Montego Bay, Jamaica. Narrative

1st February

Montego Bay (or Mo Bay as known by the locals) is Jamaica’s second city and has been a mecca for tourists since the 1920’s. Jamaica lies south of Cuba and west of Hispaniola and forms part of the Greater Antilles group and is the third largest island in the Caribbean. With its three counties of Cornwall in the west, Middlesex in the centre and Surrey in the east, the island covers an area about three times the size of Kent in England. It measures 159 miles from east to west and from twenty to fifty miles for north to south with a population of nearly two and a half million.

Located on the south coast, Kingston, the capital, has a population of half a million and is the centre of political and artistic life. The highest point is in the Blue Mountains (do you know the Blue Mountain coffee?) to the east, nearly 7.500 feet, where it is much wetter and cooler than on the 200 miles of Jamaica’s beaches. Ocho Rios, the most popular port of call for cruise ships, lies almost in the centre of the north coast and Montego Bay, up the North West corner is a close second.

Full independence within the Commonwealth was achieved in 1962, after Jamaica had been a British colony for more than 300 years. Now, although life is not always peaceful and was terribly disrupted by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, at least the Jamaicans have their own land to themselves.

But who are the Jamaicans? “Out of Many, One People” is the national motto, and the ethnic mix of European, East Indian, African, Chinese and Arabic peoples has turned out to be surprisingly harmonious.

Jamaica is the world’s third largest producer of bauxite, the raw material which is smelted into aluminium. It also produces, sandstone and limestone, marble and alabaster, as well as sugar cane, bananas, pimentos, coffee, cocoa, tobacco and rum. Tourism ranks as the second foreign exchange earner.

From December to April, the most popular time to visit the island, the temperature ranges between 75 and 85 degrees. Rainfall averages nearly eighty inches annually. Late spring and autumn are the wettest periods and the hurricane season is late summer. But there’s always plenty of sunshine.

Over a thousand species of tree grow on the island. There are more than 600 varieties of fern (please note John) and 200 species of orchid, 73 of which are unique to Jamaica. Botanist have recorded almost 3000 varieties of flowering plant. Wild animals are practically non-existent, there are a few snakes and they are harmless. Bats and lizards are common and birds and butterflies are particularly varied and colourful.

Today was a lazy day as we had not pre-booked any excursions. So after a leisurely breakfast in the restaurant we made our way to the cruise terminal where we were hit by temperatures of 30 degrees (very hot), and boarded a shuttle transit bus into town. As soon as we left the port, the driver of the bus tried to promote an extended tour around town at $20 per head against $5 for the trip to town. Eventually we persuaded the driver that we wanted just to be dropped at Doctors Cave, a beach in the middle of town. He reluctantly agreed and a few people got off the coach with us and he drove off with the remaining passengers on the $20 tour.

Unfortunately today is a Sunday and being a religious island the main downtown shopping area was closed (Geoff said three cheers). However there were many small boutique type shops in the beach area, which were open and actively touting for business. We wandered the shops for about an hour, comparing prices of tee shirts, coffee, etc, without making any purchases. Geoffrey, by now was gasping for a drink and spotted a small bar, where we retreated to have our first Red Stripe of the day. Lo and behold, there was also a television screen in this bar broadcasting the live game of Arsenal v Manchester United. We did not have time to see the whole game but saw two cracking goals by Man United.

We returned to the first shop we had entered where Doreen further negotiated with the owner and purchased a few items. After which we walked down the road to an Irish pub called The Twisted Kilt and sat at a table with the most fantastic views of the beautiful beach (various shades of turquoise blue) for our second Red Stripe and flatbread (Doreen had a Chicken Jerk and Geoffrey a Pepperoni and Mozarella flatbread – both were delicious). We stayed for over an hour before we wandered down the road to the Margaritaville Bar, apparently a well known bar, we must check on the internet when we get home. After negotiating with the many taxi drivers vying for our business we returned to the ship.

The Montego Bay that we saw seemed rather tired and in need of modernization and we cannot say that we have seen the real Jamaica. However, the people we met were friendly, very laid back and helpful. Possibly worth visiting again sometime in the future……… Nonetheless a great day.