Part Six: Cool Runners
In the words of Sanka Coffie ‘I am feeling very Olympic today’. And so was most of Negril. The annual Reggae Marathon and half marathon was taking place and I am sure someone somewhere was kissing a lucky egg.
Why are West Indian people afraid of the water? Why can’t you swim? Aunt A asked one of the hotel staff. Why can’t you white people run eh? He had replied. Two racial assumptions that I have today seen disproved.
The runners were to set off at 5 in the morning, and keen though I was to watch at least a little, I had no alarm and I knew that it would still be dark. When I woke at half six instead of turning my face towards the wall and drifting back to sleep I got up and went down to the road. There was a steady stream of people running in both directions (the course required you to come back on yourself for a number of miles at the end) and the security guard at the gate pointed me towards the finish line. I put on my sunglasses to shade my eyes from the low morning light and walked the last mile to the finish. ‘Bob’s mile’ they call it, and all along the course there is reggae music playing from big boom boxes on the top of parked cars and Bob Marley lyrics painted on boards all down the course: the natural mystic blowing in the wind.
At the 26th mile a live band was playing and coconuts were being handed out to the athletes as they came through. Those who had finished so far were half marathon runners and by some stroke of luck I managed to arrive less than five minutes before the winning male appeared and was greeted by the sound of drums. He was a Jamaican runner called Rupert, and although we may not bolt like Usain, I saw many white people cross the line and the winning lady runner was an American. So proof number one: us white people can run.
The problem with being taken on holiday and being treated is that it becomes very difficult to make demands. But today I had two requests that I was willing to push: firstly I wanted to go to somewhere in the town for lunch; I wanted to try something a bit more local than all-you-can-eat-buffet (even if they do offer jerk chicken and sweet potato), and secondly, and rather less authentically, I wanted to go to Rick’s Café for a late afternoon drink.
The Grand Breezes Negril was fully booked for the night and we were being moved to a different hotel further down towards the town and located on the 7km stretch of public beach. Instead of leaving after lunch, like the concierge suggested, I proposed that we leave before lunch, drop off our bags and head Downtown. A was willing.
The hotel that we have overflowed into, though connected to the Breezes, is quite refreshingly different. My room is smaller and brighter, I don’t miss the jets and the bathtub or the sitting room. There is a small beach bar where you pay for your drinks and there are a few sun loungers dotted by the pool.
We walked part of the way into town along the sea. There were some other small resorts but mostly it was little restaurants and craft shops that lined the beach. I vetoed eating anywhere attached to a hotel so we continued, and we had no local currency for the little café huts and so we continued further, Auntie A always two steps ahead whilst I dithered looking for shells where the waves were breaking and taking pictures of the colourful shacks. We moved back onto the road in the hopes of finding somewhere and finally we reached Negril town without yet finding somewhere (suitable) to eat. A moved to enquire how much a taxi to Rick’s might cost, but I wasn’t ready to go there yet and asked the driver where he would suggest for lunch.
He dropped us off in a little restaurant called Sweet Spice; it was a low wooden building, each plank painted a different colour so that it looked like a pack or crayons. Inside the menu was limited and local and we curried goat and garlic conch with rice and peas.
The taxi man came back to get us (and – I believe – his free meal for bringing us there) and took us down to Rick’s Café. Rick’s is a proper tourist honey pot, and it soon filled out with Americans and Canadians, some of whom I recognised from our hotel, and all of us were there for the same reason: to watch the cliff jumpers and the sunset. The divers move through the crowds hustling for tips and then dive off the rocks into the perfect blue sea from 30ft cliff. I have never seen anyone dive from such a height with such grace and control apart from maybe in the Olympics. Anyone can try (at your own risk) and you can watch the burnt day-trippers flapping their limbs and splashing into the sea. Aunt A said would if she wasn’t worried about her swimsuit coming off, so I took up the challenge on our behalf. I left my clothes and camera by her feet and went up to the platform. Standing on the cliff my heart sped up and my knees felt weak and my tummy flipped right over the edge before my body had, so I flung myself off after it and was under the water before I had even opened my eyes. No one could match the skill of the Jamaican freefalls – they soared through the air and barely rippled the water, so if Caribbean people can’t swim so good then I have seen them fly; proof two.
