Jamaican ‘Xperience’ with a difference

CREATING JOBS TOO

ADOCTOR Bird seeming to greet visitors, as it swiftly flaps its wings and plunges its elongated beak into a fiery-red ginger lily in pursuit of nectar, is all the confirmation one needs to know that he is in for a truly authentic Jamaican treat.

This is Bunkers Hill, Trelawny, located at the entrance to the biodiverse Cockpit Country, which abounds with nature and history, and lingering cultural rituals and practices that date back to the inhabitation of Maroons, led by Captain Cudjoe and the legendary heroine, Nanny, as well as the Tainos.

These fine distinctions have been packaged by Clover and O’Brian Gordon into the Bunkers Hill Cultural Xperience, which is unlike other tourism experiences Jamaica has to offer.

The Eden-like five-acre property,

nourished by the gushing waters of the Tangle River that flows into the Martha Brae, captures some of the fine details of Jamaica’s early inhabitants, giving its visitors the opportunity to live and breathe its heritage.

On the banks of the Tangle, for example, are caves still fresh with

the writings and carvings of the Taino people, who once inhabited it; and if one should hike just a bit farther through the bushes and up the steep cliffs, he would discover another cave which sustained Cudjoe and his men in their efforts to evade the British. However, caution: it’s not a trip

for the faint-hearted.

There is more. Beyond the caves lie the ruins of the Dromilly Great House, and the site where Cudjoe and his men ambushed British troops around 1795.

AUTHENTICALLY JAMAICAN

Everything about the Bunkers Hill Cultural Xperience is authentically Jamaican.

“We prepare authentic Jamaican meals such as run dung and roast yam; roast sweet potato; dukoonoo; rice and peas with coconut milk – grated and the juices drained – cornmeal pudding, all cooked on wood fires,” Clover Gordon, who jointly manages the property with her husband O’Brian, explained, stimulating one’s appetite.

The drinks and meals are served in painted enamel cups and plates, along with the utensils Jamaicans used in the 19th to mid-20th centuries; or on banana leaves; or carefully cleaned calabash shells, as was the practice of the Maroons. These traditions are also kept alive by their descendants in some rural Jamaican communities.

CONTRIBUTED Tour guides tell the story of this magnificent cave which was used by the Maroons, led by Cudjoe, to evade the British.

CONTRIBUTED A child plays on a swing attached to a tree growing from the nourishing waters of the Tangle River, which runs through the five-acre Bunkers Hill property.