Picture: Geejam
Following a six-hour drive that has taken in roughly half of Jamaica’s rugged coastline (and revealed the majority of the nation’s car-owning population to be boy-racers with a death wish), stepping onto Negril beach is like arriving in paradise. On first impressions, at least. The sea is improbably blue, a cold bottle of Red Stripe will set you back roughly 50p, and even the palm trees shading the dozing American tourists appear to be swaying in time to a soundtrack of Bob Marley classics.
The truth is I’ve wanted to visit Jamaica since, aged 12, I watched Tom Cruise woo Elizabeth Shue beneath the Dunn’s River Falls in Cocktail
But trying to relax on Negril, I am soon to discover, is like trying to get a good night’s sleep in a malarial swamp without a mosquito net. For no sooner have I doused my frazzled nerves with the first Long Island Iced Tea and stretched my car-weary limbs out on my lounger, than every hustler within sniffing distance is trying to sell me something. From Dylan with his paintings (“Jus’ have a look, you don’t have to buy today. I’m here ev’ry day and I know you ladies now”), to Dylan’s young assistant (“I can balance his paintin’ on my tongue, see? I could balance you dere too…”), it is a constant onslaught.
Fruit, CD’s, sunglasses, ganja. It’s the same slow-moving marketplace you find on any tourist beach anywhere in the world (but with more emphasis on the ganja). Having spent the first part of my trip holed up in the Port Antonio area on the island’s north-easterly corner however, thus far it has been easy to forget Jamaica’s reputation as a mecca for the worst kind of commercially exploitative tourism. Located in the foothills of the Blue Mountains (where they happen to cultivate some of the richest, most delicious coffee beans in the world), Port Antonio is an enclave of privacy and faded glamour. And while Negril ticks every box of the Caribbean cliché list in a matter of minutes, Port Antonio managed to confound stereotypes at every turn.
Picture: Geejam
The town itself is built on a small marina, lending it an unexpected air of the French Riviera, while a few minutes’ drive will deliver you to any of the area’s five – virtually empty – beaches. One of them is Frenchman’s Cove, a secluded, sandy bay, ringed with jungle vegetation and arranged around a clapped-out wooden bar. The truth is I’ve wanted to visit Jamaica since, aged 12, I watched Tom Cruise woo Elizabeth Shue beneath the Dunn’s River Falls in Cocktail, and it turns out that this driftwood structure is the very bar where Cruise first impresses Shue with his flaring skills. It obviously hasn’t seen a lick of paint since the scene was filmed here in 1988.
The resort at Frenchman’s Cove, part of the Weston family empire (they also own Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason), meanwhile, was once undoubtedly every inch the chic Caribbean hideaway. Queen Elizabeth herself even visited in the 1970s. These days however, with the grounds un-tended and the hotel and villas seemingly uninhabited (we visited during the first week in January, peak season), it feels, like the rest of Port Antonio, like the Jamaica that time, and the tourist industry, forgot.
This wasn’t always the case. Back in the late 1800s, “Porty” was the boomtown of Jamaica’s early banana trade, and a destination for wealthy American travellers. Then in 1946, bad weather washed the movie star Errol Flynn ashore here in his yacht. Flynn fell in love with the area and subsequently bought the nearby Navy Island (an 18th century British navy base), ushering in an era drenched in Hollywood glamour. To this day, the marina is named after Flynn, while his ex-wife Patrice is still a local resident and a figurehead for Port Antonio’s eccentric, often aristocratic, ex-pat community. There are stories about the British Lord and Lady who are partial to a spot of naked yoga, and about the wild parties thrown by art-world heiress Francesca von Thyssen.
Picture: Geejam
My tour guide is another British (via New York) export, Jon Baker. Proprietor of the Geejam recording studio (which has housed the likes of Gorillaz, Gwen Stefani and Amy Winehouse), Baker added four private cabin accommodations to what is also his family home two years ago, and is developing Geejam as the area’s only modern luxury resort. He’s on a one-man mission to restore the area to its former A-list glory, and in December will open two more properties, Trident Castle and the Trident Hotel, as part of the “Geejam Collection”.
But if Port Antonio was ever popular with the international yacht-set, it’s probably because it’s easiest to get to by boat. Or private plane (Baker keeps a little Cessna at the local Ken Jones airfield). From Kingston it is a good two-hour drive through the steaming rainforest of the Blue Mountains (best taken at a snail’s pace and with liberal use of the horn to navigate the hairpin bends) – while Montego Bay airport, the most popular charter route, is four hours away by car. The morning I arrive at Geejam, Sean Lennon is in the bar waiting for his helicopter out of there (his mother Yoko Ono would love Port Antonio, he’s told Baker, because it’s so secluded). Add in less predictable weather than the big resorts (the proximity of the mountains often making for rain early in the mornings), and it’s unlikely you’ll ever get hordes of tourists here.
I do spot a few backpacker types at Boston – known locally as the home of Jamaica’s infamous spicy jerk seasoning. Chicken, pork belly and home-made sausages roast over a deep fire-pit cut into the side of the road, and are served with baked yams and wrapped up in foil to be eaten on the sand of nearby Long Bay beach. In town however, there is hardly another holidaymaker in sight – just lots of smiling, neatly turned-out school children politely wishing us good afternoon. It’s not until I’ve spent a few hours on the front-line in Negril that I realise we left paradise on the other side of the island.
Ruby Warrington is a London writer based in New York City, and former Features Editor on Sunday Times Style. Follow her on Twitter @The_Numinous