Somewhere in the folds of the Blue Mountains, at the end of a washed-out road in the shadow of mile-high John Crow Peak, mountain-bike guide and purveyor of local lore Collin Scalf offers a bit of advice.
“When you see a guy with a machete, there’s no need to get scared,’’ says Scalf, who hails from Buff Bay, a small coastal town at the mouth of this river valley. “It’s just for the weeds. But if you see a woman you know with a machete, run.’’
Thankfully, all the hardy, machete-toting locals walking this mountainous route in idyllic northside Portland parish are men on their way to work small farms of yams, bananas, sugar cane and Blue Mountain coffee.
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Since this is Jamaica, the mountain-bike ride I’ve arranged through Island Routes is like liming on wheels; beginning at an elevation of 3,000 feet, the seven-mile tour runs almost entirely downhill. Plenty of time to coast on a fat-tire bike and check out the splendid scenery while Scalf describes local flora and fauna. He notes a colorful red dragon flower that hill folk plant to mark property boundaries in lieu of fences; the fruit orchards of grapefruit, tangerines and ackee; and the wild “shame-me-lady,” a type of mimosa known to American gardeners as the “sensitive plant” for a distinctive trait – its leaves retract when touched. Scalf has a tale to tell about this too. Back in Jamaica’s plantation days, he says, owners cultivated the mimosa on the edges of the cane fields; if a slave escaped, the telltale folded-up leaves would mark the runaway’s trail.
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Scalf also has a keen eye for the island’s rich bird life – Jamaica has more endemic species (28) than any other Caribbean country – though he knows them by their local nicknames. But with the help of a finely illustrated guidebook, we’re able to identify a number of these winged characters, including “Auntie Katie” (aka Jamaican oriole), “old woman bird” (Jamaican lizard-cuckoo) and “cling-cling” (Greater Antillean grackle). The catch of the day is a “doctor bird,” Jamaica’s national bird, perched in a flowering tree where we stop for a lunch of spiced chicken. The red-billed streamertail, a type of hummingbird, earned the nickname for its spectacular tail plumes, which were thought to resemble the old-fashioned long-tail coats once worn by physicians.
Before we end the ride with a refreshing swim at the base of Fish Dunn Falls, we roll through a final hill town. Although it’s early afternoon, I’m surprised that the rum shop attached to a small market isn’t serving. Scalf, as always, has the answer: The local church is closed.
“Whenever you see a church, it always means there’s a bar nearby,’’ he says, nodding at the shuttered house of worship across the road. “When the church is open, the bar will be open. Spirit on the inside; spirits on the outside.’’
Frank “Buck” Lumsden sounds his ceremonial abeng horn, casting a haunting cry that reverberates for miles down the verdant Buff Bay River Valley. “The first wireless means of communication,’’ says Lumsden, the 68-year-old colonel, or appointed lifetime leader, of Charles Town, a Maroon community in Portland.
Three hundred years ago, such a disembodied alarm from this cow-horn instrument, the calling card of a band of fugitive Africans, would have instilled dread among British soldiers who fought them for 85 bloody years. The saga of these fiercely independent Maroons, who own their land communally and are governed by a colonel and a council of elders, is one of Jamaica’s most fascinating stories. Yet the relative remoteness of their four surviving settlements means that few tourists know about a culture whose customs, music, medicine and language remain steeped in the traditions of the Ashanti, a West African tribe inhabiting Ghana. Through Jamaica Explorations, I’ve arranged to visit Charles Town, the most accessible Maroon village, less than a two-hour drive east of Ocho Rios.
The road south from Buff Bay is familiar; I’d come through on the way to my mountain-biking trip. Charles Town had seemed just another farming village, yet a quick detour from the main road leads to a small museum and adjacent Asafu yard, a corral-like space where Maroon fighters once prepared for battle.
“The Maroon story is the biggest story in Jamaica,” Lumsden proclaims. “A ragtag group of Africans makes the most powerful nation on earth at that time, the British Empire, sign a peace treaty.” Their exploits began in 1655 when the Spanish, after being defeated by the British, freed their slaves. Many of these Maroons (a corruption of the Spanish word cimarrón, which connoted wild runaways) then fled to the Blue Mountains. With bush lore and guerrilla guile, they held out against constant British attacks for generations. After the rebels annihilated the British at Spanish River, five miles east of Charles Town, the weary empire granted the Maroons independence; that date, June 23, 1739, is celebrated annually in Charles Town as Quao Day, in honor of the Maroon’s military strategist, Capt. Quao.
I get a sense of the captain’s genius during a four-mile hike into the nearby hills. Where the trail, an old carriage road reclaimed by the forest, narrows to negotiate a steep hill, Lumsden explains ambush tactics. The outnumbered and outgunned Maroons would have fired on the British from the heights, he says, then taken cover when British musketeers retaliated.
“Now the British have to reload,” the colonel continues. “And below the path are Maroons waiting with machetes. They will take off your head with one blow.”
An angry Maroon with a machete: That would have been time to get scared.
Our walk is far more pleasant. Lumsden, who graduated from Southern Illinois University and worked as a Chicago investment broker, switches to a thick patois to speak with several farmers we meet along the trail. After an hour, we arrive at the ruins of Orange Vale coffee estate, established in 1782 and abandoned after emancipation in 1847.
“This place couldn’t function without slavery,” says Lumsden. “It’s too huge.”
He hacks at the undergrowth with his machete to clear a path. I’d expected to find the stones of a single foundation, but Lumsden leads me through an atmos-pheric acre-plus complex of two-story buildings complete with an aqueduct and mill house – the tree-strangled remains of an operation that once relied on 400 slaves. After we explore Orange Vale for an hour, Lumsden shows me a perfect swimming hole at nearby White Spring Falls.
“I used to think American tourists were disingenuous,” says Lumsden. “It’s 85 degrees and a breeze is blowing, and they’re going ‘It’s a fantastic day’ and running out into the sun. What’s so great about that? Then I went to Illinois and spent a winter,’’ he adds, smiling.
He dips his abeng into the water and drinks its cool, clear contents. It’s just another day in the heart of Jamaica.
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