The third day of the Jamaica trip was a Wednesday, on which the resort offered an interesting sounding tour, titled “let’s go native.” It was basically a tour in which you got to go to different parts of the island, learning about the history and culture of Jamaica as you went. The tour started around 10am and ran until 8:30pm, which I thought would be fine since I’ve certainly had longer days. In reality I left the tour feeling exhausted and ready for a good nights sleep, which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Our view with breakfast.
We started off the tour by picking up some guests from a different resort. Directly across from their resort was a tiny beach that the locals used for swimming.
Once everyone was picked up, the tour began. Our tour guide was a very informative man named Dalton, who knew everything about his country and had a song for anything you could imagine. As we drove he told us about the buildings that we were driving by, made plenty of jokes, informed us about notable residents as we drove by their houses, and even told us about the urban legends of the area.
Our first stop on the tour was to a small roadside shack that had drinks and snacks. Here our tour guide taught us some words and phrases in Patwan, the language that the locals speak to one another. When we were done playing school we piled back onto the bus and remained there until we reached another resort that was part of the chain resort we were staying at. This resort was located on Negril’s 7 mile beach, and we stopped here for about three hours so everyone could eat and explore.
These flowers were in the center of the lobby at the resort we stopped at for lunch.
The beach on the other resort was certainly long, and there were no clear markers of when you left one resort property and entered the other. Because there were no fences or walls, people selling wares could just walk right up and down the beach and would stop to try and get you to purchase something while you were just relaxing. All of these mobile vendors were closely followed by security guards. The waters were filled with seaweed and grass, which was a stark contrast from the resort we were staying at which had mostly clear water.
For the next leg of the tour, we went shopping at many different strip malls and stores. This was my least favorite part of the trip as it seemed to last forever and the whole thing felt forced. It seemed like the only reason we were stopping where we were was because of a deal worked out between those stores and the tour company, and not because they simply offered the best deals around and it was where the locals shopped.
After what seemed like a lifetime of being driven from store to store, we made our final stop on the tour. Atop the cliffs in Negril we had an opportunity to cliff dive, eat jerk chicken, and watch the sunset. The area was beautiful, located right next to a lighthouse, which is something that Jamaica only has a few of.
The water around where you cliff jumped fell somewhere between the two above photos. It was clear and mostly free of rocks like the first photo of the water, but it also had rough waves like the second photo.
Watching the locals cliff dive was insane. As you can see by the photos, they made it look like it was nothing and would just swan dive right in as if it were a pool. Cliff diving absolutely terrified me, but my travel partner was far braver and gave it a shot.
After cliff jumping, my travel partner dried off and we ate some jerk chicken. It was quite good, but the cook hacked at it with a cleaver presumably to make it easier to eat, and while there was minimal cutting involved while eating, there were many little bone shards that couldn’t be found until they were between your teeth.
After watching the sunset we boarded the bus once more and made the hour and a half drive back to the resort.
ineffable wanderlust 