C A R I BBE A N L I F E

[ The personalities, lore and ecology of the region, revealed ]

lay of the land

Eons of erosion have
fashioned Cockpit
Country’s remarkable
egg-carton-like terrain.

Robert S. Patton/National Geographic/Getty Images

fi e l d t r i p j a m aica

The Hills Are Alive

Exploring the secrets of Cockpit Country — above the ground and below it.
By Alex Padalka

S
tefan Stewart appears
remarkably calm right now,
especially considering we’re
about to drop into a 15-foot-
wide and God-knows-how-deep hole in
the ground, a cave forbiddingly known
as the Devil’s Staircase. Martel “Malibu”
Taylor has lit a small fire to help ward
off a growing influx of mosquitoes,
and I’m peering downward into the
void. Sheer limestone walls recede into
inky darkness. And the bottom? What
bottom? This cave, in a remote section
of northwestern Jamaica called Cockpit
Country, hasn’t seen a visitor in almost
three decades. We spent the better part
of a full day bushwhacking our way
here, and if anything goes wrong, we’re
on our own. There is no cell phone
reception, and the chance that anyone
will stroll by this spot in the jungle
anytime soon is slim at best. Stewart, a
lanky, 56-year-old Ontarian who seems
to derive nourishment solely from
canned sardines, Canadian cigarettes
and the occasional Red Stripe, directs
me to tie a rope around a tree for my
descent. I check the knot for the sixth
time as he hands me a radio. “I’ll be
communicating back to you,” he says.
I quickly consider the consequences
of that radio going silent — and just as
quickly dismiss the thought.
From the air, this 500-square-mile
area — not far from Montego Bay and
Ocho Rios — looks like a huge green
egg carton, with steep, conical towers
of limestone, some taller than 300 feet,
and below, a maze of ravines and deep,

36 Caribbean Travel + Life  o ct o b e r 2009

C A R I BBE A N L I F E I fi e l d t r i p
bowl-like depressions full of hidden
caverns and sinkholes. The term
Cockpit Country comes from these
cavities, which supposedly resemble
the arenas, called cockpits, once used
for cockfighting. It’s a topography
formed by hundreds of thousands of
years of erosion, and that process has
made it a treacherous place to explore:
As seeping rainwater eats away at the
ceilings of underground chambers,
seemingly solid ground is often just
a fraction of an inch thick, ready to
collapse under a hapless step.
Geologists estimate that there are
thousands of caves like the Devil’s
Staircase on Jamaica, most of them still
undiscovered. Stewart, who first came
to the island in 1987, has explored
more than 250 of them, some 50 of
which were first-recorded descents —
including one that led to the discovery
of the 636-foot-deep Smokey Hole
38 Caribbean Travel + Life  o ct o b e r
Place names such
as Me No Sen You
No Come and the
Land of Look Behind
give clues to Cockpit
Country’s mysterious,
rebellious past.
Cave, the deepest hole found on the is-
land so far. “It’s hard to be an explorer
these days, so it’s nice to be able to ex-
plore something that no one has been
to before,” he says. “But there’s also
the discovery and exploration of the
flora and fauna and what the water is
doing, rather than just being the first
person to travel through it and have a
look at it. It’s also discovering what’s
living in the caves.”
What Lies beneath
The region’s rugged
landscape may hide
thousands of caves.
Opposite, from
above: Mangoes by
the bushel; Cockpit
Country still moves
by donkey power.
Right now, Stewart’s on week three
of an expedition that has him slashing
through shrubbery, plunging into caves,
swimming through underground rivers
and frequently crawling through bat
guano — or “rat bat dung” in Jamaican
patois. He is typically seen cutlass by
his side, shoulders stooped, eyes open
dangerously wide, doing everything but
pricking his ears to listen to the sound
of the bush while plotting GPS way-
points into his Garmin handheld. In
1992, with financial support from the
U.S. Nature Conservancy, he founded
the Jamaica Caves Organization, a
team of local and foreign volunteers
who study the island’s caves and work
to protect them from a host of threats,
notably by lobbying hard against the
William Richards
commercial strip mining of an alumi-
num ore called bauxite. The JCO aims
to educate locals too, who often pose
an unwitting menace to the caves,
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unaware of the connection between a
hole in the ground used as a garbage
receptacle and the drinking water that
comes out downhill, or of the devasta-
tion wreaked on a cave’s ecosystem by
collecting guano, which is used as a
fertilizer. “We are the only guardians of
Jamaica’s caves,” says Stewart.
Stefan Stewart is famous and
well liked in these parts. Everyone we
meet in the nearby towns of Windsor
and Sherwood, and as far southwest as
Accompong, greets him by name. But
Cockpit Country wasn’t always quite
so hospitable to strangers. Place names
such as Me No Sen You No Come and
the Land of Look Behind give clues
to its mysterious, rebellious past. It’s
a history tied to the only people able
to defy the British incursion into the
region, and one for whom Cockpit
Country’s daunting terrain proved a
boon: the Maroons.
Slaves released by Spanish settlers
fleeing the British occupation of the
island in 1655, the Maroons gave the
invaders some stiff opposition. They’d
been trained for fighting by the retreat-
ing Spanish and brought to the conflict
a few guerrilla tactics as well, includ-
ing head-to-toe camouflage and coded,
long-distance communication using the
abeng, a bugle made from cow horn.
In 1690, the Maroon leader Cudjoe
initiated a long but ultimately success-
ful resistance, and in 1739 the British
signed a peace treaty granting the
Maroons 1,500 acres of land and au-
tonomy from the colonial government.
Cudjoe became leader of the Trelawny
Maroons, and his brothers took over
other Maroon settlements, including
the present-day center of
Maroon culture, Accom-
pong. There, thousands
of Maroons gather each
year on Cudjoe’s birthday,
January 6, to celebrate their
freedom. “We were free a
hundred years before eman-
cipation,” says Maroon
leader Sydney Peddie.
The Maroons of
Accompong remain self-
ruling and self-sustaining,
happily independent of
government meddling.
C A R I BBE A N T R A V E L M A G . c o m
Cockpit Country is
divided into Maroon land
and a forest reserve —
although many Maroons
consider the reserve to
be their territory too.
Accompong’s 700 or so
residents pay no taxes or
fees on the land, which
passes on within fami-
lies and can’t be sold to
foreigners. There is no
police force; Babylon, as
the police and outside
government are called here, must be
invited, just as — in accordance with
Cudjoe’s treaty — the British colonial
government interfered only in crimes
that carried a capital punishment.
These days, wary of the outside
world and fiercely protective of their
land, the Maroons are particularly
careful about the types of tourism and
commercial activity they allow. “Our
land carries value from generation
after generation,” says Melville Currie,
Peddie’s right-hand man. “We will not
sacrifice the future of our children. Our
lands have no price.”
To that end, the town’s elders have
continued to oppose bauxite mining
(despite large monetary offers) and
embraced a community-based, cultur-
ally sensitive brand of tourism. Tour
guides are local farmers, and hotel
and restaurant proprietors are mostly
Jamaicans; the money you spend in the
Maroon community stays right there.
For a day-tripper, there’s plenty of
opportunity for self-guided discovery
in and around the towns of Jamaica’s
Cockpit Country. The traffic-free roads
 Caribbean Travel + Life
near Windsor, Dromilly, Quick Step
and Accompong are ideal for miles of
leisurely touring. Diving into the bush
is a different matter, however: You
absolutely must have a local guide with
you. With no water sources beyond the
occasional puddle, plenty of sinkholes,
no discernible landmark features and
no forest ranger service to speak of,
Cockpit Country can be treacherous to
wander on your own.
And yet, despite the dangers of
falling into a sinkhole or getting lost in
the wilderness, Cockpit Country is a
surprisingly benign — even bountiful
— jungle. There isn’t one venomous
insect or snake species; the cave-
dwelling bats effectively control the
mosquito population; and the red-
backed ticks don’t carry Lyme disease
(though, unfortunately, they do tend to
steer for the groin). There’s no shortage
of tasty things to eat either, includ-
ing native yams, oranges, bananas,
coconuts, and Jamaican apples and
sugar cane, and June brings the mango
season, with as many as 25 different
varieties yours for the picking, often
growing at arm’s reach right along the
trails. And what you don’t find growing
wild you can purchase at
farm stands along any road-
way: pineapple, plantains,
breadfruit, a potato-like root
called dasheen, cassava,
callaloo, bok choy, Scotch
bonnet peppers and the
perfectly named — and very
rare — custard apple.
Guides such as Taylor
— a founding member of
the JCO, who charges $20
and up for hikes along the
10-mile-long Troy-Windsor
and Quick Step-Windsor
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C A R I BBE A N L I F E I fi e l d t r i p
‘Country’ Charm
No Cockpit Country
trek is complete without
a stop in Coxheath to
chat with Miss Lilly Bolt.
trails — have an encyclopedic knowl-
edge of the land and its living things,
pointing out water sources and swim-
ming spots, identifying edible fruits,
describing the medicinal properties of
roots and herbs, and sharing insights
into the habits of birds (27 of 28
endemic species are found in Cockpit
Country). Most guides are also well
versed in Maroon history, although
be prepared to hear different accounts
depending on your location.
When you’re ready to do a little
exploring below Cockpit Country’s
verdant surface, the Jamaica Caves Or-
ganization offers serious cave tours for
about $150 per person, with all funds
going to support cave preservation and
replace costly equipment. It’s money
well spent, helping to ensure not just
the JCO’s survival, but your own. Ven-
turing into these caves — holes deep
enough to require ropes and harnesses
and headlamps — is not for the faint of
heart, and definitely not a feat attempt-
ed without direction from an expert.
The Jamaican police actually bring in
Stewart and the JCO to assist in hauling
up the bodies of the hapless.
That’s a tough image to shake
right now, standing at the gaping
mouth of the Devil’s Staircase, gath-
ering my nerve to descend into the
darkness. “It’s a three-dimensional
40 Caribbean Travel + Life  o ct o b e r
“Our land carries
value generation after
generation,” says a
Maroon elder. “We will
not sacrifice the future
of our children. Our
lands have no price.”
environment,” says Stewart, giving me
a quick spelunking primer. “Rather
than walking on a horizontal surface,
there’s uphill and downhill in caves:
You go along a bit; you’re winding
down; there’s spirallike passages; you
get to do all this three-dimensional
mapping and mind where you are. It’s
a very unique thing compared with the
outside world.” And with that, I strap
into a harness, turn on the headlamp
on my helmet, and head into the hole.
About 30 feet below the surface,
I accidentally bang against a large
stalactite. It responds with a metallic
ring. I tap a smaller stalactite next to it,
and the pitch is slightly higher. Cave
music. Dropping below an overhang-
ing section of stone, I lose the wall and
continue downward, slowly twirling in
midair as the sun-filled hole above me
gets smaller and smaller. I seem to be
the only living thing here. There are no
bats, no insects, nothing — until I hear
mild chirping of a small frog. I wonder
how he plans to get out of here.
At last, about 150 feet down, I plant
my feet on the cave’s floor. There’s an
opening to a deeper chamber nearby,
and next to it a smaller crawl hole that
leads, well, somewhere; I peer in but
can’t see the bottom. Everywhere I
turn my lamp, falling dust clouds my
view. It covers me and my gear with a
layer of red grime and shuts down my
camera after only a couple of shots. It’s
hot down here, and I am utterly alone.
And aside from my amphibian buddy’s
croaking, it is completely quiet. From
above, the distant voices of Taylor and
Stewart blend in with the chirping of
birds. I pause my breathing for a few
seconds to savor the silence — and the
solitude. Then I get back on my rope
and begin the long climb to the sur-
face. As I ascend the Devil’s Staircase
toward the light, I can’t help but feel
the thrill of discovery.
Later, bragging about my explo-
rations to the proprietor of Miss Lilly’s,
a B&B and bar in nearby Coxheath,
Lilly Bolt asks me if I’d come upon the
place “where the butterflies are.”
“No,” I said. “How do you get there?”
“It’s a hidden secret,” she replied,
then smiled at me and shared a silent
but meaningful exchange with another
bar patron. Rather than feeling disap-
pointed by her enigmatic response, I
felt somehow heartened. The Cockpit
Country and its people had welcomed
me with unwavering warmth, but
there were a few things they weren’t
eager to share with an outsider. And
that seemed OK with me, because
some secrets, like where the butterflies
are, are best left untold.
For more information on backcountry
hikes and cave tours in Cockpit Country,
contact the Jamaica Caves Organization
(jamaicancaves.org). When in Cockpit
Country, make a point of stopping by
Miss Lilly’s Bar and Shop in Coxheath
(876-788-1022); Lilly knows everyone —
including the world’s fastest man, Usain
William Richards
Bolt, her nephew, who’s prone to stop by
for a hug. She offers rooms with showers
too, breakfast included, for $30 a night,
and does dinners by advance request.
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