My career as a traveler (and travel agent) finally blossomed in 1980’s. The pivotal movement happened at the Kingston airport in April 1980 - I was preparing to leave Jamaica after a 6-week stay when I saw a poster advertising REGGAE SUNSPLASH, Jamaica’s International Music Festival. As a serious reggae enthusiast, upon returning to the San Francisco Bay area in Northern California, I decided to market a special tour package to Jamaica for this “new summer music festival”. It was in 1981, that I escorted my first tour group numbering about 80 participants to Montego Bay, Jamaica for Sunsplash. With this relatively auspicious beginning, I became the leading tour operator (and promoter) in Northern California for Sunsplash over the next 13 years or so. Every year until 1994, I traveled to Jamaica as a tour escort and supervisor for my tour groups – sometimes I would go to Jamaica twice a year. Needless to say, I developed quite a name for myself in the travel industry and in the local reggae scene.

During the Sunsplash era, my travel resume would expand as I flew to other islands in the Caribbean from Jamaica – among the islands I visited were Barbados (5), St. Lucia (2), Trinidad, St. Vincent, St. Maarten, Antigua, Bahamas and Dominican Republic. In addition, I made an exploratory trip in 1984 to Colombia in South America -visiting Bogota, Cartagena and San Andes Island - and I made numerous trips to Mexico – Ixtapa, Cancun, Cabo and more importantly five visits to the beautiful colonial city of Oaxaca and to the hip beach town of Puerto Escondido. Towards the end of 1980’s, I made my first of six trips to Costa Rica. As a traveler, I was really starting to spread my wings.

My moniker at the time was BUS STOP, and that’s the name that everybody knew me by. In September 1982, as a publicity stunt, I ran from Montego Bay to Negril on Jamaica’s North Coast (a distance of approximately 52 miles) over a period of 3 days. Many on the island shook their heads in disbelief, believing this stunt of mine was actually a hoax. But after several people sighted a wiry, bushy-haired white man running along the coastal highway in the late morning tropical heat, word spread like wildfire across this small island about the authenticity of my crazy stunt, a feat that many Jamaicans considered impossible. A legend was born….

Circa February 1980 I had just spent two weeks in Mexico - this was just the first leg of my travel adventure. From Mexico, I flew to JAMAICA in the Caribbean where I would stay for an additional 6 weeks. I know what you’re thinking – that I went to Jamaica to smoke copious amounts of ganja, grow some dreadlocks and listen to reggae 24/7? Totally untrue as I abhorred marijuana and dreadlocks was a phase I went through during my hippie years at UC Berkeley, however I admit to becoming a real reggae enthusiast after seeing the cult movie “The Harder They Come” in 1974. Professionally speaking, my plan was to become familiar with Jamaica so I could effectively market it as a travel destination.

My travel plans hit a minor bump in the road when Mexicana Airlines notified me that they were discontinuing their direct flight from Mexico City to Kingston. As a result, the airlines rerouted me through Miami. Upon getting off the plane in Kingston Airport, I was immediately greeted by the humid tropical heat that Kingston is famous for. Stepping into a waiting taxi, I could hear the strains of Toots and the Maytals famous song “Funky Kingston” in my head as my taxi driver took me to the Mayfair Hotel located in the hills of New Kingston.

During my 6 weeks in Jamaica, I visited the major tourist resorts on the North Coast - Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios and Port Antonio - and also explored the rugged Cockpit Country, staying mostly in small (cheap) guesthouses and in the homes of Jamaican families. I guess you could say that I really sewed my wild oats as a traveler - I had some good times (and some bad times) as I traveled around the island, but overall it was a very rewarding trip.

It was on the final leg of my itinerary that I had one of my most memorable experiences. I had just returned to Kingston - at my guesthouse, I met a young dreadlocks who did some work for the famous reggae superstar, Bob Marley. I had met Mr. Marley for the first time in San Francisco circa 1975, when Bob Marley and the Wailers were on their inaugural concert tour in America. When the bloke told me that Bob Marley was scheduled to arrive the next day in Jamaica from Zimbabwe (Africa), I asked him to hook me up with Bob. So here I was in the backyard of Bob Marley’s rambling estate on Old Hope Road; he had just arrived that morning and was kicking a soccer ball with his buddies. Bob, acknowledging my presence, says to me in a very thick patois “Welcum to mi yard, Rasta. Jah Rastafari, Haile Selassie I!”

Fast forward to the next day - I was at the Kingston airport, getting ready to board my return flight to the USA when I happened to see poster advertising Reggae Sunsplash, Jamaica’s International Music Festival. Little did I know at the time, but Reggae Sunsplash would play a pivotal role in my career as a travel agent (and as a traveler).

Most beach resorts that cater to tourists usually have their fair share of vendors. Basically there are two types of vendors - those that are mobile (they walk up and down the beach) and those that are stationary (they man a concession). Now, I’ve been to a variety of tropical beach resorts - Mexico, Caribbean, Costa Rica and Thailand – and from my experience, the mobile beach vendors can either be very aggressive and annoying or relatively harmless. In particular, the beach vendors in the Caribbean can be quite pushy as many of them will not take no for an answer - Jamaican beach vendors are notoriously persistent. To give you an idea of the variety of services and products that are available at your typical Caribbean resort, in Negril - a popular “hip” beach town on Jamaica’s north coast – the offerings range from water sports, hair braiding, necklaces and jewelry to woodcarvings, sex tonic, marijuana and full body massages. In contrast, the beach vendors in Mexico are for the most part very cordial and do not linger. If you let them know you’re not interested – this could be with just a shaking of the head or a simple no – they simply move on.

I was talking to a client of mine the other day about the new developments taking place in NEGRIL, the hip international resort on Jamaica’s northwest Coast. When she informed me that it only takes about 50 minutes to get to Negril via the new super highway from the international airport in Montego Bay, I couldn’t help but I feel a little bit saddened. I had fond memories of the old highway which was very scenic as it snaked along the north coast passing by many small colorful villages and towns - Hopewell, Sandy Bay, Lucea and Green Island - before it entered the Negril Resort Area. The old highway was very narrow in sections and was often subject to closures due to mudslides and floods or due to the local Rastaman having an impromptu Nyabingi session in the middle of the road. I missed the adventure of the old highway, but for most people it was an arduous 90-minute journey to Negril. The new highway is fast and efficient, shaving some 40 minutes off the transportation time.

I visited Negril for the first time in winter of 1980, staying in an inexpensive guesthouse in the area known as Redground, a hillside community overlooking the famed 7-mile beach. Discovered by the hippies and the flower children of the 1970s, Negril had the reputation where one could hang out and commune with nature, meditate, smoke weed freely while listening to Reggae music and mixing freely with the Rastaman. To me, Negril was about freedom and nature. Roots Natty Bongo I! As Negril became more popular, I saw her gradually mature into the internationally renowned resort destination that she is today. From 1980-1994, many new hotels sprouted up and I observed how the All-Inclusives become a dominant presence on the famed 7 mile beach forcing many smaller operations to abandon shop. In addition, I witnessed the deterioration of the vast wetlands wildlife reserve known as the Great Morass due to the rapid growth of the tourism industry. This growth has also led to the degradation of the coral reef and to the diminishing marine life. Negril was becoming a little too popular for me, and after my last visit in the summer of 1993, I never set foot on her soft white sands again.

With the advent of the new highway, I can imagine the hordes of new tourists flocking to this seaside resort and filling the many rooms of the various all-inclusive resorts that have sprouted up on these shores in the last 20 years or so - Grand Lido, Sandals, Pebbles, Couples, Riu Resorts and the like. Let’s not forget Hedonism 2 (formerly the Negril Beach Village), the first all-inclusive resort in the Negril area, having opened up on the northern end of the 7-mile beach sometime in the late 1970s. The new highway will definitely bring substantially more business to Negril, but it will also hasten the demise of the Negril that I knew and loved.

This is just another example of the phenomenon known as the Kathmandu Syndrome.