Jamaica, 12.08.-29.08.2012

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12.08.

KINGSTON AIRPORT

Arrived at Jamaica airport in Kingston in the afternoon and we are planning to go to Port Antonio. Straight away we get swarmed by taxi drivers that want to charge us 150 dollars for the drive there. Apparently there are no buses from the airport, and our only other option is to get a taxi to Spanish town for 40 bucks and then a bus up to Ochos Rios for 5 bucks. Wow, the local buses, or route taxis how they call them here are an experience!!! They manage to squash 25 people into a 12 seater minibus, nice and cozy haha..also there seems to be no rules on speeding or overtaking, we nearly had a crash in our first hour in Jamaica..the drivers are a bit crazy here and everyone thinks they own the road.. Also the jamaican taste of music is about 20 years behind ours, which is quite funny, so they have “My heart will go on” , “I Swear” and “Stand by me” blarring out the radio.



OCHOS RIOS

Arriving in Ochos Rios, we asked the bus driver for a cheap place to stay and he drops us off at a very nice old ladies place where we can stay for 16 dollars a night in a massive apartment with kitchen and bathroom.. perfect!

Ochos Rios is one of the main stops for Cruise ships and unfortunately we got there on a cruise ship day, which means all the hustlers are out and on the pray. We weren’t able to walk for one minute without a guy coming up to us shouting, “Hey man, Respect!” and holding out his fist for a fistbumb. As soon as you stop, the story starts.. where u from, I have a cousin in England, how long you here for blabla, and it always ends with the question: u wont some weed man? I got the good stuff!! Lol Which wouldn’t be so bad, but it is literally every 2 mins that someone comes up to us and tries to sell us weed…and they never get to the point straight away, there is always that big talk before hand.. Well, we had a little walk around town, which is cute, but very touristy and very expensive.. its literally made for tourists with all the souvenir shops and restaurants and you even have to pay to go on the beach. So we had some local food (which was still expensive, tourist price ofcourse since no menus have a price written on lol) and went to chill on the beach.. ah, another 6 dollars gone for entering the beach lol we had a little chat to some cruise ship people and went to the ship to see if it would be possible to hop on the boat for a day to go over to the cayman islands.. nope you cant.. lol



We had an interesting night out in Ochi with 3 australian girls aswell. A lot of women actually come to Jamaica to get a lover for a week or two. Especially women in their 40is and 50is are walking around hand in hand with 22 year old Jamaicans, its very entertaining. We went for a few drinks to Margaritaville, the hot spot in Ochis and we literally felt like we were sitting on a speed dating / Meat market table, having the 3 girls with us. There must have been at least 40 different guys sitting at our table trying to get the girls to take them home. They are obviously never that blunt about it and the conversation always goes like: you are so beautiful, im in love with your eyes blablabla.. it was soo funny to watch!

Another thing about Jamaican clubs is, they only ever play the songs for 20 seconds and then change them. And same as in the radio, its all very very old love songs.. and if the crowd likes a song, it gets played up to 6 times in a row… “Lets get it on” aaall night long!

We spent 4 days in Ochos Rios, chilling on the beaches and figuring out where to go next. We also spent a day up in Magic mountain, we convinced the guy at the entry to only charge us the local price since we are poor and live with locals lol and went up the mountain with a Gondola. Up there we did some bob sledding trough the jungle which was loads of fun!



PORT ANTONIO

After 4 days we decided to move on and go to Port Antonio. We left all our big bags in Ochi and jumped onto a local route bus, squashed and sweaty lol we had to change buses 3 times and on our last trip, I had a Jamaican guy serenating me the whole hour we were in the bus. He sang all his songs to me and wanted to know if I think he could be famous.. Matt giggling away next to me cause his voice was terrible and his songs were even worse..lol We did meet some really nice locals dou and had a little chat on the way about Jamaica and the live here. Its pretty funny, everyone either sells weed or is a singer or songwriter .

In Port Antonio we stayed in a very cheap house with a local lady, only 11 bucks a night, yey! We had a little walk around town, it’s a very charming and pretty place and there was barely anyone hustling us, it was so refreshing! The next day we did a little trip to the Blue Lagoon, where “The Blue Lagoon” was filmed, a very pretty place. Some local wanted 14 dollars to get us across the lagoon, which was about 3 metres, so we made friends with a couple that had a canoe, and they took us over to the beach lol.. a bit later, a friend of the couple came with a motor boat and picked us up and took us to the local Beach, which was very nice! We had a few beers and a swim and enjoyed the local atmosphere..

In the evening we went for a nice meal in a restaurant that’s called : Jamaicas best kept secret. It’s a little hut with a 5 course meal and there is only space for about 10 people. Its all really old and bob marley style decorated. We went out for a few drinks after to the local bar. The day after, we organized to go rafting and see a waterfall with one of the locals.. it was a very beautiful river and I absolutely loved the waterfall! It was soo pretty and you could climb up on it. The rafting was more like a romantic boat tour on a little bamboo float, very relaxing and nice.

We went out with a german guy that owned a bar in Port Antonio that night. The bars here are nothing like at home, playing all the old lovesongs, and playing them over and over again.. I don’t think hiphop, house or dance has made it over to sleepy Jamaica yet..

On our way to Long bay the next day, 2 hours away from Port Antonio. We stopped over in Boston Bay, where apparently they have the best Jerk on the Island. (Jerk is a way to cook chicken, beef or pork on a barbeque grill with a special sauce) We had a nice afternoon with an English family with the cutest little boy ever (he was half Jamaican, so he had blond jamaican curls, soo cute). In the afternoon we moved on to Long bay and found a little Italian Hippie place to stay. The food was amazing and we met Philo, a Italian Rasta man that owned a bar in Negril. We spent the night but decided to move on the day after, because it was raining loads, the beach was really pretty, but not much fun in the rain. So back to Port Antonio and then to Ochos Rios to pick up our bags.



NEGRIL

The day after we moved on to Negril, which was a bit of a mission because its nearly impossible to find a route taxi that goes that way. And to charter a taxi was waay to expensive. After about 2 hours of wandering around in the heat, we finally found someone that would take us a bit closer for a reasonable price, but we still had to change taxis and buses 3 times more.. what a mission!

Arriving in Negril, we were blown away by the beautiful beach! We stayed in a little cheap place right next to the beach. The beach in Negril is 11km long and the water is clear and turquoise blue, one of the nicest beaches I have ever seen.. And to our surprise, Philo s bar was right next to our hotel! So we went for a chill out session right on the beach, had some great Italian food and just took in the beauty of the place.

The next day we went for a little wonder along the beach, saw a few stingrays and just chilled in the water all day. Some more Italian food in the evening and a live reagga concert at our hotel, which was pretty cool. Some more swimming and Lilo floating was on the program the next day and in the evening, we took a taxi to “Ricks Cafe” apparently 1 of the top 10 bars in the world and famous for its sunsets and cliff diving. It was very very touristy and expensive and reminded us a little bit of Las Vegas, cause you could rent cabanas around the pool and there was a lot of show offs there.. but we had a nice evening with more live music, all of Bob Marley and Shaggy’s classics and some nice food while watching the sunset and the brave guys diving off the cliffs.

The last day, we rented a scooter and had a little drive around to some different beaches and stumbled across a marijuana farmer, that took us to his field for 10bucks and showed us around, explaining everything there is to know about farming weed. Very interesting! On our last night, we went to see a local soccer game, the pitch was pretty bad with massive wholes and hills in and the boys played pretty much in the dark lol



MONTEGO BAY

We had 2 more days before flying to Cuba, so we decided to go to Montego Bay, where we would fly out of. Long day travelling and it was a bit difficult to find a cheap place to stay there. The taxi dropped us off at some weird Vodoo place, there was skulls and dead animals and eyes and articles about slavery and women abuse everywhere… but it was the only place we could find, so it had to do. We had a bit of an argument with the people there, cause they were idiots and afterwards we were a bit worried that they put a spell on us..lol well it was a horrible horrible night, because the room was right next to the road and the whole wall was one big open window, so we literally got no sleep and fleed out of the place first thing the next morning.

We found a nice little hotel Gloriana for the same price and stayed there for our last night. Much to Matts amusement, we went to the restaurant margarita ville during the day, which had loads of toys in the water and a waterslide. Lol.. don’t think that boy will ever grow up :o) we were tempted to check out the beach, but they wanted 6 dollars each for 2 hours on the beach, so we went to the local free beach instead..

29.09

bye bye Jamaica, with your crazy songwriters, old love songs, cute rasta kids, lover boys, hustlers,yeah man and respect, and beautiful beaches, we will miss it all :o)

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