Day 1: Welcome to jamaica.

So, where is jamaica exactly? Well for a good look at the geography of the region and the island, and to reference major points of interest throughout the posts, click here.

So we left for Jamaica on tuesday, august 14 from Houston around 10 a.m. and arrived in Montego Bay around 1 p.m. [no time change]. After breezing through customs we then were thrown an abrupt halt before leaving the airport because our rental car reservation had disappeared so Dad had to go through different companies to get us another one. Finally after over an hour of waiting the rental car guy drove us in the car to some other place, a headquarters of sorts for their cars by the looks of it, to finalize some paperwork, and then around 2:30, we were off to Ocho Rios!

Well, sort of. They drive on the left side of the road in Jamaica, and therefore all the cars have right side drivers seats. If you've never experienced this set up, its a very curious sensation. My mom and I were in the backseat with my sister in the front and Dad manning the wheel. As we were pulling out of the place, Dad says, "Just keep reminding me to 'stay left', especially in this crazy circle thing we've got to go through up here." In Jamaica they have 'circles', that they call 'round-abouts' that sometimes connect 2 or more roads instead of just a traffic light, and generally it's just proceed at your own risk, no yield or stop signs, just people driving all over the place with no regard for left or right sides of the street or whether or not it was their turn to get in or out of the circle. Dad was kind of apprehensive about this already, as him and Mom have been to Jamaica previously a few times and have experienced these mad traffic inventions before, and know you have bring your 'A' game to negotiate them successfully on the first try. We we're approaching the round-about and somehow 2 seconds later Kaitlin was yelling that we had missed the turn.

We were starting to go up a hill on a narrow street and all of a sudden a car flew around a corner in our lane and we missed a head-on collision by inches. It happened so fast, our gasps were late. Seconds later as were past the curve we see a line of cars zooming towards us in our lane, only scooting over at the last second and always with multiple honks. I became a bit concerned for our lives. Dad reassured us it was just the way they drive and that everyone honks at everyone else, not in a malicious manner, but more like, hey, you're in my way, scoot over, or hey, im passing you.

I tried to shreik quietly the rest of the day. We were looking for a side street to turn down to get going back the other way and then we saw a wide-ish one where some cars were waiting to pull out and some young Jamaican boys were walking around trying to sell olive/grape looking things. Right before we turned Dad went to turn on the blinker and he was met with the windshield wipers instead now going at full speed and instead of working on turning them off he got the blinker going, but for the wrong way as it was on the opposite side of the steering column, and in all the commotion managed to honk the horn for good measure as well. The boys selling the bundles of round things were laughing as well as the people watching us turn. We were pretty amused as well. We got turned around and after getting in the round-about and missing our turn only once, once we were in it, as well as quite a few 'STAY LEFT!'s, we were headed east towards Ocho Rios.

We arrived at our resort and were quickly escorted up to our new home for the next week by Raquel [our housekeeper] and Winsome [our wonderful cook]. We chatted for a bit and then Kaitlin and I wanted to quickly go down to beach for a look before they closed the entrance from our resort. On the way down to the beach [about a minute long walk] we passed several Jamaican men and everyone of them wanted to talk to us, imagine that!

"Hey princess..."

"Smiley, why don't you come over here?"

"Beautiful girls, come over here and talk to me."

"Where you girls going in such a hurry?"
Inaudible noise.
"Pretty ladies, let me show you something..come over here."
"Come with me pretty girls, I can show you a good time!"
Whistles and catcalls.

Kaitlin and I went onto the beach and played in the gorgeous water for just a few minutes, hardly noticing it however because we both felt so awkward, as there was still one man calling at us from across the way. We hightailed it back up to the room completely ignoring every greeting we heard and told my Mom we were never going anywhere without Dad again. She laughed at us and said he had gone to the grocery store with Winsome and Raquel to stock up our house for the week and would be back soon.



In the meantime we saw those grape/olive things on the table and asked about them. It turns out they are a native fruit called Genips [pronounced ginneps], [I forgot to take a picture, but I found this one in a google search] pictured here:


They are also known as spanish limes. They look like a minature lime from the outside, but their 'peel' is actually very thin, and once you tear it a little you can just push the little ball of fruity goodness out. The inside comes out in a ball, that is a pinkish color and fleshy that you put in your mouth whole and work off of the big seed in the middle. They are sooo good! I meant to look for them at the grocery store, but I forgot, I'm pretty sure they don't have them but I'm going to see anyway.

Dad returned later with our new friends carrying $12,000 in groceries, Jamaican dollars that is. It was about 6:30 and so Winsome and Raquel made a recommendation for dinner, John Crow's restaurant right across the street so there we went. Raquel recommended to me the steamed fish with vegetables which sounded really good and so I ordered it. Our food arrived and a plate was put down before me with an entire fish on it covered with various vegetables in a sauce.

Ok now when I say entire fish, I mean like in the movies with the head and tail still on it.

My dad saw me about to freak out and promptly covered the head and tail up with vegetables before I got a good look at it and showed me how the fish easily came off the bone. I took a few deep breaths and picked about the body part where a fillet would normally come from. It wasn't bad but I was so disheartened from seeing the whole fish it kind of ruined my appetite. So meal #1, not so great, but there was still hope.

We walked back home around 8 [it is pitch black in Jamaica by 7] feeling tired. My sister immediately went to bed, I followed around 9, with a weird apprehensive feeling about the rest of the trip which, looking back, I blame solely on the fish & catcalls.