True Stories: Ripped off in Montego Bay (Part Two)

If you want to learn about True Stories, it’s tag and what it represents, then please see my previous post.

What you are about to read is a True Story, and everything has been kept intact with what my memory holds.

Other articles in this series:
True Stories: Ripped off in Montego Bay (Part One)

July 1998

At this point, the internal alarm bells started ringing. The door was not locked but I was not going to jump out of a moving car even at 20mph.

…’this had all been planned. Mr Driver had been waiting for me or anyone else gullible enough to fall under White Teeth’s spell’…

I was dressed in typical tourist garb; that is shorts, a shirt, and trainers. It would have hurt to jump and the bells were not ringing quite loud enough for drastic measures.., just yet.

Trying to keep calm I asked the driver about White Smiling Teeth and why he was not accommodating us to, ‘his Ganja farm?’

‘He will catch up with us later mon', was the answer. I was not convinced and queried about where we were going next.

‘There’s a hotel on the top of his hill mon’, he stated cheerfully. If he sensed I was tense then he was trying his best to calm me down and make out that everything was OK.

...'Was this the song playing on his radio? Probably not; no reggae and it is.. well a bit crap'...

‘We need to pick up some more of you dudes and then we will be leaving’. He continued in a thick Jamaican accent.

He then started singing along to some song on the local radio as if all this was quite normal.

True to his word, we pulled up to a large hotel and went into the lobby. I had calmed down a little by then but had made a conscious decision that I was not going any further and would pull out of this Ganja farm trip.

Maybe it was genuine but where were all these, ‘other dudes’ who were supposed to be accommodating me inland?

On the wall of the hotel was a photograph of a land strewn with devastation. I enquired where the photograph was taken and was given a prompt reply.

Source

‘It’s here mon, we get these hurricanes which wreck our lives all the time, this one was some years ago’

At that point, I decided I would ask the ‘driver'..., no not ask, tell him I was backing out and had changed my mind about the ‘trip'.

The spell woven by White Smiling Teeth had run its course and though I didn't feel threatened, my guts told me something was very wrong and that if I went ahead things would take a serious turn for the worse.

‘I have changed my mind’, I said to the driver flatly. ‘Can you take me back down to Montego Bay?’

He looked at me strangely, but his retort surprised me.

‘OK mon, but why did you say you where gonna come?’

Source

I was expecting more resistance and had prepared myself to do a runner if things went bad but this?

…’Jamaica does have a reputation for crime, but his initial reaction was that of disappointment rather than anger, and I saw no intent of kidnapping’…

I got back in the car and then things started to sour.

He didn’t just take me back to Montego Bay but insisted on driving me east of the town directly to my hotel. His behaviour I could liken to a mongoose getting angrier by the minute.

First I learned about how hard life was in Montego Bay and that his entire earnings were made by trips to the ‘Ganja Farm’ and that I had denied him his daily salary.

Source

Next, I was to learn that he had 7 kids and they would all starve today because of this terrible act of ‘changing my mind' at the last minute.

I said very little besides the occasional nod of the head and ‘yeah’ in agreement to my crimes against him and his family.

…’being a ‘Yes Man’ can sometimes work in your favour, like when you are being semi-threatened and the car you are in is not yours’…

Then he was complaining about the car I was sitting in, that I was extremely fortunate to be riding in it and that it needed servicing. Once again I was to blame for him having no money.

We arrived outside the hotel and before I knew it, the doors had been locked.

‘You need to give me your money if you want to get out’, he growled, an element of menace in his tone. The earlier cheerfulness was gone and I knew I was in trouble.

Looking around the car, I noticed a large knife in very easy reach.., for him, not me!

Source

Gulping I said, ‘this is all I have’, and pulled the remains of what money I had left and handed it to him.

He took the money, looked distinctly unhappy and continued muttering about how life had been so unfair to him, that all his kids were hungry and that it was my fault that he was unable to keep his dick inside his pants.

…’if I didn’t act now, the door would remain locked, and I was going to end up as worm food in a Jamaican swamp somewhere’…

Thinking quickly I said, ‘Hey I'm sorry about your situation, car and your family. Let me go inside and I’ll get you something to make up for it’.

Trying to keep calm, I sent him my best genuine sincere smile I could conjure up to accommodate the line.

His frown lessened a little and I saw the brain cogs had started working. After a few seconds, he opened the door without saying a thing.

I scrambled out and made for the entrance but not too quickly as to arouse his suspicions.

Source

Once inside, I alerted the hotel reception and next minute a security dude armed with a handgun was racing outside to confront the driver.

…’but the driver was gone…, in a whirlwind of dust’…

The guard was asking me, ‘was that him?’. It was as if they knew about this scam and running after waiting cars was pure routine.

It was over, and my naivety had lost me just $20. Ripped off yes, but not too badly.

Epilogue

For the rest of the short trip, I avoided Montego Bay and hung around the hotel with the occasional trip to McDonald's to see if it was, ‘any different to the UK version’. It wasn’t.

Had the driver really expected me to return to his car and donate a load of cash to him? Naivety works in reverse at times!

I did feel some sympathy, but ripping tourists off is not cool and is going to further amplify the reputation of the island as ‘crime-ridden'.

Source

Is USD $20 a lot of money for someone poor in Jamaica? How about in 1998?

What would have happened if I had gone through with the Ganja Farm trip? Would I have been seen alive again, or was it a genuine ‘illegal’ venture?

How much would they have demanded for a ‘full trip’ with drugs included?

Any comments from people in the Reggae #JAHM community who live on the island, have lived there or know about such scams would be very welcome.

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