact, I found myself making a list of everything I could see — a game of I-spy that lacked any real competitive spark because the guy in the seat next to me was asleep. First, there was the long dark stripe of rainforest. Then came a wide patch of fields, a light agricultural green. A new housing development, pink rooftops and white walls, quickly intruded on the scene. A freshly built road, a row of toll stations at one end, drew a thin line at the top of proceedings.
Then Kingston came into view — the tall buildings of the Downtown area in the foreground, the lower reaches of the Blue Mountains sulking behind. And then, with a dip of a wing, the vast watery space of the harbour — the deepest channel of its kind in the Caribbean — packed with mega-tankers and uber-freighters, giant shipping containers piled up along its docks.
Talking of giants, the first snapshot of Bolt appeared on the road out of the airport, perhaps 10, maybe 20 metres beyond the terminal. There he was, the Olympic 100 metres champion, flogging mobile phones via a colossal billboard and a grin almost as huge as his 6ft'5 frame.
But then, Jamaica is big. Not as in ‘Russia’ big. Not as in ‘Canada’ big. But very big in a region renowned for its spits of sand and paradise pinpricks in a turquoise sea. This, after all, is the third biggest island in the Caribbean, its 4,444 square miles placing it behind Cuba and Hispaniola (or the combined landmass of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, if we’re living in the 21st century) in the 'yes-sir-I’m-definitely-big' stakes, but well ahead of St Kitts, Martinique, Bequia, St Vincent and any of the other tiny slivers that help make up the Indies.
This is a good thing for anyone winging it over the Atlantic with the intention of penning a travel piece. Jamaica cannot be summed up in one of those Caribbean features that bangs on about the beauty of the beaches, then retires to a sun-lounger, shrugging that there isn’t a lot more to write about. Jamaica cannot be squished into a box so easily. The weary post-flight drive into Kingston confirmed this – a cement factory belching smoke, a traffic jam, a clutch of wooden houses that defined the word ‘shanty’, a couple of suspension-shaking potholes and a prison whose austere walls were swathed in razor wire. No tourist dream, any of it — but raw evidence of a living, breathing, working country. And all the more fascinating for it.
Happily, I’m not here to blether about Kingston’s undeniably shabby outskirts. I’ve since hopped aboard another plane to the north coast, where famous names such as Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, another batch of jungle-blanketed mountains and the fingerprints of Christopher Columbus, Johnny Cash and Ian Fleming make up a more pleasant picture.
There will be more on this — including proof of the fact that the British have always been bad at speaking Spanish — in a later issue of High Life. But in the meantime — if you’re interested — the sightings of Bolt and his product-plugging smile are well into double figures. Looking around his homeland, I’m starting to understand his sunny demeanour.
Read more about Chris Leadbeater's trip to Montego Bay.
