Location: Montego Bay, Jamaica
Jamaica, mon.
I was barely in the country. Maybe 36+ hours in total. Around half of them spent sleeping. While awake, I simply hit the beach, ate some jerk chicken, and indulged in a few other Jamaican vices.
Got to meet up with my good buddy Dylan too, which was a damn good time.
Outside of all that, nothing about Jamaica really stood out to me. It’s touristy. The beaches are pretty. The music is cool. Lots of exotic tings’ always available if you’d like to indulge.
But, if I’m being honest…
The raw adventure of that place was simply intoxicating and kept you on your toes, whereas Jamaica was overrun with tourists and commercialized.
Oh, and Jamaicans seemed to talk mad sh*t.
See, what had happened was…
Dylan and I decided to check out a local spot. We wanted to see some tings’ around the island. So our host showed us how to take a local group taxi vans to the place.
Cool.
We flag one down and hop in.
Two pasty fookin’ gringos and a gaggle of non-pasty Jamaicans.
The driver immediately starts moving his mouth a mile a minute now that there’s some gringos in the car. Telling us about Jamaica dis’ and dat’ — all while talking mess the whole time.
It took me a minute to pick up that the dude was full of sh*t.
Then a few people in the back started laughing when he made a joke about Bob Marley and gringos.
Ohhh…
That’s how it is.
Once it clicked that he was just screwing with the gringos, I had to give him some sh*t back. He started jabbering on about Jamaican sprinters and Usain Bolt.
He keeps running his mouth, “Ya know Usain Bolt don’t ya, mon?”
Me: “Who?”
Him: “Usain Bolt.”
Me: “No, never heard of him.”
He goes off on a tangent explaining who he is.
Me: “Nope. Never heard of him. He’s not famous in the USA.”
He goes on another tangent about being the world’s fastest man and Olympic champion. Blah, blah, blah.
Me: “Yeah, but no one really cares about the Olympics, mon.”
I throw some sauce at the end of the words so he knows I’m just giving him mess for the past minute or so. The people in the back start roaring, as they realized I was just messing with the loudmouth taxi driver the whole time.
But someone talking mess back with him just eggs things on more. He keeps jabbering on and on about Jamaican culture, talking faster and faster to ensure no one can interrupt him.
After about two minutes, he says something like:
“Mon, in Jamaica, everything is slower. We walk slow. We talk slow…”
I burst out laughing.
Me: “WHAT?!” Jamaicans talk slow?”
Him: “Ya, mon.”
Me: “But your mouth been moving a mile a minute since I got into this taxi.”
He laughs and mutters something I couldn’t make out under his breath. Mostly likely telling me to kick rocks. A few seconds later, he drops Dylan and I off at the restaurant.
Pretty funny dude and his blabbering made for an entertaining taxi ride.
Overall…
Jamaica was fine, but I won’t be going back anytime soon.
Until next time