{"id":800,"date":"2014-03-05T15:56:35","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T23:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/?p=800"},"modified":"2014-03-05T16:33:03","modified_gmt":"2014-03-06T00:33:03","slug":"road-tripping-in-jamaica-is-a-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/?p=800","title":{"rendered":"Road Tripping in Jamaica is a Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jamaica gets a bad rap. \u00a0High murder rate in the cities, people try to scam you, places are \u201csketchy\u201d.\u00a0 These are all things we heard about Jamaica.\u00a0 This did not deter us – and with a little street smarts we should be fine. \u00a0And all these things could be equally said about USA. \u00a0Darold has wanted to visit the homeland of reggae since he was young – he began listening to reggae when he was 8 years old.\u00a0 Me?\u00a0 I wanted to try jerk chicken and Red Stripe beer. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our first introduction to Jamaica was its smell – we smelled the moist soil many miles offshore as we approached late in the evening. \u00a0 After being at sea for 7 days (coming from Panama), the scent of Jamaica\u2019s verdant earth was so strong we could almost taste it. Our first introduction to the Jamaican people was waving to a local fisherman.\u00a0 I waved the requisite \u201chello we are both on a boat\u201d wave to him as we passed, and instead of returning my placid wave, he stood up in his small fishing boat and moved his arms side to side and up and down – his boat gently rocking with the motion. \u00a0It was more dance than wave.\u00a0 Dante returned the wild gesticulations and said, \u201cI think I\u2019m going to like it here.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Welcome to Jamaica, mon!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a few days of boat repairs in the Montego Bay Yacht Club, we rented a car to see other parts of Jamaica.\u00a0 Darold drove since Jamaica, being a former part of the British Empire, drives on the wrong side of the road.\u00a0 They say, \u201cDa left side is da right side and da right side is suicide, mon\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"DSC_0050<\/a>We first drove to Negril, the self-proclaimed \u201cCapital of Casual\u201d in order to attend a reggae concert for Bob Marley\u2019s Birthday.\u00a0 When we arrived in Negril, we stopped for lunch and got into a conversation with some locals.\u00a0 We used a little of the local slang\/dialect called Patois with them.\u00a0 For example:<\/p>\n

\u201cWa de gwan, mon\u201d = \u201cWhat\u2019s going on, dude?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe day-uh\u201d = \u201cI\u2019m cool\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLikkle mo time, mon\u201d = \u201cI need a little more time\u201d (used when someone is trying to sell you something you don\u2019t want)<\/p>\n

\u201cChatty chatty\u201d = that person is a \u201cchatterbox\u201d<\/p>\n

The locals in a\u00a0<\/span>restaurant\u00a0gave Dante his own patois name: \u201cLikkle Hulk.\u201d \u00a0Because he ate so much food, they were sure he would grow big like the Hulk. \u00a0Dante was pleased.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reggae concert was actually a week-long event; \u00a0we were there on the Rastafarian drumming night.\u00a0 There was a big bonfire in the middle of the concert lawn, vendors were selling woodcrafts and jewelry, and the people milling about were a mix of Rastafarians, locals and hippies who looked like they found Jamaica in the 60s \u2013 and its ganja- and never left.\u00a0 A cloud of smoke hovered over the entire crowd.\u00a0 Dante promptly fell asleep on a blanket I laid out on the lawn (if he said he was really hungry I would have been worried.)\u00a0 As he fell asleep he was singing along to Marley\u2019s \u201cWar.\u201d\u00a0 Darold and I got into a few conversations with Rastafarians.\u00a0 One dreadlocked Rasta named \u201cLion Claw\u201d asked Darold if he thought the power plants in the U.S. were causing the weather to change.<\/p>\n

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The next day we drove to the Black River for a tour to see crocodiles.\u00a0 They were so tame, they would come swimming up to the boat as we passed by, anticipating the raw chicken that would get thrown to them.\u00a0 We drove quickly up to \u201cYS Falls\u201d so that we could get there before they closed.\u00a0 YS Falls is a series of 7 pools, one cascading down into the next, all surrounded by lush Jamaican jungle.\u00a0 Darold and Dante jumped into one of the pools from a rope swing about 20 feet above the water (I opted out of that activity in order to keep my bikini where it belonged.)<\/p>\n

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Then it was time to head back to Montego Bay.\u00a0 We decided to take the roads over the mountain instead of along the coast.\u00a0 Along the coast the road was an \u201cA1\u201d road, and we would have to take other roads to reach MoBay.\u00a0 The A1 roads had quite a few pot holes; some parts of the roads were so bad you had to slow down to a crawl to avoid or go slowly over the holes.\u00a0 We started going up the mountain, and reading the map it looked like the shortest route would be on the road that was a black line.\u00a0 Our little rental car was not pleased.\u00a0 The road looked like a walking trail in Yosemite.\u00a0 Single lane.\u00a0 Unpaved.\u00a0 We realized that we were on a \u201cC\u201d road and we should have taken the \u201cB\u201d road instead.\u00a0 Darold backed down the road 1 mile since there was no place to turn around and we proceeded on the B road.\u00a0 It had rained a little bit so the pot holes were filled with water and there was no telling how deep they were.\u00a0 An inch?\u00a0 A foot?\u00a0 Three feet?\u00a0 Yes, yes and yes!\u00a0 Darold said it was like driving in a video game.<\/p>\n

Outside of the tourist cities and destinations, we now got to see some real parts of Jamaica. \u00a0Jamaica has a lot of poverty (if the roads weren’t our first indication.)\u00a0 But they people are friendly and would wave and smile to us as we passed by.\u00a0 We passed tiny towns with families sitting outside chatting.\u00a0 Once in a while we\u2019d see a man walking along the road with a machete in his hand. We passed herds of school kids toting backpacks, walking home, waving and giggling at us.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d heard of other cruisers who picked up hitchhikers as they drove around Jamaica so we weren’t surprised when 3 young women, one of them with a newborn baby, hailed us down frantically and asked us to drive them down the road.\u00a0 They squeezed into the backseat with the baby, a bunch of pineapples and their bags, enveloping Dante.\u00a0 We dropped them off and 30 minutes later were hailed by a very young couple, who got into the backseat saying, \u201cwhite people help da black people; black people don help da black people\u201d and then proceeded to admonish us for picking up hitchhikers lest we be scammed.\u00a0 We drove them all the way to Montego Bay and they left us with their phone numbers in case we needed anything.<\/p>\n

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We arrived back to the yacht club and the first thing we did was walk around the car to make sure we didn’t sustain damage from the monster pot holes.\u00a0 Fortunately, the car was fine.\u00a0 The next day, before we returned the car, we went to an old plantation house near Montego Bay.\u00a0 When Jamaica was part of the British Empire, initially they allowed slaves and there were hundreds of plantations around the island, but there are very few left as many of them were burned down in an uprising.\u00a0 It was an interesting history lesson for Dante, and for us.<\/p>\n

The following day we did some provisioning in the local market before shoving off for Port Antonio.<\/p>\n

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We sailed to Port Antonio, stopping along the way at little anchorages (Rio Bueno and Port Maria) to get a full night\u2019s sleep.\u00a0 Port Antonio is beautiful, being at the foothill of the famous Blue Mountains.\u00a0 In Port Antonio, we had to check in with customs and then the marine police boarded Benevento and did a thorough search.\u00a0 Nothing like someone rifling through your underwear to make you feel a little uncomfortable\u2026 \u00a0Later we enjoyed a few drinks at the Errol Flynn Marina.<\/p>\n

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We decided that we\u2019d take a road trip to Kingston instead of sailing there, so on our second day in Port Antonio we braved another car rental to take on the Jamaican highways. There were fewer pot holes than the west side of the island, but it still took us 3 hours to get to Kingston and 2.5 hours to return. That left us only enough time to have lunch and a brief walk in Port Royal (which used to be the Pirate capital of the world) and a tour of the Bob Marley museum.<\/p>\n

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The museum is inside Bob Marley\u2019s former house in Kingston and includes a tour of where he lived including his recording studio.\u00a0 As Dante said, the museum was \u201cepic, mon\u201d and worth the drive to Kingston to see it.<\/p>\n

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I was dreading the drive back to Port Antonio since most of it would be at night, but it turns out the roads were nearly pot hole-free.\u00a0 The challenge this time is that Jamaicans drive amazingly fast.\u00a0 Ridiculously fast, which is fast because my husband drives somewhat fast and he thought it was too fast.\u00a0 This is rather interesting considering that outside of their cars they take their sweet time for everything else.\u00a0 While driving fast they are even reluctant to stop.\u00a0 For example, instead of slowing down around a blind curve or a narrowed part of the road, they simply lean on the horn instructing you to get out of the way \u2026 I\u2019m coming through<\/i>.\u00a0 There are billboards everywhere listing the stats for traffic deaths in years past.\u00a0 Under 2013 there is a big question mark so maybe they are still counting\u2026.<\/p>\n

We got to Port Antonio just in time to take a walk down to a locally famous ice cream shop near the marina.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it had just closed!\u00a0 And we were REALLY in the mood for some ice cream.\u00a0 A policeman walked past, we got into a conversation with him and he convinced the shop keeper to open up just for us.\u00a0 Success!\u00a0 We bought him an ice cream cone too and saw him continue his beat – a little happier, eating his ice cream cone. Ah Jamaica \u2026 in the chaos there is kindness!<\/p>\n

You can see all the Jamaica photos here:\u00a0http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/easethemain\/sets\/72157640619355403\/<\/p>\n

 .<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jamaica gets a bad rap. \u00a0High murder rate in the cities, people try to scam you, places are \u201csketchy\u201d.\u00a0 These are all things we heard about Jamaica.\u00a0 This did not deter us – and with a little street smarts we should be fine. \u00a0And all these things could be equally said about USA. \u00a0Darold has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sailing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}