I arrived in Kingston on a midnight flight-the last leg of my trip-and went straight to the Indies Hotel.  “One room, yes,” said the night-shift receptionist. “But you have to pay cash, and leave before 6 a.m. “ A carpenter was coming to put a new door on.  “Come on,” I said. “On a Sunday morning?” He shrugged his shoulders, and checked me in on my Mastercard.  Scamming is the most popular pastime in Kingston, explained a man who invited himself to eat breakfast with me the next morning. He warned me about strangers who appeared to be friends. After half an hour of pleasant conversation, he wanted to know if I wanted to make some quick money. “You look like a smart man,” he said.  Now I knew he was scamming. After inspecting 180 hotels in ten days, I didn’t look very smart. I looked like a travel-crazed idiot, an addict warped on speed, a travel junkie who dreamed of hotel bathrooms in his sleep. But I was almost done. Only five more hotels to review and it would be time to go home. I stepped out into the street, and brushed past the group of touts who have set up a cottage industry in front of the Indies Hotel, dedicated to the fleecing of tourists. I turned the corner down a long boulevard, and paused. Not a soul in sight.  Lapse of judgment is the final stage of travel fatigue. I’ve learned the hard way never to walk down empty city streets (Filling out police reports is the less glamorous side of travel writing). Oh, big deal, I told myself. It’s Sunday. Nothing bad happens on a Sunday.  I strode off purposely down the empty boulevard. About halfway-just when I thought I was home free-a huge man peddled up behind me and jumped off his bike. He held it over his head, then threw it to the ground with enough force to gain my immediate attention.  “Gimme your money,” he said. “Take your wallet out, dat one dare." He pointed not to my wallet but to the secret money pouch I wore inside my pants. This guy had job experience. “Are you robbing me?” I asked. “No, I'm not robb’n you,” he yelled. “Just give me your money and I won’t mess you up.”  “Don't bother,” I said. “I'm already messed up.”  One of his bulging biceps was wrapped in a bloody bandage held together with duct tape. What the hell. I reached in my pocket, and gave him some loose change.  “Dis aint shit, man,” he said, throwing it to the ground.  He had a point. I had forgotten how worthless coins were in Jamaica. I had just given him the equivalent of two-and-a-half cents. Does God have a sense of humor? Right in front of us stood the Ministry of Tourism, its doors padlocked, the glass windows plastered with travel posters. “Jamaica. Come Experience the Warmth of our People.” This guy wasn't just warm, he was boiling over and frothing at the mouth.  I fished out 30 Jamaican dollars from my pocket, the price of a Red Stripe. “Here, buy yourself a beer and cool out,” I said.  Then I turned and walked off at a fast pace. He stared at the money, then measured my resolve, which he apparently miscalculated. Given that bloody wound on his arm, I was good for at least another $5.  A cab suddenly turned the corner, and I flagged it down.  “Where is everybody?” I asked the driver .  “All the folk be in church,” he said. “Only hustlers and fools be out on the street,”  “And which are you?” I asked. He laughed without answering. Then asked if he could make a detour to stop at the Bob Marley monument.  “I have to meditate on my man here,” he said. He sat down in a cross-legged position, closed his eyes, and hummed a reggae tune for ten minutes while I waited impatiently in the front seat. Then he charged me for a sightseeing tour of Kingston. Like he said, only hustlers and fools. From the veranda of the Ocean View, I can see an Air Jamaica 737 landing, tail heavy with tourists. I'll be taking that plane home in another two hours. It’s been a long 240 hours away from my family. I sometimes imagine that I am not actually traveling so much as running in place, just trying to keep up with a world that is spinning under my feet.  There are, however, aspects of travel I do enjoy, such as the assimilation of varied cultural traits I pick up along the way. On the flight over from Kingston, I talked with a couple who were just returning from a week at Sandals, a couples-only resort, about our respective trips. “But what you do isn’t really traveling,” said Mr. Banana Republic, smugly smiling to his wife. “You never really stay long enough to know a place, do you?” I rolled my eyes back, waved my hand dismissively, and let a pocket of air burst up from my lower lip. Charles Kulander is the author of  West Mexico, From Sea to Sierra (La Paz Publishing). A former managing editor at the Mexico City News and Baja California Magazine, his travel stories have been published in various West Coast magazines and newspapers. He is currently at work on a comic suspense novel set in Mexico.