WHEN I told people I was going motorbiking off the beaten path in Jamaica, the reaction was unanimous.
If I wasn’t beaten, robbed, shot, macheted to pieces and fed to the alligators, it was because I’d been run down by a rum-soaked road rager first.
But here I am back in New York in one piece. Whappen?
I arrived at Montego Bay and picked up my bike at Kryss Bike Rental (“kryss” is patois for good looking), keen to get out of tourist central, optimistically known as the Hip Strip.
Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn at the first roundabout, finding myself in a busy one-way market street not intended for people off cruise ships looking for Bob Marley CDs.
Nervous about the young men shouting “Hey white mon!” I took a sharp left and found myself even worse off.
Just 30 yards from the main road was a ghetto, where the homes were made of gap-toothed corrugated iron and cinder blocks. Reggae screeched from overdriven speakers and youths stirred in their doorways, calling out to me.
Luckily, my trail bike – a Suzuki 250cc – was light, with great shocks and nice acceleration. One minute later I was at the Shell station buying a map.
Soon I was climbing steep mountain roads overhung with banana trees and bamboo, through villages with names such as Anchovy and Cambridge.
That’s when it hit me just how poor Jamaica is. Children ran barefoot in the dirt and shops were dingy sheds with little stock.
Yet, there were also hundreds of school kids looking immaculate in traditional uniforms.
Likewise, on weekend mornings, you’re likely to see loads of people picking their way through the red soil in their finery, heading for church. (If you include family shrines, Jamaica has the most places of worship per capita in the world.)
I stopped at a health food shack on the road to Southfield run by a Rasta called Tartar Dread. He sold me a mango and ginger juice and played me some bible-infused reggae tunes by Capleton. Time and again I was told that Capleton is Jamaica’s No. 1 recording artist.
Because of well hidden road signs, I got lost a few times before finding Ys Falls, a beautiful stepped waterfall which is less crowded than the better known Dunns River.
For $8, a tractor pulled me on a jitney to a place in the shallows, where I joined a dozen other tourists cooling off.
I arrived at Treasure Beach on the southwest coast just as the sun was setting. Hipster-tourists love this area, not so much for its black sand beach, but for its laid-back atmosphere, open-air bars and plenty of spots to sit around and smoke ganja.
The place to stay is Rick’s ($90 a night): piped reggae, designer rustic décor, good food.
The next morning, I took the Long Bay coastal road and blasted into Kingston.
Through the Jamaica Tourist Board’s Meet the People program, I had arranged to meet a local who knew the music scene.
My host, Tony Laing, a fourth generation Kingstonian, was a brilliant raconteur and historian. I spent the afternoon in the Blue Mountains, cruising to 5,000 feet to take in the cool air, coffee, and amazing view at the Gap Café.
In the evening, Tony took me to an all-night “session” in Kingston, a block party that has been going on every Sunday night for the last 17 years.
About 300 people faced each other across the street, dancing, chatting, drinking and eating. The music blasted from 12-foot-high speaker stacks and was a mixture of ’50s R&B, ska and lovers’ reggae.
A midget lady danced with her bottle of RedStripe and dressed-up lads made grand entrances on sporty motorcycles with their girls riding side-saddle.
On the fourth of my five days I rode north through warm drizzle and the mountains to the resort town of Ocho Rios.
On the way, I stopped at Firefly, the winter home of English playwright Noel Coward. The guide, who must have been about 20 years old, let me photograph all Coward’s pictures and book spines, sort through his record collection and sit at his desk.
Ocho Rios was a letdown, since the all-inclusives do a good job of keeping people at the beach or in their up-market foodcourts.
Next, I headed to Cockpit Country, a remote region, where the limestone has dissolved, leaving hundreds of bowl-shaped valleys.
Cockpit Country has wildly exaggerated lumpy mountains covered in deep green growth, but here the roads run out.
I made my way back to Montego Bay. While I wanted to check out the ghetto again, the tourist in me thought that might be pushing my luck.
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FAST FACTS
* Meet the People program, (888) CONNECT; Kryss Bike Rentals, MoBay, krysstofer@cwjamaica.com; Jamaica Tourism, (212) 856 9727, http://www.Jamaicatravel.com.