Trip Report: Blue Mountains, Boston Bay, Kingston

[VVHT]

Very Very Nice!!!

More please!

Enjoy,

VVVHT

[mwenvlay]

Very Very Nice!!!

More please!

Enjoy,

VVVHT

thank you

i wasn’t sure if i was being boring!

[mwenvlay]

day 5, continued...

we spent the majority of the day outside. in the morning we hung out at the pool at the africana house (gotta take some pictures there) and split the afternoon between boston jerk center and boston beach.

husband had made friends with a bunch of the jerk stand folks the night before, so he knew which spot to hit up. i followed a pair of jamaican ladies over to the smoothie stand, where the guy gave me the tourist price. the ladies scolded him and made him give me what was closer to the local price. the thing is, i have a good idea of what the local price should be, but it’s annoying to always have to negotiate a price that works out to be 2 bucks less.

i also gave a man i met on the beach a good deal of money to deliver fish dinners to us, which he did, which was nice, but the fish wasn’t very good and didn’t come with any sides. in that case, i got “ripped off,” aka paid far too much, but meh. it’s vacation and our next good meal is always around the corner. plus, i came out so far ahead at strawberry hill (our food/drinks tab was several hundred less than it should’ve been), so the balance is still in our favor.

i didn’t take any pictures yesterday, because i wanted to just chill and enjoy.

today (day 6) is our all day excursion with warren, and i will be taking a lot of photos.

[FarOutWestEnder]

very much enjoying your writings -- all places look wonderful. Now I'm going to go back and watch all of the videos.

[jojo p]

mwenvlay..
Excellent, great pics, wow, what a pool !!! I bet you are not missing Negril !!

[mwenvlay]

very much enjoying your writings -- all places look wonderful. Now I'm going to go back and watch all of the videos.

mwenvlay..
Excellent, great pics, wow, what a pool !!! I bet you are not missing Negril !!

thanks, guys! i'm having a lot of fun taking photos and videos when chilling at the hotel(s). it's much harder for me to break out of the moment and capture things while i'm out and about, but i tried to make an effort during our big excursion today.

and i have to say, i do not miss negril. but i've always been a fan of traveling the island, and not limiting myself to one part only. my husband and son love it so much better out here in kingston and portland and i'm glad i FINALLY got to spend time out here (portland) and make the time count. all of my other visits were such a blur.

[mwenvlay]

day 6: long bay (briefly), moore town/nanny falls, rock bottom wood carving (at the crafts center), winnifred beach (briefly) and dinner at woody's.

today was our big day out in porty. warren showed up 5 minutes early and we hit the road by 10am.

first stop was long bay, which i was happy to see but didn't want to spend much time at, since i was very eager to get to moore town and spend as much time at nanny falls as possible.









so, we stood for about ten minutes, looked and left.

except for the fact that it looks like the beach has shrunk a lot over the past years, long bay reminds me a lot of the east coast beaches of my childhood. i still live on the east coast, but don't bother with the beaches there anywhere as much as i did as a kid.

[mwenvlay]

at the base of moore town there was a really nice lady selling jelly coconuts (100j each- cannot beat that!) and a few men sitting on a low wall. warren asked the men what the protocol was and we learned that nanny falls is gated now and that we should first check in with the colonel to ask for the key/ask for permission to visit the falls. we told the men that i was looking to get a history lesson for my kid and the guy who took the lead on filling us in said the colonel would be happy to do that. he then pitched his guide services to the falls and quoted a pretty high fee. warren told him, "they're not tourist-tourists, they're haitian and came here to pay respect and learn our history. you can't give them a tourist price!" the fee came down to 6000j for the 3 of us, plus warren.

we stopped off at a store to get a bunch of beer and soda and wound up acquiring another guide. husband, who is good at getting to the bottom of this type of thing, asked why the first guy thought we needed two guides ("for safety," by which he meant if someone gets hurt one person could stay with us and the other could run and get someone) and if the price was gonna go up from what we agreed on ("no, same price!"). so, we were now a party of 6.

we got back in the car after the bevvy and guide stuff was sorted, and rode up to nanny's grave, which is located across the street from the moore town primary school.




i caught this little girl in mid-twirl

[mwenvlay]

here are some photos of the spot that people say nanny is really buried.

[mwenvlay]

once we peeled ti boss away from the game, it was time to head up to the falls.

let me backtrack to speak about the colonel for a moment... we really wanted to meet him, so we could pay our respects and so we could ask him to give ti boss a brief history lesson, but by the time we got up to his house he'd already left. we were told he was headed up to some land they owned, where they're setting up a new tourist stop- a parrot sanctuary and fruit orchard. sounds pretty rad to me!

so, we missed the colonel but got a key from someone else...

getting to the waterfall consisted of a 30 minute trek up a wide forest path. it was a gently uphill walk, but even so i needed to stop a few times because i have issues with shortness of breath in high altitudes (that, and i am incredibly out of shape, tbh). but i managed it! it wasn't hard, honestly.




guide #2 (i'll ask ti boss what his name was, i forget), warren, husband on the walk up



the "hard" part was an EXTREMELY steep stone staircase leading down to the falls. the railing had worn away and pvc piping had been added in parts, to form a makeshift rail. so again, this was a slightly rigorous exercise, but not that bad. i didn't take any photos because i was too busy concentrating on getting down without slipping.

once down, there was a minimal section where we had to climb over rocks and down some banks to get to the actual river area. but if i managed it, most people should be able to.





after we got down to the river, we waded a VERY short distance (a matter of feet) in waist deep water, and then we were directly facing the falls. warren, who was dressed very nicely, scrambled over rocks and thus managed to stay dry.