Near the end of our recent Caribbean travels, I realized I had left my iPad on the Arajet flight from the Dominican Republic to Jamaica. I never got it back; had to buy a new one. So this morning when we climbed into our Lyft to the airport, the first words out of my mouth, after checking its spot in my backpack were, “I have my iPad.” It wasn’t until we had reached the airport that Steve realized he had forgotten his.
It was 7:25 a.m., an hour and 45 minutes before our scheduled departure for Honolulu. What to do?!? We made a split-second decision to pay the Lyft driver (Moe) cash to drive us back to retrieve it. On the way to the airport, we had chatted up Moe and learned that he grew up in Istanbul. Although he’d lived in San Diego for 24 years, we assumed he would still know a thing or two about hauling ass behind the wheel of a vehicle. Indeed he got us home in under 30 minutes (only running one red light) and back in about the same amount of time (pushing his Corolla up to 75 mph on I5 South).
One thing I learned from this experience is that, IF the gods are smiling, it’s still possible to arrive at the San Diego Airport just 5 minutes before one’s plane is scheduled to board and get to the gate with time enough to buy two cups of Peet’s coffee. (It’s helpful to be traveling only with carry-on luggage and to have TSA Pre-check status.)
Another insight is that if one of us verbally confirms that she or he has their iPad, it would probably be a good idea for the other one to follow suit.
Hopefully we can remember this lesson in the weeks ahead.
Could Steve survive a month-long trip without his iPad? It’s pretty unimaginable.
After losing my iPad, our luck did not improve. In short order, we got caught in a flash flood, fell victim to a wily Jamaican scammer, and discovered we had booked ourselves into the first truly unacceptable lodging of our long home-exchanging lives.
Ironically, if I had not forgotten my iPad in the Arajet seat pocket, we would not have gotten caught in the flood. The sun was still peeking through clouds when we started inspecting our Yaris out in the parking lot. But then I spent at least an hour trying to retrieve the iPad (unsuccessfully) in the terminal, and when we finally got rolling, the sky had turned an evil shade of black. The downpour started almost immediately after I programmed our destination into Google Maps: Ocho Rios, on the northern side of the island.
A good thing about the rain is that it partially distracted me from the mean streets our course took us through. Jamaica is the only country on this trip that the US State Department warns against visiting, and that’s because of the high crime — principally in Kingston. The narrow streets of Spanish Town have been decaying for what looks like centuries. The folks on the street who eyed our shiny touristic faces did not look friendly.
But I wasn’t paying much attention to them. The intensifying rain commanded everyone’s focus. Traffic slowed to a crawl; Google Maps announced a 20-minute slowdown. We assumed someone up ahead had crashed, but later we concluded it was just because the low, ancient byways were filling up with swirling brown water.
That’s a bus next to us, fording the impromptu river.
The thought occurred to me that another panicky driver could simply plow into us. We’d been instructed that if we got involved in any crash, we had to wait for the police to arrive and take a report, otherwise none of our insurance would cover anything. But waiting for a police report here and now was unimaginable.
I pushed that thought away, as the water covered the road. Lightning slashed the near skies, and bone-rocking thunder came a few seconds later. Steve was grimly intent on maintaining control of our vehicle, and long minutes crawled by before we finally made it to the tollway — a wide, well-engineered road leading through beautiful country.
The scammer
We met him the next day when we were driving from Ocho Rios to Negril, site of the home-exchange house we’d arranged to stay in for three nights. Our route took us through Montego Bay, and we wanted to get at least a glimpse of it. We set course for a pork restaurant with great reviews, but when we pulled into its parking lot, the diner looked closed.
A guy in another car in the lot rolled down his window and told us it wouldn’t open until noon. Then he exclaimed, “I know you guys! I saw you in the car-rental lot at the airport!” Steve recognized him in turn. It seemed an almost comically cool coincidence to bump into him on the other side of the island. He suggested another lunch spot with good food and prices, not far away, and when he offered to lead us there we couldn’t refuse.
I’ll condense. “Steve Smith” (as he called himself) drove ahead of us to a mini souvenir mall and then took us to the restaurant deep within it. Then he plopped down at a table beside us and ordered himself a bottle of Guinness. As we ate (decent but hardly inexpensive lunch plates), he regaled us with stories about Jamaica and Montego Bay, then insisted we follow him on foot on a brief walk through the city center.
Scammer Steve and Good Steve
To be honest, both my Steve and I were delighted to have someone lead us on a lightning tour of the heart of the town. But the stroll went on and on, and I finally made it clear we needed to get back on the road. “Steve” didn’t resist, but back at our car, he was adamant about wanting to send us off in the right direction on the main road. He jumped in the back seat, directed us for a block or two, then said we should pay him 18,000 Jamaican dollars for all his help — about $115 US.
This was so clearly ridiculous, we laughed at him. My Steve pulled out a 2000 Jamaican-dollar bill ($12.85). I’m embarrassed to admit I eventually gave Scammer Steve 12,000 (about $77). What galled me most is that this was essentially the very same scam we fell for in Bombay back in 2018!!! (That guy claimed to be a worker at our hotel out on his day off.) I now think $20 and the Guinness would have felt right for Scammer Steve’s “services”. As we drove on, we consoled ourselves that at least were were saving money on our lodging for the next three nights.
The home exchange
Negril is a big resort town on Jamaica’s far western end. Hotels line its famed Seven-Mile Beach, starting at the north end with all-inclusive resorts charging up to $2K US per day then giving way to more middle-income hotels whose clientele become darker-skinned as you approach the center of town.
Our home-exchange place was located beyond that, where the beach disappears and turns into cliffs. I knew it wasn’t on the cliff and that it would be a bit rustic. But its British owner assured me it had great access to a welcoming Jamaican community.
My heart sank when Valerie’s directions took us off the crummy paved main road and onto a jumble of dirt and rocks. Maybe a mile uphill from the “highway,” we turned into “our” even rougher driveway.
That’s Valerie’s place behind the dead car.
On hand to greet us was Valerie’s caretaker, John. Handsome and quiet, John showed us around the spacious two-bedroom house. He went off to buy a 5-gallon jug of drinking water for us, and as soon as he went out the door, Steve and I agreed: we didn’t want to stay there.
I look at that photo and think, gosh, it doesn’t look bad. And seen up close, it WAS immaculate. The AC seemed to work. But it was spartan, furnished minimally and lighted with only a dim fluorescent bulb per room. Hanging out in it would have been grim. More than anything, we couldn’t face the thought of jolting down that hill in search of dinners and returning in the dark, maybe through driving rain.
So when John got back we broke the news that the place was just too rustic for us. Valerie could keep all the Guest Points I had given her, but we wouldn’t be paying the $100 cleaning fee she had asked for. John looked crestfallen. He tried to assure us we would be completely safe, and I told him in complete sincerity that I believed him.
We drove off and within an hour or two we’d found a pleasant room right on the border of Seven-Mile Beach’s racial divide.
Sunset from one of our windows there.
I felt bad about John. I didn’t reflect on this on the spot, but we later speculated that $100 cleaning fee might have fed him and his family for some time. Bad luck for him too, mon.
Steve and I are still alive; still in the Caribbean, but one reason I haven’t posted to the blog is that… I lost my iPad on the Arajet flight Tuesday from Santo Domingo to Kingston! At least as agonizing as not having my iPad is the fact that I had spent several hours writing a detailed report about our 8 days in the Dominican Republic. On the plane, I had copied that into WordPress (my blogging software) and inserted at least 30 photos into it. I hit “Save as a Draft” and WordPress informed me it would do that as soon as I was connected to the Internet again. But because my ipad is STILL sitting in the pocket of seat #30D of that particular 787 Max, it’s still not connected to the Internet.
Worse still, it looks like it never will be! I first got a message from Apple that my iPad was no longer with me when Steve and I were at the Island Car Rentals desk, getting our last set of wheels for the trip. I glanced at the message and silently chuckled. Oh, the dear little phone doesn’t realize the iPad is in its pocket in my backpack, just a few feet away. Then I returned my attention to the car-rental process.
I got another message when we were out in the parking lot, checking out the Yaris. Only then did it occur to me to look in my backpack, at which point full-on panic set in. I left Steve and raced into the terminal, desperately searching for any Arajet employee. I finally found a single harassed young woman, who was disappearing into the bowels of the terminal. To condense a long and tedious sequence of events, she eventually checked and reported that no one had removed the iPad from the plane, and the plane was on its way back to the Dominican Republic.
Arajet has a laggy, slow website that contains no phone number that works to reach an actual human. I tried. By the next morning, I was able to have an extended online chat with a “customer service” representative, who reprimanded me for not taking better care of my “personal belongings.” IF anyone ever removes that iPad from the pocket and turns it in to Arajet, I might be able to recover it by coming in to the airport and showing proper identification. (If I can’t do that: tough luck.)
Most maddening is the fact that my Find My app continues showing me updated images of my iPad at the airport in Santo Domingo!!! It’s there, containing all the work I put into that post. But I probably will never be able to get it back.
Meanwhile, I’m writing this using a portable keyboard connected to my phone. NOT the easiest way to compose. With this rig, I’ll try to report on some of our adventures in Jamaica. They’ve kept the adrenaline flowing, and I’m not talking zip lines.
At home and abroad 