Tres Cheap - Page 1

By Charles Kulander

I travel faster than bad news. I comb my hair with a plastic salad fork and use a toothbrush handle to stir my instant coffee, flavoring it with Pepsodent. A money pouch hangs inside my pants, and on my wrist is a Timex with a black vinyl strap-not to tell the time but to tell the world: I'm cheap. Go rob somebody with a Rolex.

I can't afford to get robbed. It takes up too much time, my most precious commodity. The faster I travel, the more money I make. And after ten days of reviewing resorts throughout the Caribbean, I'm back where I started, at my favorite hotel in Jamaica, the Ocean View. Pink water fills the toilet, a tattered Popular Mechanics from 1987 sits on the bureau (compliments of the management), and an air conditioner grumbles loud enough to drown out the jet blast from the nearby airport.

You can tell a lot about a country by its airport. Is it named after a dictator? Do the pay phones actually work? How many crashed planes line the runway? Any sniffer dogs roaming the baggage carousels?

At the Montego Bay airport, the first thing you notice are the Jamaicans themselves, a hands-on kind of people. When I landed here the week before, I sought refuge in the bathroom, which didn't stop a mob of taxi drivers from following me in, tugging at my shirt while I stood at the urinal.

"Can I please pee in private?" I pleaded. Laughing among themselves, they moved back about two inches without loosening their grips on the duffel bag slung over my shoulder.

"I don't need a taxi. I'm walking," I said as I zipped up my pants. I ploughed my way through the taxi drivers, veering for the street while they pushed me in the direction of their taxis. They gave up when I told them where I was going.

"Let the cheap man walk. He go to de Ocean View."