I spent the weekend in the company of Grace Jackson and her family on two adventures in the Jamaican countryside. I have been fully inducted into the Jackson family and I absolutely love them all. Grace's two children, Bijee (10) and Dante (6), are so sweet, albeit they are two EXTREMELY rambunctious kids. Granted I never spent time with kids, so who am I to judge...any kid is going to seem rambunctious to me.
Grace picked me up at 12:30 on Saturday and we set off for Ocho Rios. 3 1/2 hours later, we arrived at the world's most secluded rafting operation. Definitely not your local tourist joint. It was about 4:00 by the time we got there, so we were definitely the only customers around, which was great. It was family created, owned, and operated--and when I say 'created', I mean the rafts were handmade out of bamboo shoots and the tubes were handmade out of who knows what.
^ A picture I borrowed from the internet as I didn't want to risk taking my camera down the White River...
Per suggestion of the guide, we elected to go tubing en lieu of rafting, so the 5 of us (Grace, me, 2 kids, and 8 year old niece Akira) set off down the White River with our guide. This was not your typical "lazy day down the river" tube ride. The White Current flows from the Blue Mountains and the current is FAST. We probably didn't hit more than a level 2 rapid, but it was a wild ride nonetheless. At the halfway point, we got out of our tubs and jumped off of "Pirate's Plank" into the middle of the river along with some of the locals. It was so wonderful to have the privacy of the entire river to ourselves and the local bathers. Dunn's River Falls was beautiful, but it was totally overrun by HUNDREDS of screaming tourists, whereas our trip down the White River was completely peaceful. Grace and I could have sat in the water watching her kids jump off the Pirate's Plank for hours.
After the tube ride, we drove another 2 hours (no traffic along the windy mountain roads) back to Kingston. She stopped off at a roadside stand (they're all over the place) to get me some sugar cane, fresh bananas, and something that sounded like 'sweetsa'--looks like an artichoke but tastes like a papaya...that's as good of a description as I can muster...
Fresh sugar cane is delicious. I'm addicted. Find me a place where I can get it in the States and I will show you a happy Kellie.
Okay, so Sunday:
Grace picked me up and the family hit the road at around 1:00 with the intention of seeing some of the waterfalls in Eastern Jamaica. Quick geography lesson:
Kingston/Port Royal - Southern Jamaica
Montego Bay - Northwestern Jamaica
Ocho Rios - Northern Jamaica
Portland/Port Antonio - Eastern Jamaica
Negril --far Western Jamaica
On second thought, I'm sure you all know how to read a map:
We started driving towards Somerset Falls in Portland. The falls entrance looked a little hokey so we decided to continue driving in search of Reach Falls. We drove through Port Antonio, which looked a lot like Aquinnah (for those of you who have been to Martha's Vineyard)---really deep clear blue water, steep cliffs, small fishing village, etc.
I'll post pictures later, but you'll notice that most of my pictures are awful because they were taken on the fly in a briskly moving vehicle traveling on extremely bumpy roads. I also took a 2 minute video of part of our route that I hope to post and give you all a laugh after you've recovered from the motion sickness that ensues.
Okay, so back to the story, we drove through Port Antonio because the last 3 people that we've stopped to ask for directions have told us "4-5 miles down the road". 45 minutes later, we still did not see a sign indicating that a waterfall is even remotely nearby. Grace stopped and asked another local, who told her in Jamaican Patois that was completely indistinguishable to my ears that we needed to take a left turn and follow the road and eventually we'd run into it...in 4 -5 miles.
This "road" ended up being a road that took us through the mountainside. It was absolutely beautiful. The family and I were laughing hysterically because we had no clue where we were going or if we'd ever reach a waterfall (Reach Falls was out of our 'reach'...ha!) but the mountain views were absolutely worth the 3 hour trip it took us to get there. We'd stop off at small mountain dwellings to talk to the locals (and their reaction upon realizing that they were talking to Olympian Grace Jackson was so funny!--it would be like an American not realizing that they were talking to Michael Johnson or Tyson Gay) and admire the simplistic life of the mountain dwelling communities. There were fruit trees everywhere. It was just absolutely spectacular. The eastern part of the country is the "untouched" side, and I got to experience it firsthand. Again, I'll post pictures later, but they really don't do the experience justice.
Moral of the story is that by the time we found the correct road to Reach Falls, it was closed. Wa wa wa. We were completely content with our 8 hour road trip nonetheless. Grace and the family were excellent tour guides and I learned a great deal about the different parishes (like our states) and terrain. What a great adventure!
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