Bond, Boscobel and Blue Lagoon
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 19/Jul/2010 01:21, 34 days ago
George and I have now circumnavigated Jamaica. Over the last 4 months George has driven completely around the outside road while I sat in the passenger seat enjoying the view. Obviously it didn't take us 4 months to drive around, the island's only 235 kms long and 80 kms wide, but we only rent cars occasionally. The road conditions vary drastically from the north shore and everywhere else. The north shore having the straightest, widest and smoothest thanks to the Venezuelans we're told and obviously catering to the millions of tourists in the all-inclusives between Negril and Ocho Rios.Our weekend started by picking up Laura and Robert and driving through the Spanish Town to Fern Gully route to Ocho Rios. Fern Gully is a windy stretch of road through cliffs of tropical rain forest, thick with 100s of varieties of ferns. It is quite dark driving through in the rain as the tree branches overhang the road.Laura made reservations for us in a funky guest house that she knew about in Oracabessa which is owned by a Turkish German who also runs a reggae exporting business on site at Reggae.com. You can watch the Bob Marley "Jammin" concert on this site. The guest house was lovely and had a beautiful private beach. Above is the doorway to our little room which was small but perfectly adequate and very clean. But most importantly, it was economical and in complete contrast to the Beaches Boscobel Hotel almost across the street where George and I spent our honeymoon. The Beaches Boscobel is now a very fancy all-inclusive with huge water slides and a golf course. Prior to our staying there in 1977 it had been a Playboy Club so it's changed its emphasis a bit over the years. Those poor people just don't know what they're missing down the road. But that's fine; it saves the best beaches for us.On the beach Laura discovered the dolphin bones above which had been washed ashore. They were quite high up, about waist height, in the rocks. And we saw interesting birds like the two below. One obviously a sea bird of some sort which we saw walking along the shore and the one below on the telephone wires which George described as some sort of small hawk.Oracabessa is an interesting town. It was lined with lots of little roadside bars serving Red Stripe and Appleton Rum which were about the size of small garden sheds lined up in true Jamaican style. Jamaicans seem to enjoy competition because they set up their stalls next to each other, all selling the exact same product, whether it be crafts, jerk meats, rafting, or alcoholic beverages. It makes for interesting shopping experiences as each of the vendors solicits your attention to buy their product. Choosing is difficult because and sometimes means you pick your favourite person rather than comparing their wares.We had to move the tables back a bit to keep our breakfast dry. It was pouring rain at the time we ate.Oracabessa is famous for James Bond Beach where several of the Bond movies were filmed as well as Golden Eye, Noel Coward's cottage. It was pouring rain while we were at James Bond Beach so we didn't stay and we never did find Golden Eye which is now a bed and breakfast. We didn't have the phone number so couldn't call for directions. We'd hoped to find it to get a bite to eat for lunch. We'll find it on our next visit.The pictures above and below were both taken at James Bond Beach.Then we tried Port Maria looking for Firefly, Noel Coward's house which also is operated as a guest house now. But again, no luck. I did jump out the car in the rain to take a few pictures of the bay at Port Maria which looked quite dramatic under the dark overcast skies. Unfortunately both these photos look better enlarged on my screen than condensed here. Apologies.About the time we passed through Port Maria the weather cleared up and the sunshine returned by mid-afternoon but hungry we kept driving to the Errol Flynn Marina for a hamburger and ice cream. We finished our day at the Blue Lagoon where Laura and Robert enjoyed a swim in the mix of temperatures the lagoon offers. Not only is the lagoon famous because of the Brooke Sheilds' movie, it's a lovely turquoise colour and the water on the surface is fresh from the mountains like icing on a cake above the warm Caribbean Sea resulting in a mix of fresh and salt, warm and cool. They both came out smiling from the experience as did Nadine, Nicky and Jessica when they swam in the lagoon a couple of months ago. Next time, we'll have to swim there ourselves.The coastal road is beautiful from start to finish. We'll be back to all the coastal communities again, especially this region, but next time we'll be taking different cross roads through Jamaica to get to them. There's one up the Black River that goes past the Appleton Rum Estate which is supposed to be interesting. Another passes by Nine Mile where Bob Marley was born and buried and there's always that very windy road up into the Blue Mountains past Mount Edge Guest House and the coffee plantations to Buff Bay that intrigues me. We're pretty sure we've actually driven through the roughest section of this Papine to Buff Bay road, but we need to know and to find out what's on the other side.To see photos from Nadine's visit to the Blue Lagoon, go to:http://mwapoleni-bunty.blogspot.com/2010/05/wet-sunday.html