subject: A Buzz We Did Not Expect In Jamaica - A 1st Impression [print this page] We had decided to try the Caribbean as a January destination as it is always warm the whole year, the people speak English, the country is stable economically and otherwise, and it offered scuba diving. We tried destinations closer to home such as Eilat, Hurghada, Lanzarote and Tenerife. I was coming to scuba dive whilst Alison was coming to do some sunbathing at the pool. But we discovered a "buzz" that which had not been described in the guide books......
The airport then was nothing like as modern as it is now and by the time we had waited in a tourist minibus for about an hour in the carpark for other passengers, it was already getting dark. We'd arrived from Heathrow on an AirJamaica Boeing 747 flight
The road took us along the edge of the airport and then on a number of occasions it ran alongside the shore on a sort of corniche road. We quickly discovered that the Jamaicans drive like mad, blow their horns a lot, while dodging the potholes of which the old road had plenty. The first town we reached was Falmouth, which seemed rather old and tired. We were glad we had not hired a car at the airport as we would already have been lost.
Subsequently, we learnt that Falmouth is frequently used as a location for films because the houses in one part were built in Victorian times. Along the way, we noticed that Jamaica has a large number of different churches. There were stalls and roadside cafes and restaurants with signs promoting such dishes as jerk chicken and jerk pork, whatever they were. The road then took us to Trelawney and then Duncans, where the singer Sir Harry Belafonte was raised and then to Discovery Bay where Jamaica's first tourist, Christopher Columbus, landed. It seemed to take forever to get to the hotel in Runaway Bay. At long last, after nearly 3 hours we reached our hotel, Royal Decameron Club Caribbean.
There was a warm gentle breeze wafting into the lobby area from the beach and there was the the sound of Jamaican calypso music too. We were served with a fruit punch cocktail while we were allocated our accomodation. Then a porter collected our bags and room key and asked to follow him. It appeared the rooms were separate, rondavel-type bungalows set in a garden, which added to the mystique. We followed hime down the path and it was all very strange, with gentle light showing the way through tropical vegetation. It was warm too. We reached our bungalow which seemed enormous with a kingsize double bed and subdued lighting. We had a quick unpack and then set off for dinner in the restaurant wondering if we would get lost on the way back to the central area! So what was the buzz we had not bargained for?
My wife, Alison, said that her most memorable impression was the buzzing sound from the trees, which we later discovered were tree frogs. They perfomed every night after dark.
Copyright (c) 2009 Michael Ogden
by: Michael Ogden
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