In the very beginning of February we went down to Jamaica. I think probably the most, almost exclusive, way to visit Jamaica is going to a resort or as a cruise stop. I definitely see how people would view that kind of travel as financially constraining. With seven of us, it really precludes that in terms of logistics and whatnot. We've always traveled a little differently, and in so doing I feel you get a better experience at typically 1/4 the cost when you go somewhat off grid and be willing to go somewhere without the fancy amenities. We always do AirBnB/VRBO. Jamaica definitely didn't seem like a destination where many American tourists were traveling that way, and we managed to mostly stay away from any serious tourism traffic. We flew into Montego Bay and drove a couple hours over just east of Ocho Rios. They drive on the left side of the road, which was only my second time doing that as of then, after having done it in the UK. It really wasn't bad at all this time and I got pretty comfortable with it pretty quick.
The first day, we just got settled in and walked down to a small area where Rio Nuevo meets the ocean. It was pretty rocky so there wasn't much to do and it was getting toward evening anyway.
Our first full day, we drove back west to Falmouth and did a bamboo river cruise, which was quiet and awesome. I made sure we did this on a day that didn’t have a cruise ship in Falmouth.
That evening we went and did the bioluminescent bay, where your motion in the water causes it to glow. We'd wanted to do this at a couple places at different times but never got the chance, but it was fun and the kids loved it. The only downside for me was that the water was very shallow and you had to have your knees to your chest because touching the bottom would dig up mud and make the water / luminescence harder to see. It was very soft and muddy feeling rather than sand which I have a texture/dirtiness issue with, but overall it was fine. It was fun seeing the wake of the boat being all lit up.
The next day it rained quite a bit. We ended up driving up into the Blue Mountains on some crazy narrow roads in severe disrepair for a large amount of time until we got to a waterfall where we could swim. There was absolutely nobody there the entire time. It was raining pretty heavily.
One thing we typically try to do most anywhere we go is to try Indian food there. That night we went into Ocho Rios to an Indian restaurant. It was interesting because there was a part of town that was definitely lively and busy with locals but really limited to one street. Everything else was like a ghost town because cruise ships have gone and I don’t think anyone from resorts will go out. I think there was only one other group dining in the restaurant. It was funny because they were really surprised that we traveled there as a family and were very surprised that we rented a vehicle and were driving. They seemed to act like nobody did that. What was more surprising is that they said they felt the driving there was worse than India. I find that hard to believe, though, but I haven’t been to India. I’ve been to Cairo and heard that India is about on par with that and I would absolutely say driving in Jamaica is absolutely nothing like Cairo.
The day following that I don't recall doing much. This was possibly the day that the battery on our vehicle died and we had to have someone come out from Montego Bay to replace the entire battery. That evening we tried to find a beach, but all of these beaches that we heard were really good were closed (like permanently). It was pretty crazy that there aren't many public beaches, but tons of pristine coastline. We ended up at a hotel (a very bad one) that sold beach access. It was weird because you purchase a certain amount of credit that you can then redeem for food there, which we ended up getting some burgers and hotdogs for the kids before leaving. It was pretty laid back and we just collected things on the beach.
The next day we drove a couple hours east over to a beach called Frenchman's Cove. It's like a really small Maya Bay in Thailand. We spent the day there and the kids loved it. There's a clear river with cooler water that runs into the ocean. We ate jerk chicken there and nearly every day. We passed a place on the way there and back that is a cemetery. Instead of headstones, or next to headstones, they would have life-sized cutout pictures of the people, like movie-promo cardboard cutouts of people posing. I'd never seen that before.
This was where the river was meeting the bay. It had this natural whirlpool/lazy river where the kids would float down until they’d get sucked into the whirlpool (which was like 6’ deep).
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