Theresa´s 50th birthday

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We had decided to leave our one Jamaican tour for this day so that we could make it extra special. The trip we booked was to YS falls and it was an excellent day.

We booked the driver for the day that had brought us from the airport on Tuesday evening. Our driver from the airport has a large comfortable mini bus with recliners. It was a private tour for just the two of us so the day was made very personal and comfortable.

He picked us up at 8.00am. We originally thought this was a bit early, but later in the day it became very apparent why we left so early.

The drive to the falls took us through many Jamaican villages and small towns and was very interesting to us to get an insight into real Jamaican life. As it was only us on the bus the driver was able to explain the naming of the villages as we went through each one.

We arrived at the falls at about 10.00 am only to find that there were but a handful of other tourists that had already made it there. This meant that the park was really quiet and for most of the time we had the water and falls completely to ourselves.

They had a typical Jamaican restaurant on site, so before we headed into the park we ordered our lunch. George had fried chicken and pork with fries, Theresa had jerk chicken with pork and local rice and beans and our driver had local curried goat and rice and beans. Goat is a very popular dish on this island and most other Eastern Caribbean islands.

We then had a short tractor ride into the falls.

The waterfalls are made up of seven cascading tiers. We decided to head for the top first then work our way down.

The very top tier pool was very deep with very little level ground around it to stand on. Theresa loved this pool and was straight into the very fresh water. George is not as confident in water so took slightly longer to get in and only stayed in for a short time.

At every level / stop of the falls there were guys watching over the people around and were always there with a reassuring arm if they felt that you needed it. They were also more than willing to take action photos in the water or on dry land. It had a very personal touch and a strong feeling on safety.

After a short stop here, we made our way down to the next pool. This was a little harder to get into, but not as deep so we were both able to enjoy it.

The third accessible pool at the bottom had a lot of pebble area around it so was not so easy to get into. It was also very shallow in most areas so we kept knocking our toes and knees on the rocks. There was a deeper area, but this was used for the two rope swings that were into this pool. We would both have liked to try the rope swings, but for different reasons did not.

Our two hours here went very quickly and in no time it was time to get changed and head to lunch. The food was excellent and for only US$ 12 (about £8.00) each including a drink, we thought it was very good value indeed.

On the way back to the hotel we asked the driver if he could stop at the Post Office in Negril as we wanted to post George’s Mums mother’s day card. He thought it may be better to go to another office instead, but when we got there we were in a queue of about 6 people and at Jamaican speed this could take a while. Jamaican minutes seem to be very similar to Tenerife minutes, lasting very much in excess of 60 seconds.



On the way out of that village our driver spotted three little children who were trying to get a lift back to near our hotel, so we picked them up. Not sure quite what they made of us.

We made a further stop at the Negril Post Office and let the kids out and posted our card, then were back to the hotel for about 4.00 pm.

There are not that many restaurants near to our hotel and we do not feel too comfortable walking too far in the dark, so head off to Ricks again for dinner. We were a little earlier this time so were able to see some of the jumpers and also the famous sunset going down.

What a great end to a wonderful and special day.

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