Larry's friend Dival rented us one of his cars, and we visited a fair range of the tourist attractions on offer. Mostly water related, now I come to think of it, not including:
Mandeville
Where we used the internet, had an (allegedly) indian lunch, and hung out in a bookshop - how's that for really getting the feel of the country? No rivers, and no photos.
Milk River
Milk River offers the world's third most radioactive spa waters, great for the skin (though I have no idea why) - so we headed over there with Marva, and bathed for the maximum fifteen minutes allowed (without glowing at night), before taking a couple of side trips to a fishing (and collecting shipwrecked drugs consignments) village at Farquhar Beach, and to the mangrove river at Alligator Hole.
Ocho Rios
Featuring huge cruise ships, many shops, air-conditioning, cable TV, a pool outside our room, long white beaches, a trip to the movies (complete with popcorn), ice-cream and more ice-cream, lots of hustlers, and a magic colour-changing tourist population (white in the day, when the cruise ship passengers dominate, black from late afternoon, when that day's ship has gone, and there are lots of black US/Jamaican tourists left). For photos, see H's blog, below.
Dunn's River
A fine side trip from Ocho Rios - not cheap, but well worth it. And the girls got a go on a jet ski, too!
Black River
Travelling with Marva again, we headed off to the Black River safari, to see crocs, birds, mangroves, and bullrushes.
It was a great trip (I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who's in that part of the world), with a witty, well-informed guide, followed by a good lunch, then on to ...
YS Falls
Not so far from Black River these pretty falls were good fun for (cold) swimming, and had some great deckchairs to sit in too.
Marva had wanted to tour the Appleton Rum Factory, but we ran out of time, after a slow start and buying the 'safari, lunch and falls' package at Black River. Sorry, Marva!
Hellshire beach
Of the few beaches we saw in Jamaica, this was my favourite. We met up with Marva's sister Beverly, her daughter and some friends - then picked up Larry from his welding course with his mate Rowan, and headed off to "the Jamaican's beach" just outside Kingston. Fried fish, bammy and festival was organised, and we chilled (and tried to hide from the sun a bit). Lamani had mixed feelings about his first play in the sea, complete with rubber ring - mostly he felt cold, I think.
There aren't so many tourists on Hellshire beach, though there are a few. When I went in for a swim, one young girl shouted in glee and disbelief "white man can't swim!" Later, as I swam, a young boy behind me asked "you a white man?" - as I smiled and turned, he tried again - "Chinese?"
Bob Marley's house
Bob Marley's house in Kingston has no river - and you can't take photos inside. It was interesting enough, although the newspaper cuttings wallpapered over several walls included quite a few unflattering articles from later in his career, which surprised me. The bit of video of some live performance at the end was great. The gift shop, however, was selling some stuff that in our ignorance we couldn't really believe fitted with Rasta beliefs - a whole crocodile skin, for example, and some US book about how socialism was the cause of all the world's wrongs. Killing animals for no good reason, and defending Babylon? Interesting though.
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