Good bye Dominicana and hello Jamaica! After my farewell to Dominicana I transferred to Jamaica. Everything was in my style :)

It started from the fact that I realized that I was confused with my departure time from Santo :) I thought it was at 9:45 but it actually was at 9:10. Well, here’s the story. I woke up and waited for my cab without any rush… I had a nice small talk with driver during my ride. He was very impressed by my route for the upcoming 6 months and gave his respect to me :) In the end, he wished me good luck and I went to the registration for my flight. The line was huge. I joined it in the very end. At that time I realized that I was wrong with my departure time. After that I also realized that the line is moving too slow. So I continued to wait. While I was standing there some thoughts about mistakes during booking process came to my mind. Slowly I got the registration station. It actually was 30 minutes till my flight. 2 registration outlets got closed right before me. So I used the one that had still been working. They started to register me and the muchacho asked: “Do you have a Jamaican visa”? I told him something like “no, but they give it in their airport” blah-blah-blah. So he started to dial someone and ask something about visa. I interrupted that procedure by insisting on giving me a boarding pass and telling that I don’t need any visa at all. He asked me if I was sure on that and I positively responded him without any doubt…Actually, I was totally in doubt:)

Here I am: running to imigracion and doing paperwork at the same time. When I got there, they started to ask me about my return ticket and so on. I told them that the only thing I cared about was the flight in 15 minutes! Her next words were “Hm, no. Go there and talk to the management”. OK, I’m in the office saying “come on! Hurry up!” In response they told me something like I shouldn’t spend much time on beaches and come to the airport earlier :). Then they start to ask my return ticket again. After my attempts to understand what they actually wanted from me they finally brought English language interpreter. Well, her English was even worse than my Spanish :). Observing the situation of my airplane almost to take off I made anguished face :) and kept on: “Senora! Por favor! My Flight! I don’t have money for new ticket! Senora! My flight in 15 minutes! No money!!! Senora! Por favor!” She was in decision making process for a while and after that she wrote something and told me to go to imigracion. I guess she decided get rid of problems with me and transfer them to the people in Kingston :).

After she gave a stamp in my passport, senora told me: “turn right now, and run as fast as a hell”. I should notice that I actually don’t know the Spanish version of “run as fast as a hell”. However, I bet she said exactly these words :))). When I run to my puerta...again! They don't want to allow me to get into the plane because of the visa! I persuade them and finally got to the plane. After I took my seat I reviewed all the things happened to me recently and started to make my guesses and expectations of possible problems in Kingston…

When I arrived to Panama, I calmed down. By the way, while I was waiting for my flight I heard the announcements on departures on the places that I’ve never heard about or read only from Jules Vern :) Maracaibo, Monte Video, Cuzco, Bogota… and all of them were so close to me…

Okay, I’m in Kingston. The first thing made me uncomfortable was the fact that despite me and a bunch of Latinos from my flight there were only black people :) And there sooo many of them… it felt like the whole Africa was there…
So I’m in a kilometer length line. A lady from airport staff approaches me and gives me a note saying: “if you feel bad, don’t forget to tell the doctor that you left the country”. Hmm… Okay, I waited through the whole line to meet the officer. He was smiling in the beginning but he stopped to do that after he took a look at my passport.

And here the story continues: “where’re your return tickets? Where’s your hotel reservation?” I tell her that my next stop is Cubana at Habana. Then she asks me to show it, but I actually don’t have it :). After some seconds of thinking she took my passport and directed me to buy return tickets at the office of Air Jamaica. I left her and faced a huge crowd of people and all that made me real sad…
After some time spent in the crowd with black people I came to the thought: “Stop! I’m not just a regular tourist but a very important person :)”! (before my journey I made a bunch of certificates and references saying that I was a photographer on a mission:)) and that I made lots of money:) So I just took these papers from my bag and showed her. It seems that my salary amount and the stamp impressed here :))) so she directed me to a place where I had to pay $20 and get my visa.

I finally received my visa, but my mood was gone...

So, I left the terminal and I saw the things I didn’t expect! I saw green mountains on the horizon!!! And a RAINBOW above them!!!

I forgot about all the troubles happened to me before and just took a cab to have a ride towards the rainbow with lovely rhythms of reggae…