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Published: January 2nd 2010
As is the story with most islands, I've been wanting to go to Jamaica for quite some time now. I've listened to the music of Bob Marley and heard of the laid back lifestyle of Rastafarians and Jamaicans in general. Montego Bay and Kingston top my list in terms of towns to go to, so I was pleasantly surprised to have Ocho Rios as a port of call on the cruise. I'd heard to be wary of people selling drugs at the pier, but that was the extent of the negativity I'd heard of.
Ocho Rios means "Eight Rivers" and is on the Northern coast. It is definitely full of tourists and caters to the cruise lines, tourism is one of Jamaica's major income. One of the famous Sandals resort is there, along with many other beach resorts, not to mention all the shops full of jewelry and run for visitors to take home. It is full of day excursions like diving, swimming with Dolphins, snorkeling and waterfall hikes. With our plans to dive in the Caymans and Cozumel, we decided to forego a dive here and I'm glad we did, as the storms from the previous day
had reduced the visibility down to about 4 feet. We opted instead for a waterfall/snorkel excursion on a catamaran to Dunn's River Falls.
The four of us were happy to see sunny weather and warm temperatures greet us on our way off the cruise ship. We took in the beautiful countryside and waters from our balconies prior to departing. We were herded to a small dock maybe 100 yards away from the ship to await our boat. In the meantime, I found a small kitten playing hide and seek in the rocks. Once again, I entertain myself by snapping photos of strays... I'm such a sucker. It was quite feral though, already afraid to get anywhere near humans. After waiting in the sun for about an hour, we finally boarded a beautiful, less than 30 foot catamaran with a charming crew of locals. We motored less than a mile East down the coast between the beach and reef for our snorkel.
As mentioned earlier, the storm had done nothing for the underwater views... it was not a good snorkel. Amanda is not comfortable at all in water anyway, so when as the first one
House on the Hill
I'll take THAT one.in the water to notice a nasty current, I was not excited about the prospect of her discovering the not-so-easy-to-swim-in current. She was a real trooper though and instead of a snorkel, it ended up being a bit of cardio workout for us. With the sun warming our skin, it was much more pleasant to sunbathe... so we settled down in the nets for the transit to the falls.
I forgot to mention that we were quite enthralled with sunbathing, so we almost neglected to notice the giant waves propelling us towards the shore. These were waters that I can't even envision surfers in, the waves were that rough, not to mention about a 4-6 foot swell. Luckily we surfed on them towards the falls, but I didn't want to think about the transit back to the port... it wasn't going to be pretty.
Dunn's River Falls begins from springs in the hills and drops about 700 feet directly into the sea. I've never seen waterfalls pour directly into the sea, so the approach pulled me out of my lazy nap to stare at the falls... and all the people. There had to be a
Peek-a-boo
Why do I find myself always taking pictures of stray cats and dogs? :) few thousand people there! Climbing the falls is a popular tourist activity and there are local guides that form groups into human chains to traverse the multiple lagoons and vertical climbs. I was amazed at how easy it was to climb up. It is at that moment, thinking how rocks should be slippery, that I notice the "broken rocks".
Now I'm not talking about big rocks being broken down into small rocks, or even water force slowly making pebbles out of a large chunky rock. It's concrete. What?!? Yep, it looked like someone had stood at the top of the falls and poured water compatible concrete down the falls to cover it in its entirety. I don't know this for a fact, but I do know that there were parts absolutely covered with concrete. I studied concrete in college, if you didn't know, so I'm quite positive about my hypothesis. It offered the multitude of tourists the ability to walk with ease up the falls. Ingenious to avoid a lawsuit, but I wonder what it would have looked like without it. I guess it would have dramatically reduced the number of tourists too. Oh well, make the
most of it... keep climbing! The greenery and surrounding area was beautiful, this was the sight of the make out scene between Elizabeth Shue and Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail.
We finally made it up to the top, it wasn't difficult at all, but I'm glad I did it. I would be happy to do it again on a less crowded day, but I imagine there are plenty of similar falls in the area. On our way back to the boat, we noticed the dark skies and suspicious winds. Yep, you guessed it. Rain. Well, we hunkered down and braved not only skies but also the nasty waves I mentioned already. I thought it was fun, but it looked like a few people were getting green on the way back. That was entertaining.
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Ellie Setser
non-member comment
Dunn's River Falls
Too bad about the concrete. The last time I went up it was very slippery but don't remember when that was but know that Butch and Kenny were still in high school so must have been the 80's. I also remember guys chasing Butch and Kenny around trying to sell them drugs on the street. Happy New Year! Ellie