Road Trip to the Tip of the Blue Mountains

Never before have I seen a rental car’s life flash before my eyes until this road trip. I’ve experienced driving in the Blue Mountains before but not with a car I was responsible for! I was actually laying in bed before writing this and the memories came flooding back so I got up at midnight to write this post so I wouldn’t lose any of the funny thoughts.

A couple months ago I met up with a fellow traveler in Duncans, Trelawny and my mission for the day was to drive him up to a guest house at the top of the Blue Mountains, and then come back home to Ocho Rios. I love road trips so I did it for a tank of gas and some lunch. Nothing to report but some great conversation for the easy part of the trip but once we hit Kingston we had a little fun. I had always vowed I would never drive in Kingston because I don’t know it well and if I do something wrong there’s too much traffic there to sneak away unnoticed. Below is the map of our route.

We pretty much breezed through Kingston with the mountains as our landmark….we knew we needed to be in the mountains so we just drove til we saw a sign to Papine. Since we’ve been this way once before we knew we were on the right track. And up the mountain we started. I get a total kick out of the roads up there. If you were drunk or even tipsy you’d surely drive off a cliff to your sudden death because the roads are narrow and hairpin turns all the way. The common courtesy thing is honk your horn at every turn to alert any oncoming vehicles that you’re coming.

Finally when we’d finished the climb to the point that we need to turn off and head down some much less desirable road to get to the guest house. At the junction where I was supposed to turn down there was no way for me to see that one part of the road was a complete drop off and to successfully make this exit I should have moved over to the other side. All I heard was a giant scraaaaaape on the bottom of the car as I went over the dropoff. And conveniently there is a little bar right at this junction full of Jamaicans yelling at me to STOPPPPP! And if you know Jamaicans they all have a university degree in traffic control so they will direct you out in times of trouble…or even when you simply need to back out of a parking spot LOL!

I slowly backed out of this situation and made a mental note NOT to do the same thing coming back up, and I secretly hoped all those Jamaicans would be gone on my way out so I didn’t have to face them again. Continuing down the hill we encountered a curve so tight I had to do it in two maneuvers, then down some more til we finally reached a point where we agreed we could go no further. I was not attempting what was in front of us in a car I’m paying for! We found a place to park and called the guest house owner to come up and get us, I was positive no tourist has ever survived this drive alone.

It only took the guest house owner Bob, about ten minutes to come barreling over the crest of this dirt hill like a hillbilly Rasta monster truck driver in a raised pick-up truck. It was the funniest thing I ever saw – you had to have been there to visualize it! He greeted us with the friendliest hello ever!! I think he really gets a kick out of people who are too scared to go in alone but when I heard I wasn’t the only one I felt much better. We piled into Bob’s truck and he gunned it over the dirt hill and down a narrow road into their property and it was like heaven on earth once we got there. What a beautiful spot to kick back!

I hung around for about an hour and chatted, had a drink of water and got a tour of the accommodations here, which are unbelievably inexpensive for such a beautiful location (links to the property at the end of this post). Here are some photos of the inside of the guest house. And another thing I couldn’t believe is that YES they have wireless internet way the hell out here! Perfect!

I wished it was earlier in the day so I could have stayed longer but the ugly truth was that I had to get myself off this mountain and hopefully out of Kingston before dark. I’m not on familiar ground til I get to Spanish Town and the whole drive is about 2.5 hours back. So at 5:30pm I had Bob drive me back up to where I left my car because it starts getting dark at 6:30-ish. I made the guys check under the car when I pulled out just to see if I lost all my fuel from the bottom-scrape at the drop-off earlier LOL. Once they assured me I wasn’t losing any fluids I honked, waved and drove off. I have to admit I felt really alone way up in the top of the mountains, driving solo with nightfall on it’s way. I put on my big girl panties, gripped the wheel and said a prayer for a safe journey home. And yes, the same Jamaicans who saw me wreck the bottom of the car were still there when I drove back out! I considered stopping to have a drink with them and I would have if it wasn’t dusk.

Driving down was nice and peaceful, I put on some reggae tunes and took my time. Every single little town or cluster of Jamaicans I passed on the road looked at me as if I must be lost. And every skinny little dog I saw in the middle of nowhere on the mountain road, I wished I had a muffin I could toss out the window. Like where exactly is a dog going to find food in the middle of a mountain? I pushed on even though there were SO many spots I wanted to stop and take pictures of the view of Kingston from up here and the gorgeous sunset! That’s the one part I hate about being the driver, I can’t take photos. It’s impossible to pull over on those roads.

Once I reached Papine I exhaled a little bit, now all I had to do was get through Kingston without taking a wrong turn. I just kept on driving and hoping to see something familiar, ended up on some narrow road in a place I’d never been before, then in a residential community. Had no clue where I was and it was now dark….I admit I wondered if I was in Tivoli or something. I turned around and headed back, took the right turn and was finally on the right road and dying of hunger. I had my mind set on Pizza Hut once I hit Spanish Town.

I don’t know why driving at night in Jamaica is such a problem for me, could be because EVERYONE drives with extra-high-beams on! I’m basically blind at oncoming traffic. I finally reached Spanish Town though, but made the same mistake I make every single time I enter the place….take the wrong turn at the roundabout. There are two major roundabouts heading into Spanish Town and each of them have about 5 exits. I always undershoot my exit and turn too early and end up in a really bad place but this was the first time I did it alone after dark. I pulled over and texted my friend who lives there and said “where am I?” The text conversation was hilarious – he said “tell me what you see” and I told him what I saw and he said “NOOOO turn around and get out!” I got out and re-did the roundabout (as usual) and got off on the right exit, headed for Angels Plaza and Pizza Hut. I was so tired and hungry that my Spanish Town friend did offer to let me crash at their place and leave out in the morning – I still had 1.5 hours ahead of me in the dark. I considered the offer, but decided to push on after my pizza. Thanks Benny!

Eating anywhere in Spanish Town is interesting because there are zero tourists, especially after dark. The plaza was packed because it was Easter weekend. When I left Pizza Hut and went back out to my car some dude was parked like an inch away from me and they were hanging in the parking lot so I asked him if I was going to hit him when I backed out. They laughed at me a little and we chatted and somehow they assumed I was going to Ochi which was true. Then they looked in the car and asked if I was going alone, to which I answered “Yah me and the glock under my seat!” We all laughed but truly I felt vulnerable knowing that they knew I was on the road at night alone. They were nice guys though and they told me to have a safe journey home and I was on my way.

I reached home at about 9:30pm with a numb butt and tired like crazy, had a night cap and went to bed.

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