10-19 February 2004
I traveled to Jamaica as a vacation with my friend Lucas and his family: LoAnn, Burt, Levi and Lacy, and Levi's friend Paul. Check out the photos here.We took a limo to the airport from Red Wing and left MSP at around 6 AM. We had a brief layover at Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, NC and then landed in Montego Bay, Jamaica in the early afternoon. After getting through customs we met up with Fuji Parkinson, our shuttle bus driver.
The air was hot and humid, the sun was shining, and the trees were green. It was a welcome change from the slush, snow and cold wind we were leaving in Minnesota. Montego Bay was a pretty cool city and was fairly large. We could see the Caribbean and cruise ships from the road at some places, and the green hills inland. It was different riding on the left side of the road in a vehicle with the driver's seat on the right. Riding with the windows down I remember the smells of food and of road construction and asphalt in the warm air, smells of summer. We cut through the center of the country, through the hills, on our way to the southern coast. The roads were windy, narrow, and steep in some places, and full of potholes. We saw lots of people alongside the road, including uniformed school children walking home, children playing, vendors selling foods and drinks and various other things, and people just hanging around chatting.
Our destination was Tom's (aka "Icemon". We knew him from Red Wing, he was/is our vendor of ice at County Market and at the liquor store) villa near Whitehouse.
It was about halfway up a hill overlooking the Caribbean. The area between Icemon's villa and the shore was mostly prairie-like with a few trees. Behind the Villa the woods got a little thicker. There were banana trees and many other types of plants on the yard.
We settled into our rooms and hung out there for the rest of the day. We did some reading and swimming in the pool, and then had some great meals throughout the week, including kingfish steaks and LoAnns excellent scalloped potatoes. We met Blacka aka Oneson (the way I understood it was that he either didn't have a given name or didn't know what it was), Icemon's hired caretaker, who was a little weird but a nice guy nevertheless.
It's been almost a couple years now and I don't remember what days or order we did things, so I'll just ramble on about stuff as I think of it. We spent the first 3 days or so at the Villa. One day we went down to the shore and met a couple people from Lake City, MN and we took an inflatable raft out to the reef. It was about a ten minute paddle out there and we anchored and snorkeled around once we got out there. There were lots of small minnows and fish, and we saw several sea urchins which we were careful to avoid. I think it was me, lucas, lacy and a native boy that went out there. The other guy was trying to spear fish but we just snorkeled around. The reef itself was gray and rocky and not very colorful. This was my first time swimming in saltwater and I was surprised at how salty the water tastes and how it stung my eyes and crusted in my hair when I dried off. I also noticed how much more buoyant you feel in saltwater. We headed back in and took a cold "shower" under a faucet. We then took a tour around another villa type building and the yard before going back up the hill to Icemon's. We got to see a couple nice sunsets from the Villa.
One night there was a talent show going down at the school, which was a fund raiser I believe. Our driver started smoking ganja when we got down there which was a bit unsettling given the craziness of Jamaican roads, especially at night. That area wasn't a big tourist area, and we might have been the only white people in the crowd, but it was all good. The show itself was alright and from a nearby field the view of the night sky was amazing because you could see so many stars. We eventually went back to the villa and played dominoes, which is super popular in Jamaica. We also played monopoly and sorry and card games. I also got my homework done, which included reading Camus' "The Stranger". During one of the days at the villa Blacka took us for a hike up the hill. We walked around for maybe a mile or two and saw some rural homes, which were all small. It seemed like all Jamaican homes were either wooden shacks or concrete buildings. We saw lots of donkeys, cows, and chickens along the roads, as well as lots of white birds about a foot tall.
During our trip we went to Negril for a couple nights, came back to the villa, and then returned to Negril for our last night or two. The road between followed the coast and went through the town of Savanna-la-Mar. In Negril we laid out on the beach, swam, and snorkeled. There were lots of vendors selling anything from cigarettes to seafood to parasailing rides to glassbottom boat reef tours. The nightlife there was surprisingly less wild than I'd expected, probably because we were a few weeks before the spring break season. I had my first drink at The Jungle night club, a mai tai. On the way in there I was intercepted by a Jamaican guy "giving" away friendship bracelets and I said I wasn't interested but he insisted and I took one. Once he had tied it onto my arm he wanted me to give him money and I said no and he got pissed off and threatened me but Paul's intimidation helped talk the guy into taking his bracelet back and leaving it at that. With the exception of that, I got along with the Jamaican people well. Ossies Jerk Shack was located right next to the place we stayed at and we ate there a couple times. I had jerk pork and it was pretty good. They also had some exotic things on the menu like curried goat and curried conch. We walked along the beach one night and hit some bars. That was pretty cool with walking the beach with the sea waves breaking and all the colored party lights and reggae music of the bars. One day in Negril we went to Pirate's Cove and Rick's Cafe and did some cliff jumping. I think the diver said it was a 48' jump that we did. Lucas jumped about 22 times and me about 6. The water there was really clear and deep along the rocky cliffs. One of the divers climbed a swaying palm tree and did pull ups and dove in from it for tips. That was amazing.
We also checked out a lighthouse when we were there, this time our driver (a different one) was drinking a Red Stripe while driving. We did our grocery shopping at the Hi-Lo store in Negril and stopped and picked up some t-shirts and key chains and stuff from a gift shop in the open mall area there. We went back to the villa and one day the fields down on the hill caught on fire. There were more fires that night and we watched with binoculars as the fire trucks arrived and tried to control it. Earlier we had seen cows tethered to stakes in the ground in that area and Lacy asked if the cows would be alright. Blacka's reply was, "No problem, de ropes will burn." Another of Blacka's phrases was "boom boom boom", which I think meant different things in different contexts. We decided to leave the villa and spend our last day in Negril. We said our goodbyes at the villa, I gave Blacka one of my County Market shirts, and then we went to Negril. We watched one last sunset on the beach and the wind was blowing large waves in and I had a little fun trying (but not really succeeding) to body surf on them. We left the next morning and followed a road along the north coast up, which I thought was more scenic. We passed through one town that hugged a large bay and then made it to the airport and had meal before departing. We had a layover back in Charlotte and then we got back to Minneapolis late that night and got a limo ride back home.