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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Travel editor Claudia Kirschhoch disappeared in Jamaica two months ago. Could the same thing happen to you?
Aug 11, 2000 | You think of Jamaica. You think of swaying palm trees and seductive white beaches, the tympanic dance of steel drums and the lulling thump of reggae, the sweet spicy smell of jerk pork riding the air.
You think of Claudia Kirschhoch and a chill taps your spine.
Kirschhoch is the 29-year-old Frommer's Travel Guides editor who disappeared from the resort area of Negril, Jamaica, on May 27.
It's a baffling tale. Despite posting a reward offer of $50,000, about 20 times what an average Jamaican makes in a year, her parents, resort proprietors and police are apparently no closer today to finding Kirschhoch than they were on the morning of June 2. That's when employees at the resort where she was staying entered her room, after her parents had called worriedly looking for her, and found everything -- passport, plane tickets, wallet with cash and credit cards, camera, clothing, luggage, house keys -- still there, all except for her sunglasses, a portable radio and a bikini she had bought just before the trip.
Kirschhoch had come to Jamaica on a press junket that was supposed to go on to Cuba. When the Cuba portion of the trip was canceled, she and some of the other participants decided to stay in Jamaica for a few days. On the morning of May 27, she had breakfast with one of them, travel writer Tania Grossinger. Later that morning, she was seen in the lobby of the resort where she was staying. After that, her trail winds into mystery.
What happened to her? And what does her disappearance mean for average American travelers -- and for the $1.4 billion Jamaican tourist industry?
Four scenarios about her whereabouts have surfaced in the ensuing two months.
The first is that she simply went to Cuba on her own. The second is that she "broke loose," a phrase Jamaicans use to describe the behavior of those occasional visitors who, enthralled by the island's laid-back life, spontaneously chuck everything and disappear into the hills. The third is that she had an accident that left her unable to get help. The fourth is that she fell victim to foul play of some kind.
None of these scenarios is very satisfying. Why would she leave behind everything, even her clothes, to go to Cuba, and why wouldn't she inform anyone about what she was doing?
Why would she spontaneously abandon what, from all accounts, she considered a dream job at Frommer's -- a job she had begun less than a year earlier -- and an exciting, fulfilling life in Manhattan?
If she died by swimming out too far or falling off a cliff or some other accident, why haven't the numerous full-scale search efforts, which have covered the entire island and involved everything from helicopters and boats to FBI agents and psychics, yielded some trace of her?
The least implausible theory is the fourth one, but it is almost inconceivable that if it is true, no one who knows the truth about her has stepped forward to claim the reward. As on most islands, secrets have a way of traveling, and unraveling, on Jamaica.
A crucial piece of this puzzle is simply missing.
If you are Kirschhoch's parents, you endure the prolonged agony by searching, by making three separate trips to the island, by walking the seven-mile beach at Negril and passing out fliers, by setting up toll-free phone numbers for tips (888-991-4000 in Jamaica, 888-967-9300 in the U.S.); you go to reggae clubs and concerts, visit shops and markets, organize press conferences and appear on local talk shows; and you talk, talk, talk with locals, hoping the ties that grow will somehow reach out and uncover the truth. It's endless and exhausting, but the alternative is simply unacceptable.
As a parent, I think about this and my heart goes out to Kirschhoch's parents in a bond of inexpressible anguish and pain and a silent prayer.
But as travelers, what do we do with this disquieting tale?
