$18 Purple Cabbage And Other Jamaican Novelties
The three day sail across the Caribbean from Curaçao to Jamaica was horrendous. The videos can’t capture the roiling seas and crashing waves that pummeled us the whole way. I was too sick to stand watch or cook. It’s impossible to open the fridge without a second person to catch things before they crashed their contents out onto the floor. Ugh.
And then in the wee hours of the third night we get into the well-protected anchorage of Port Antonio, on the north side of the island. Surrounded by reefs and land on all sides, the water was glass. What a respite! Until customs called on the radio at 8am asking us to come to the dock. I told them politely we had a horrible passage and the captain was sleeping - we’ll be in at 11. While they weren’t too happy, we did eventually get the boat moved to the dock and they warmly welcomed us to their little town.
Two weeks in Port Antonio was plenty for a few adventures. It’s a small town but the streets are very busy and crowded and filled with marijuana smoke. People sell fruit and vegetables every day of the week, with varying degrees of freshness. Goats wander the waterfront park. There’s one pizza restaurant but plenty of jerk chicken outlets. The busiest place in town is the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Our favorite Jamaican (Caribbean) food is festival which is just plain fried dough. The streets are shared with many stray dogs that don’t look too healthy or happy. Port Antonio is a developing town with questionable infrastructure and plenty of people willing to give tours, offer rides, and provide help in any form, including weed, for a fee.
Rosie really wanted to get her hair braided and the marina recommended a wonderful lady who told us what to buy. We brought the hair and she went to work. Four hours later…and Rosie has beautiful, sassy, long pink braids. If anyone says that how we look doesn’t affect how we feel, they’ve never gotten an amazing hairstyle. Rosie’s entire demeanor and posture changed, as she flipped around those braids (for the next month!). She was so excited and happy with it. I also want to make a note about cultural appropriation here. Braids on people that look white can be controversial, and I understand that. Rosie is biracial, though, and so these braids are a part of her heritage whether or not she “looks white”. We do talk about these things with both kids, and we’re excited she can embrace this side of who she is.
Welcome to Paulina! We found Paulina through Workaway, an awesome web platform that connects traveler/workers with temporary homes. In exchange for room, board and cultural experiences, the participants work up to 20 hours per week. While we mostly need help with the kids (or so I thought), Paulina is also a trained chef and food writer, and boy did we eat well having her around. I’m usually very picky about who can use my kitchen, but with Paulina, she helped me with the provisioning and immediately jumped right in to the kitchen. She became Rosie’s best friend and “big sister” within days and we love having her on board.
Before we left Jamaica we had to do one trip to a famous waterfall. We rented minivan from 1970 (which is about as big as a Prius) that smelled strongly of wet dog and set off on mostly unpaved roads. It should be noted that on google maps there is a spot on the road marked “White Man’s Hole” and it is a giant pothole that has been there long enough that it’s earned a spot on google maps and the locals know to avoid it, hence it’s name.
Two hours later we arrived and you can either pay the government and see the waterfalls, or you can pay the locals for a tour where you hike up the river to the falls. Obviously we opted for the locals and it was incredible! The water was the clearest turquoise I’ve ever seen outside the ocean and although chilly at first, we all ended up swimming our way up and down the river. We stopped at the best jerk spot on the way home and had delicious jerk pork and chicken and enough festival to feed a city. It was a perfect end to our time in Jamaica.
So what’s the deal with the purple cabbage? Everywhere we looked the purple cabbage were beautiful. Sailors love cabbage for it’s long shelf life and versatility and if you want a list of all the ways you can use cabbage, I’m happy to provide it. We bought everything else we needed, but everywhere we inquired the price, we were told a head of purple cabbage was $18. Appalled and assuming that was the gringo price, Paulina and I refused to buy it. Finally, Kyle and Russ drove two hours through the mountains each way to Kingston for a massive shopping spree at PriceSmart before we entered the food desert known as the Bahamas. Russ called me from the produce section and I picked out things we needed on facetime. He got to the purple cabbage and I asked the price. $18! How, why, in what world is anyone paying that for a head of cabbage that doesn’t even include the kid? (Message me if you get that reference my dear friends from the 80s).
We left for the Bahamas fully stocked up on everything except…purple cabbage.
