Taxi ride in Jamaica

My first taxi ride in Jamaica was like Mario Cart on Ganja. First off, there are no stripes on the road, nor any stop signs for the most part. If you come across a stop sign, you just beep to let people know you are coming and just keep going. Traveling on the shoulder — fine. Having cars head at you full on — no worries mon. Also, the cars are on the other side of the road. This has weirded me out every time. Still getting used to it. Seatbelts? Fuck seatbelts. To get a taxi, you stand on the side of the road and the taxi comes by and beeps at you and you put your hand up if you want a ride. I asked the driver what the fare was, he said, get in baby, we don’t talk about the fare in Jamaica. So I got in. My first ride was me, 2 ladies and a young adult guy. At first I was in the back. Then at different stops along the road, each person got out. Also, these are not “stops” they are just any old place, like in front of your crumbled house. We went through Norwood which can be a nice mansion looking house, next to a crumbled house, next to a ghetto mansion. Ghetto isn’t the right word, but yet it also is. So you are just heading down this road, head on into another car and then they pull away at the last minute, just dodging in and out, beeping. Also potholes, like nothing you could imagine. We stopped at one point at a breadfruit vendor to make change — the vendor and my taxi driver were passing bills in front of me (by that time I was in the front seat) to make change. I thought it was fun. Then the driver, Lukey, gave me his number for future rides, but it didn’t work. Maybe I did it wrong. Coming home, I unfortunately or fortunately got in a route taxi. I guess those are more expensive. The driver had no idea where to go even with the address. He stopped people on the side of the road to ask, about 4 times, and I was led all over the place. Finally, I found the address on Google maps and directed him! Before i left, my B and B proprietor, Lawrence, gave me $300 Jamaican dollars and said that should get me to downtown and back. So this driver tried to charge me $2000 Jamaican. I told him no way. That i didn’t have that much and I would only pay him maximum $250. He told me it was not worth his time and to get out. I got out quick and scooted into my place before he changed his mind. I am staying at Mango Walk.