Last Day in JA

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And just like that, our quick little trip to Jamaica was at its end.

So, what did we do on the last day?

First thing, we slept in. Like way in. This was really our only chance to do so. With the lost day (Miami day), our Friday became another hectic travel day. That made Saturday the day we were too eager to go out and see stuff. And then Sunday was church. Monday, the last day of our trip (Tuesday was to be another travel day), became the "sleep in" day.

Then we wandered through town looking for souvenirs to bring home for the boys and my parents. It was another gorgeous, sunny day, but much quieter than Saturday because the work week had started. We stopped by Calabash Ital Rastarant one last time for breakfast, getting a couple more of those excellent Life Juices. I recorded a couple of reels for my Instagram, talking about little health & fitness tips. We found some wood carvings for my parents and t-shirts for the boys.

Father Malekot, the priest, has a spice shop in town where he grinds and sells high-quality cooking spices for restaurants and private chefs. It's off the main street, so not a place for tourists and newcomers, but he'd shown me the day before, so I made sure we stopped by there as well. Chelly got some big bags of very fragrant spice mixes for an incredible price, and we got to see the honorable priest one more time and receive his blessings.

I was also distributing blessings. The night before, on the way home from Montego Bay, someone had given me a large bundle of nice-looking Ganja. I forgot to mention that in the previous blog, but this was another one of those, "you're a Rastaman, so I am giving you herbs" moments. I wasn't smoking and we were about to go home anyway, so I decided to share the wealth. Every Rastafari brother I saw that day while we were walking through town got a little handful of cannabis flowers from me. This led to many smile-and-nods and a few nice conversations. Pay it forward I say.

Then we walked out to the end of Fisherman's Point (where the cruise ships come in to dock) and found some Indian Food for lunch. Indian food is another great option for travelers on a plant-based diet, and always a favorite of ours. We loved it, but it couldn't hold a candle to the food we'd had the night before at House Boat and the Rastafari House of Cannabis. I know that doesn't sound like much to do with the day, and it seems like it wouldn't have taken us that long, but it was already getting towards evening by this point. Truly a lazy, tourist day for us. But, there was one more thing we wanted to do before heading home.

We drove up to a place called Blue Hole, where the internet told us there was a gorgeous waterfall and swimming hole at the top of the White River. Now the route here looked pretty familiar to us because it used the same roads we'd taken when we went to White River Beach, AND when we got lost looking for the wrong Gordon Town on Saturday night. This time we just drove higher and higher up into the hills. At one point, we made a turn at a corner thronging with young boys on motorbikes. They got out in front of the car and forced us to stop, all of them trying to sell us guid services to Blue Hole. But we weren't interested, we had a plan, so we told them so and headed on our way. One of the motorbike boys wasn't taking no for an answer, he gunned it ahead of us and then drove slowly in front of us until he got to his preferred "Blue Hole" parking lot and tried to lead us in. Sorry buddy, we told you we weren't interested. We drove past and continued up the road to our preferred entry point.

Blue Hole is one of those natural features that have been exploited as a tourist attraction for years, leading to a proliferation of "guide centers", where you can park your car, buy a ticket, hire a guide, use the bathrooms and changing rooms, purchase snacks, etc. We drove by several of them along the road, but the one we were headed to was the one at the top. We managed to sneak in a couple minutes before closing, secure a guide, hike up the falls, and find a place for some jungle diving (one of my favorite pastimes).

Our guide was cool, and he actually had the same name as our oldest son (Javan), a name that I once thought extremely rare, but now happen upon it (and sound-alike variations of it) all the time. He took us on a nice hike through the jungle. We crossed the river several times on our uphill trek, using rickety bridges over waterfalls, and stepping lightly across big slippery rocks in the river. I took this opportunity to tell Chelly the story of the Jamaican Maroons, who used rivers like this as their highways, leading to camps at the tops of the mountains where the embattled British were unable to attack them. This is one of the reasons for their success in the wars against the British Empire that count them as the only group to have defeated the British and forced them into signing peace treaties (or so I have been told).

At the top was the famous blue hole, where a large waterfall carved out a deep lagoon. The waters were very high at this time, and the current was strong. I went in for a dip and decided to cross over to the other side and dive. If it wasn't for the rope across the lagoon, I would have been pulled downstream by the current. I made a few dives, and each time the current ripped me out fast, but by snagging the rope I was able to pull myself over to the side and dive again. This is the kind of place that I could have spent the whole day at, and I only wish that we'd either planned a longer trip or devoted an entire day to this. But sadly, the sun was going down and dark would come fast here in the jungle. Our guide urged us to leave and we headed back down to the parking lot.

He was right, of course, it did get dark on our drive back into town, and we were glad we left when we did because the driving gets sketchier and the traffic picks up at this time of day. Back at the room, we showered up and finished our leftover Indian food before heading out for our last walk through Ocho Rios.

We went out on the town again, for the 5th night in a row, but this time found nothing open. Not exactly. I mean, there were a couple of places open, but very few people there. Our partying spirit was kind of exhausted by this point anyway, so we ended up at the Rastafari House of Cannabis again. The owner and I developed our film idea a bit more and Chelly caught up with her Mom and sister on WhatsApp.

On the walk home, we were shocked by the brazenness of the prostitutes. Hearing a sound system blasting from an alleyway, we took a look to see if there might be a club down there, but were surprised to see a only few half-dressed women writhing in a cage (literally like prison bars or zoo bars)! This is part of the economic landscape of every city, every tourist trap town, and every developing world ghetto neighborhood, so it's not really a surprise. I just wish and hope that human beings can have enough faith in ourselves to figure out how to avoid and do away with things like this.

That was it. Vacation over. Now we had to pack our bags, so we got to bed pretty late. We were up at 5am the next morning to drive to the airport, and then we were on our way home. The drive over was stunningly beautiful, with the sun rising over the mountains and the mists rising from the jungles, it would have looked great from a drone video or something. I'm content to have it burned into my memory. There were no big surprises this time, just an easy drive over on the toll road before hitting on epic urban traffic jam in Kingston that found us reaching the airport right on time for boarding our flight.

I honestly don't remember anything from the travel day. We started at 5am Eastern and reached home at 3am Pacific the next day (typical of our travel days). Whatever happened along the way was uneventful and forgettable. We were back to work in the morning.

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