One thing that everyone I met told me to do while in Jamaica was to climb Dunn’s River Falls. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t going to do it. So many people told me that I had to do it and from the pictures that I saw it seemed like a tourist trap. It seemed too commercialized and didn’t feel like it would be part of an authentic experience of Jamaica. I know how hypocritical that is, especially since I was staying at a resort which is as far from an authentic experience of Jamaica as one can get. My point is, I had absolutely zero interest in doing this. The morning that we were booking the “Let’s go Native” tour from Day 3, we were talking to one of the girls at the front desk as we were paying for the tour. Now, this girl is an absolute sweetheart, so much so that when we left we were sad because we didn’t get to say goodbye to her. That morning she asked us about the tour that we were booking and when we told her she said that we absolutely should give climbing the falls a try, because it seemed like something that we might like. We decided to take her word for it and give it a shot, and we were quite glad that we did so.
Dunn’s River Falls is located in Ocho Rios, which was about an hour and a half away from our resort. Before we reached the falls, we stopped at a roadside shop for a last minute bathroom break and one final opportunity to get some refreshments and snacks. I had heard good things about a Jamaican soda called Ting, so I was excited to find it in the shop. It’s a grapefruit flavored soda that is very sweet, but not over powerful. I’m not usually a big fan of grapefruit but I was pleasantly surprised with Ting.
The area around the falls has evolved almost into a theme park, with giant trees surrounding the area in which you buy tickets.
The downside to Dunn’s River Falls is that it’s so massive that it is impossible to capture all of it in one photo. According to Wikipedia, it is 180feet/55m tall. As it goes up it bends, so it’s impossible to see the top even when standing at the bottom and looking up. The interesting thing about the falls is that it pours right out onto the beach. The water temperature was warm from the ocean and freezing from the waterfall, and both were only about two feet away from one another when I was there.
When you climb the falls, you do so with a tour group, led by a tour guide who knows the safest routes to take and an enthusiastic videographer who promises to capture the entire ascent and put it on a DVD for the low price of $40USD. Luckily you’re allowed to bring your own cameras and take pictures on your own. Just as a side note – almost all of the pictures from this particular trip were taken with my iPhone. I purchased a Lifeproof case when I upgraded my phone and so far I’m in love with it. It was a bit of a hefty purchase at $99, but it protects my phone from everything and even makes it waterproof, so it was definitely a good purchase for someone as klutzy as me. The only downside was that the temperature difference between the cold water and the hot air temperature caused my camera lens to fog up, but at that point I just switched to my GoPro and all was well.
If you ignore all of the miscellaneous people in this photo, you can almost get a sense for the power of the falls, although photos do not do it justice. The water was pouring over the rocks rapidly and losing a watershoe was a serious concern in some of the more treacherous areas. If you look at all of the people, you get an idea of how one goes about climbing the falls. The tour guide instructs everyone to hold hands so that no one falls, but that fell down the wayside about halfway up.
While climbing the falls, our videographer kept telling us “no wet, no fun!,” and he would splash us and encourage us to embrace the water and get wet. It was fun, but kind of unnecessary as getting soaked from head to toe was unavoidable.
Even though they want you to buy the $40 DVD of footage and photos from the climb, they’re also willing to take pictures of you on your own cameras as well, which results in beautiful shots such as these two.
Some spots along the climb had calmer pools of water that were great to take a dip in once your body adjusted to the temperature.
(The falls don’t actually look this misty, my camera lens fogged up from temperature difference)
After climbing the falls, we returned to the resort in time for lunch. I discovered a new favorite cocktail called a Bob Marley, which was virtually one of the only drinks served by the resort that didn’t knock me on my ass halfway through drinking it.
The rest of the evening was spent swimming in the pool and ocean. While walking back from the pool (it had a bar in it that I took full advantage of, so I may or may not have been drunk at this time), I made a friend!
We named him Donald the cat, and for awhile it seemed that he was going to follow us all the way back to the room. We took a route that detoured the sprinklers so he wouldn’t get wet and just as I was starting to get excited at the thought of having a secret cat to play with and snuggle with, Donald ditched us for another couple in the hopes that they had food. Obviously the friendship was not as strong as I had hoped.
ineffable wanderlust 