I know half of you are going to shame me for this and the other half of you are going to laugh yourselves silly and say how this is just typical of a day in my life! Despite how badly this whole situation pissed me off I guess it still gave me something funny to write about.
I was desperately looking for a private car rental and put the word out to all my friends on the island. One of my best friends came through for me on the night I arrived and had his friend come over to show me a car I could rent. I’m not stoosh and don’t require much so I thought nothing of the fact that the car he brought totally resembled a taxi. I joked about it and said “maybe I can make some money while I’m on the road”. Then I took it for a test drive just up the road and back in the dark and it seemed to run fine so we cut a deal…..right after I made sure the car had a working audio system. I also confirmed that the car was insured and had no safety issues. He assured me I have nothing to worry about.
The above photo is just to show you the car. If any of you know Jamaica you KNOW this is identical to most taxis there.
Anyway, the morning after the test drive the guy brought the car to where I was staying and we drove to Scotiabank together to take care of the payment for the six days I would have the car. I’m telling you, if my spidey senses would have been awake the first day I would have had my money back and had better luck on foot. After I paid him he walked off and left me with the car. I went into Burger King to have lunch before I was to hit the road to Montego Bay to get my tattoo. After lunch I went back to the car, stuck the key in the ignition and turned. Nothing. Not even a click. I could already feel my temper rising so I immediately called the guy and told him. He hadn’t walked very far yet so he turned back to come see what was wrong. Turns out with this ghetto car you only need to turn the key slightly, not fully….and it starts. He looked at me like I was an idiot but I’ve never seen a car that starts with a slight key turn.
I drove off and hadn’t even left Ocho Rios before the next incident arose. I meant to take pictures of everything about this car but by the end of six days I was so disgusted I couldn’t even pull out my camera. This car ruined every aspect of my trip. Anyway, you know those compartments in the console where you can stash your phone or cigarettes? I tossed my Blackberry in the compartment and drove. It wasn’t until my phone rang that I realized my phone wasn’t even there! I thought I lost my marbles and was sure I put it in the compartment but I pulled over and checked my bag, the floor, between my legs, anywhere a phone might be. That’s when I decided to stick my hand inside the compartment and realized there was no end to it. The damn thing was one big hole that led straight to underneath the hood of the car! And that’s where my phone was. The worst part was that I couldn’t even call anyone for help – I had no phone.
There I sat in the parking lot of the Ochi Jerk Center, helpless. I asked a random guy if he could dial my number so I could possibly hear where the phone might be. We dialed and listened and sure enough it was in there and we had no way to get it out without removing the entire front console in the car. At that point an employee of the Jerk Center came out in his full work attire, got down on his hands and knees under the steering column of my car and started unscrewing things to remove the console. After the entire panel was removed we were able to recover my phone and the employee wouldn’t take any reward besides a thank-you. Bless him!
I’m on the road again and about half way between Ochi and Montego Bay I noticed the temperature needle in the car was almost beyond the critical point! It’s a good thing I glanced at the dash because I never watch things like that! I immediately pulled over and again, my temper level was almost over the edge because now I was single white female stranded on the highway with a laptop and Blackberry in the car and nothing around! Normally there’s a bar every 20 feet on the road but of course Murphy’s law dictates there shall be no bar when you need it. So there I sat, waiting for the engine to cool and it’s 183 degrees outside in August. I called the guy who owns the car and no answer. So I called the friend who recommended the guy and told him what happened and proceeded to say “you better tell your friend I’m bringing this car back for a full refund tomorrow because I’m now stuck on the roadside unable to help myself”.
Eventually the guy who owns the car called me back and said it’s a glitch with the needle and the car isn’t really overheated. The needle just goes up and down like that on it’s own and assured me it was okay to drive so I drove. For the entire rest of the way to Montego Bay I watched the needle like a hawk and it seemed to just go up and down whenever it wanted so maybe he was right.
But ALMOST into Montego Bay I’m the front car in a long line of traffic stopped at a red light when the car just completely gives up. Dead.
Immediately the tirade of horns honking behind me starts and people are leaning out their windows yelling at me to go! I put my flashers on and stuck my head out the window to the taxi behind me and told him it’s dead and I can’t go. Well, the awesome guy left his taxi full of passengers to come help me. Bless him too. He opened the hood and we determined that the car just overheated and quit. So him and another motorist pushed my car off the highway across two busy lanes of traffic and into the garrison community of Flankers. But now they had to leave so there I was stuck in Flankers with a dead car.
Praise God there was a fruit stand right where they pushed me to and several Jamaicans hanging out there. One thing I love about them is that they hate to see a foreigner struggle and they immediately come to my aid. One brought a container of water to fill the radiator with and the other stayed and made sure I was alright until the friends I was going to meet showed up to get me. The fruit stand guy even made a little kid run up the road 10 minutes to buy me a Cranberry Wata LOL. I paid the kid $100 jmd when he came back, what a sweetheart.
My friend finally arrived by taxi from downtown Mobay to come get me. It seemed by the time he arrived the car had cooled down and was driveable again so we were off into Mobay. I made him drive because at this point I was completely frustrated and afraid of this car, and ready to chop somebody. It was at that point I decided I would spend the night in Montego Bay because I sure as hell wasn’t driving this car back alone in the dark.
Fast forward, I’m now back in Ochi the next day and believe me I was all up in the rental dude’s grill as soon as I reached! He agreed to meet me in Faukland to discuss this car issue. So there I stood in the middle of the street with this guy demanding my money back, only he said he spent it all on paying the insurance for the car. Okay so you know those mercury thermometers that you can watch the red rising? That was my blood at that moment. I was fuming. I unleashed on this dude enough so that everyone in the vicinity stood there in awe! Some had smirks combined with shock on their faces while others pretended not to notice. One of my friends who walked by said with a grin on his face “only a true gangsta would roll in that car!”
The only thing I could get him to agree to was to take the car now, have it fixed and bring it back to me in a couple hours. I hated this agreement because now I was so afraid of this car that I knew I wouldn’t do ANY of the things I had set out to do on this trip. I didn’t want to ever see the car again.
My whole trip was pretty much a bust and I’m still angry that I couldn’t go anywhere, out of sheer fear.
On my last day in Jamaica I left the car sitting in a parking lot with the keys inside, doors unlocked and an empty gas tank. I didn’t call him to tell him where it was until I was half way to the airport. Told him where to find it and wished him luck with it still being there.
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