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A cool, tropical breeze gently rocks me in my hammock as I overlook Tortuguero Canal, listening to hush of stormy Caribbean in distance. It's overcast and mildly humid in this part of Costa Rica, almost chilly; linen pants and a shirt keep me just warm enough when breeze stirs air. Chirps and squeaks and whistles fill air of lush green jungle all around me. A bottle of Imperial sweats on table next to me, a napkin wrapped around its neck. Tired from day's journey, I lean my head back and close my eyes. I'm asleep in an instant.

Flashback - 7:45 am.

Rude awakening to say least. With traces of Imperial lingering in my mouth, I board small shuttle headed for Tortuga Lodge on northern Caribbean coast and meet half-dozen others already on board: a pair of quiet Swiss girls, an older English couple and an American couple from California. We drive through San Jose in a drizzly morning and before long we are climbing through a misty cloud forest in Turrialba National Park, one of many volcanoes found in Costa Rica. It is exactly as I would imagine it: wispy white clouds shrouding steep green mountainsides. Prehistoric ferns lining small waterfalls cascading off sheer cliffs. The air is warm, a little stiicky, but by no means uncomfortable. The cool tingling rain on my skin keeps it fresh.

We eventually turn off paved road onto a dirt road through jungle which makes me regret last round of tequila last night. Miguel, our guide, intermittently points out various birds and wildlife lurking in trees, a howler monkey, an egret, a caiman. One particular sloth hunkered down against drizzle, it's fur matted and green with moss, is not nearly as excited to see us as we it. We pass through banana plantations and several small towns, villages only in sense that scattered collection of small, faded houses are only signs of civilization in otherwise uninhabited jungle.

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My American Airline flight landed on Port Royal pirate wreckage at Kingston International Airport, Jamaica. Port Royal was once richest and wickedest sin ports in Americas, home for notorious Captain Morgan's "Jolly Roger" and his nefarious 17th Century entrepreneurial fleet, flying flag for fortune and infamy, sold to highest bidder.

Kingston, Caribbean's largest city, is now over a million plus, but back then it offered Black Beard, Morgan. and other souless seafarers perfect port, protected by a spit of land, with Port Royal at tip — where airport now sits. Like Gomorrah, Port Royal was destroyed, but not by fire, but swamped by an underwater earthquake, triggering landslides into sea, creating one of world's most lucrative marine parks. Continually, Spanish doubloons, gold, and bullion are salvaged from site — even today.

DISCOVER THE BLUES

Rising from Kingston foothills uneven Blue Mountains pierce low misty clouds in distance. The 'Blue' range runs virtually entire 145-mile length of Jamaica at varying altitudes, but at 7,200 feet, they are at their most majestic just out of Kingston, and Caribbean's second highest mountains, after Dominican Republic..

After an impromptu airport shower provided by tropical humidity, I learned my bags didn't arrive with flight, so I put myself up at Indies Hotel, a quaint East Indian inn in heart of Kingston financial district. At night, area is home of roving reggae rave parties, and beat of island resonates through hotel garden walls. The next morning my bags are waiting for me in hotel lobby.

EXPLORING JAMAICA

The decrepit train station in Kingston doesn't move any bananas or sugarcane along it's rusted skeleton anymore, but it is only spot in city large enough to accommodate dragon-breathing, polluting buses that patches Jamaica's faltering transportation infrastructure together. Screaming above hubbub, I locate a bus heading in my general direction. I cram in, bags tossed on top, and from a rag tag kid, I buy a plastic bag of "sky-juice," reminiscent of Gator Aid/Kool-aid. I sit back, sucking warm slush through a straw. The driver grinds a couple of teeth off gears, bus lurches forward, setting out in general direction of Captain Bligh's Bloody Breadfruit.

The road into Blues is serpentine, craggy along coast, rising significantly out of Kingston, dropping back on other side for a coast into Morant Bay, famous for a slave revolt so long ago. Near Morant Bay I am ejected out of sweaty ganga bus at a triangular cross roads. I await anything that moves in direction further into Blues. After an hour's wait in sun at shabby, barricaded gas station serving as a bus depot, I decide to take anything, anywhere. Eventually a ride shows up—an ad hoc Jamaican cab driver, who asks in proverbially Jamaican patois, "Hey mon. I de taxi mon; ned a liff, mon? Where to mon? Pay in dollars mon? J's no gud, mon. J's shit, mon."

We agree on a U.S. dollar amount, equivalent to, I don't know how many J's, or Jamaican dollars.

The crumpled car rattles over ancient roads and over 18th Century British Army Corps of Engineer built bridges, through humid banana belt leading into mountains.