Jamaica Tours, Guides and Vacations

Here is a wonderful set of photos taken from the Negril Cliffs which features one of my favorite Jamaican fisherman out in the early morning as the sun rises on yet another beautiful Jamaica day. I watched this guy fish the local waters off and on for over a year before I settled to take his photo without his permission. I probably could have found him and asked him for it but it was nice to chat with him as he went on about his day completely oblivious to me while I sat and watched him from the seaside cliffs of a Negril resort in amazement at his strength and determination. Some of these Jamaica fisherman seem as old as the sea itself but do not be fooled, these guys are hard as stone and stronger than any two average men you know. They have been fishing these waters for over 50 years in many cases and pulled enough traps to feed a family for longer than I have been alive.

I was almost always amused and sometimes disgusted with how different our lives are and how as I sit there with my digital camera from the deck of my resort accommodations I can peer out into the distance and witness a real man working for a living from a hand carved dugout while I blog about my daily adventures and smoked a few spliffs over a cup of Blue Mountain Coffee in the comfort of my private room overlooking the Caribbean Sea.

It’s a sick and twisted world we live in and the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence but I would gladly trade my experiences and knowledge for his.

Here are some photos of sunsets in Negril for Summer 2009. Negril sunsets are beautiful year round but something about summertime in Negril makes the sunsets more colorful and brilliant. Sunsets on the beach are nice but I prefer the West End Negril sunsets from great spots like Ricks Cafe and LTU Pub.

See more pics in the Bob Marley Museum photo gallery!!

Bob Marley is a legend all across the world but in Jamaica is his revered as a saint by many. His home in Kingston is an important part of the Bob Marley experience in Jamaica and one of the most popular tourist attractions in the area.

The museum is home to the largest collection of Marley memorabilia and a great place to visit for an introduction into the history of reggae music. You will pass through rooms in the home where Bob cooked his food, wrote his songs and even see the very bed he slept in and the house slippers he wore while there.

The room carries a lot of history with loads of gold and platinum records hanging in rooms on the guided tours and even more newspaper articles from around the world highlighting his shows in places like Japan and Africa. It was nice to visit the first time just as much as it was the 5th and now 10th time I have gone. I particularly enjoy reading the newspaper articles for various opinions on Bob from people all over the world.

You will see the room where Bob was shot and even the original bullet holes still in the wall. There is a wonderful little spice garden and of course a huge shop full of Bob Marley things for sale. The tour ends with a somber music video highlighting his career and music. It’s nice to see Bob in the rare home movies and pictures throughout the museum. He seemed at peace for much of his life and the home reflects that.

You cannot take photos inside the Bob Marley Museum but the memories stay with you. If you make it to Kingston and appreciate the mans music you have to take a tour of the Bob Marley Museum as part of your Jamaica Vacation.

I met Reinhold on a late afternoon this past week when he walked into the main office at Cotton Tree Place where I happened to be using the internet after having a conversation with the property manager Marie about how slow things have been for resorts this summer. This would be my third summer while living in Jamaica and specifically Negril and this has got to be the slowest summer season I have ever seen.

Things are aways slow in summer and you see fewer people in town this time of year but this year seems especially weak and a number of local businesses in Negril are suffering. Reinhold and his daughter Ana were visiting from Austria and they were taking a walk up West End Road when they decided to stop in the lobby at Cotton Tree to ask some questions about where they were and what there was to do in the area.

I struck up a conversation with Reinhold and told him about all of the wonderful things that I love about Negril and the rest of Jamaica for that matter. He made a comment about how slow things seemed and that he did not think there was much here to do. I told him that many of the better things to do on vacation in Jamaica are just outside the tourist towns and a trip down the south coast of Jamaica may be a great way to get out of the resort and into a Real Jamaican experience. He seemed interested and I told him that I would be glad to build a custom vacation tour for him and his daughter based on what I thought they may enjoy about Jamaica.

It turned out to be a very special tour of Jamaica for all of us and one excellent Jamaica vacation for Reinhold and Ana. One of the first questions Reinhold asked me about Negril was where he could find a good espresso and I told him there were not many options available to those of us used to gourmet coffee shops. Jamaicans don’t actually drink much coffee and the few shops that do offer it do not usually offer any gourmet blends or specialty coffees like espresso. Many of the resorts offer Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee but many more of them cheat and offer the lesser grades such as high mountain and other blends that are not to the same standard as the Blue Mountain brands. I thought he may appreciate a Blue Mountain Coffee Tour but Kingston is a long drive for some coffee and we would need another reason to go that far.

While speaking to his daughter Ana I asked what the reason was for the vacation and how it was they arrived in Jamaica. It seems that mother suggest that father and daughter take a vacation in order to be together more this summer and they ended up on a 16 day adventure from Austria to New York to Jamaica of which they had but a few days left to enjoy before returning home. Reinhold gave her the choice of where they should travel and suggested she choose two options. When she said New York and Jamaica he decided that both places were interesting and they should then go ahead and see them both. Her choice of Jamaica was influenced by her love of Bob Marley and reggae music. This gave us an even better reason to visit Kingston and ended up as the first of two days of adventure which began with the Bob Marley Experience Tour that included stops at the Peter Tosh Museum , the Bob Marley Museum and Ghetto Youths International although we were unable to make it over to Tuff Gong Records or Culture Yard in Trench Town due to time restraints and the decision to visit YS Falls for an extended hike up the falls and photo shoot on the lush property for Ana the aspiring photographer.

The need to reach the Montego Bay airport turned out to be the perfect reason to make the long drive from Spanish Town on the morning of the second day to Ocho Rios crossing the mid section of Jamaica before heading over to Mobay for the early evening flight and the end of our trip. We made the best of it and made dozens of short stops for small bites to eat and photo stops. Ana is vegan and Reinhold will eat only eat vegan or seafood so we enjoyed a number of stops at local eateries and road side cafes for the best in fresh fruit and local seafood cuisine. We had just about every kind of fruit in season from fresh cut pineapple and mangoes in Sav La Mar and pretty much all of Westmoreland Parish to the super sweet honey bananas, guinep or spanish lime as we called them in Key West and sweet sop we found in St Elizabeth and who could forget the best oranges we got in Porus and Manchester Parish. It’s always a pleasure to drive that much of Jamaica as you get to experience the very best that each community offers at the almost endless roadside vendors, cook shops and beer joints. Of course we had peppa shrimp in Middle Quarters and the fried fish and bammy in Scotts Cove but we also stopped a small road side fire that offered up some of the best vegetable stew I have ever had with a big cup full off farm fresh vegetables served steaming hot and packed with enough flavor and spices to break you out in a sweat. All of these were washed down with fresh squeezed juices we purchased along the way as well as the usual assortment of my favorite Tru Juice brands and of course a Ting for a carbonated shot of Jamaican Grapefruit to beat the heat as we drove in the summer sun.

I think it turned out to be an unforgettable experience for them both and I have no doubts that Reinhold and Ana enjoyed their last two days taking in much of the beauty of Jamaica in a whirlwind tour from Negril to Kingston to Ocho Rios with a final destination at the Montego Bay airport as they boarded the flight home to end their vacation. Everything timed out just about perfect and they reached the airport in Mobay with just minutes to spare after enjoying a final meal at the Jamaica Bobsled Restaurant on the Hip Strip in downtown Montego Bay.

After a some deliberations the decision was made to make it a two day adventure tour across Jamaica starting out in Negril and heading out over the south coast with an overnight stay in Kingston before the second days trip from Spanish Town to Ocho Rios and across the north coast where they had a flight at 8PM.

The first day would be very much like our standard South Coast Jamaica Tours except that after leaving the YS Falls property around lunch time on the first day we headed over to Kingston for the Bob Marley Museum Tour instead of Appleton as we do on many of the South Coast Jamaica Tours we do for people that are interested in the 200+ year history of rum in Jamaica. This not only takes us past the Holland Bamboo Avenue which everyone loves to see but on to Santa Cruz and Mandeville up high in the Jamaica hills where things are a little colder and life seems to slow down even more. We pass through a number of residential communities on this leg of the tour and get to see what the real Jamaica looks like with some real culture for those interested in seeing how the average person lives in Jamaica. Much of this area seems like the rest to some people and we did not make many stops here until we reached downtown Kingston on our way to the Marley Museum.

The Bob Marley Museum is a moving experience for any reggae fan when you realize just how important a man Bob Marley was and what an international influence his music has been. The Bob Marley Museum was a wonderful introduction to Bob Marley for Reinhold who knew very little about the reggae musician and his history or the rastafarian culture his 13 year old daughter was being exposed to through her friends and their musical influences. Reinhold was impressed with how much there was at the museum and he seemed glad for the opportunity to understand more. I feel he left with a clearer picture of who Bob Marley was and how great his musical influence has been not only on Jamaica but the entire world.

The final decision to stay up in the mountains allowed us to stay at an actual Jamaican coffee plantation in the Blue Mountains where we hiked to the peak of a privately owned mountain and witnessed some of the best vista views in Jamaica. We rented a room in the Jamaica Blue Mountains at Forres Park which is located on the road to Hagley Gap and the last township on the way to the Blue Mountain Peak. Hagley Gap and the peak where visible from our veranda whenever there was a break in the clouds which came up on us early in the morning as we were hiking and created a wonderful visual experience well beyond that of the capabilities of my camera and my photography skills. I wish my photos did justice to the depth of the landscape and far off mountain tops and the rays of sunlight and color busting through holes in the clouds but this was the best I could get in between small rain squalls that hit us as we neared the top and threatened to soak us and our equipment but were suddenly dashed away when the sun came raging through and remained for the rest of the afternoon.

Forres Park is such a nice place it is deserving of its own article and series of photos. Check back for those soon. After we took the morning hike to the Forres Park peak we took an even more treacherous decent on the now slippery and steep trail with hairpin turns that dropped off forever down the side of the mountain. It was tricky but we made it down just in time for a wonderful breakfast of ackee and saltfish and the best cup of coffee in the world before we made the trip back down into Kingston for some photo stops and on to the drive over to Spanish Town and the A3 highway that crosses from the south coast over the central highlands and north to Ocho Rios.

There are a number of stops in this area as well as directions that we could have gone and with more time there are quite a few things to see and do in this part of Jamaica. If we had more time we had the option of heading over to St Anns and the Bob Marley Mausoleum but Reinhold and Ana decided we had enough of Bob Marley for this tour and we chose instead to head straight for Ocho Rios. This brought us further up the North Coast and kept us on the main highway for most of the afternoon. This part of Jamaica is rich and fertile and the roads are dotted with as many fresh fruit stands that offer the very best that each parish or community has to offer as there are fresh fruits to be eaten. The farm fresh produce is reason enough to travel through areas like this if you love food as much as I do. Before we reach Ocho Rios we pass through Walkers Wood which is home to the WalkersWood spice company which produces an island favorite line of spices and sauces for cooking the most delicious foods on the island including jerk and brown stew delicacies that are so popular in Jamaica.

We enjoyed more time hiking in the Blue Mountains than I had originally planned and this cut into the time we had for attractions on the North Coast of Jamaica. The beauty of a customized tour itinerary is that you can make any changes you wish and not be bothered by what a bus full of strangers want to do. Upon arrival in Ocho Rios we passed through Fern Gully which is home to 100′s of varieties on fern plants all laid out in an old river gorge converted to highway that gives the feeling that you are driving in a tropical rainforest as the trees tower high above the road up the sides of the old river gorge. Fern Gully drops us right into the center of Ochi and allowed us to take a loop around the main part of town before we headed out onto the A2 highway towards Mobay.

Ocho Rios is a tourist town and many of the attractions besides the beaches and Dunns River are actually outside of town. Ocho Rios and Montego Bay are not my favorite parts of Jamaica and I feel the entire north coast in general offers a very artificial Jamaican experience full of cliches and bland boring flavor. Reinhold was never the less impressed with the overall development of the northern coast and the amount of high end living available. He was able to view the paradox that is Jamaica and see giant concrete homes laid out next door or across the street from zinc shacks and board houses in what must be one of the most blatant examples of the gap between rich and poor one can see in the world.

I really enjoy the Cranbrook Flower Forest and I had planned to stop there just to see the Jade Vine but sadly the vine was not in bloom and that caused us to skip the rest of the tour in favor of spending more time in Montego Bay before arriving at the airport. If we had time I also planned to make a stop on the Martha Brae River Rafting Tour but we made the decision to skip this as well in favor of a nice long dinner in Mobay before they had to catch their return flight home.

On this trip we took our time driving straight across the north caost to end up at the Hip Strip in Montego Bay where we stopped by the Jamaican Bobsled Cafe for a dinner that turned out to be fabulous and a final conversation with what are now my new friends in Austria. After two days of conversation on everything from travel and the cultural differences between us to cycling, sustainable development, passive solar construction, the necessity of money in the structure of society, the power of religion and the many problems our world faces I feel that we are sure to meet again and this is the beginning of a great friendship.

We drove past a lot of things on this tour of Jamaica but we can plan a custom Jamaica tour and vacation for you and your party so that on your next Jamaican vacation you can see just about all of the variety that Jamaica has to offer and every major city just like Reinhold and Ana did on the last two days of theirs.

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to the first show in the One Love Concert Series held at Negril Escape Resort and Spa and it was one of the best reggae concerts in Negril that I have seen in the two years that I have been living in Jamaica. Jamaicans love music and there have been literally 100′s of shows to see but to be truthful they can often times be aggravating to say the least.

From chatty DJ’s who just can’t let a song play for more than 30 seconds which of course makes it impossible to catch a groove and dance with to the hours and hours of delays and endless technical issues most shows are plagued with because of low grade equipment or inexperienced technicians and ending with the worst the no show artists who never make it on stage because they are not there or the show gets shut down for running to late. It’s unreal to me how messed up some music shows in Negril can actually be and in many ways it really takes away from the overall experience.

Jamaicans love to party hard and late with many events not even starting until 10PM and running well past the 2am curfew occasionally enforced by zealous police officers who will shut an event down sometimes before the promoters and artists even get them started. I cannot tell you how many times I have expected to see a Jamaican artist at a reggae show in Jamaica and I ended up leaving home early in the morning of the next day wondering how things ended up so. I have even wondered to myself on one or two occasions if the artist was ever going to show up at all.

I went to a Vybz Kartel show at Club Scrub A Dub and it was 2 hours behind schedule when gun shots went off outside the club and a hail of rocks and debris were tossed over the fence at the police force who immediately shut the show down and evacuated everyone. About 200 people ran out and fled the scene and of course the promoters kept all the money for a show that never was. Imagine how much money you can make it you dont actually have to pay the artist but instead pay a couple gangsters to pop some shots. Sounds off the wall but not in Jamaica.

The reggae concerts held at Negril Escape are far and away a different experience and one I can guarantee you will enjoy. To begin with the show starts promptly at 8PM and end by midnight which makes it so you can still stand up when the main artist hits the stage and at this show people were actually dancing rather than simply swaying to the beat. At 2am it can be a little harder to get motivated by reggae music but there was no problem at the Negril Escape shows because by 2am I was well asleep. Many of the people at the show were guests of the resort and many of them commented on how convenient it was to watch a reggae concert on the edge of the Caribbean Sea and then have the luxury of walking a few steps to your room after a night cap at the seaside bar and restaurant.

The first show in the series featured headline artist Queen Ifrica with her friend Fyahkin along with local Negril artist Edge Michael and DJ Gemini who kicked things off on the turntables with some high energy mixing of top reggae hits to get the crowd warmed up. Edge Michael is a popular Westmoreland musician with a number of hit songs in rotation on the local radio stations and his performance at Tuesday nights show was crystal clean and reflective of the maturity and experience this young artist has gained in the last year. Edge Michael is great singer and stage performer but his real talent may be in self promotion and marketing as you can see his face in about a zillion places from Black River to Mobay and all parts in between.

This show was my first experience listening to Fyahkin perform and I was impressed with his vocal abilities and stage prescience which were strong but not over powering as so many young Jamaican males can be. It’s strange to me how often a young artist will come out on stage screaming out unintelligible lyrics that not even most Jamaicans can understand in the confused belief that noise makes them seem more powerful.

The backing band was also very impressive and a great improvement over the regular house band used in so many shows around Negril. I won’t give out there name because they are friends of mine but it’s a bit tiring to hear the same band play at so many locations in Negril. For the longest time I thought there was only one keyboard player in the whole of Negril because this one guy was so popular. What I found out later was he was the cheapest and one of the few who had his own keyboard. This show was much better and the band held their own for a great acoustic set and even got compliments from Queen Ifrica who commented on how well they performed and how it inspired her to push herself. You can see in the attached video on YouTube that the band did a great job and the bass player should be complimented for his ability to play so well with Ifrica during her many rap sessions.

Queen Ifrica is well known as a Rasta Lioness who writes and sings songs of empowerment for the women and underprivileged youth of Jamaica. She is very proud of her African heritage and a force on the rasta music scene both locally and on an international level as well. Her style is unique and influenced by the very best in roots reggae with an infusion of hip hop and rap that makes her a cross over in many genres. The crowd reflected this with her many fans from places like Russia, Canada, Italy, America and of course Jamaica all singing along word for word with her more popular songs and clapping and dancing along as she performed some of her new material on the recently released new album titled “Montego Bay”.

Queen Ifrica performed at Reggae Sumfest (yes I went and I am still writing articles and processing video on that) and there was a huge difference in her two sets with this being more up close and personal. Queen Ifrica seemed to appreciate that and she made contact with just about everyone in attendance in some way or another. The Negril Escape is a great setting for a show and the layout is such that everyone gets a great view of the stage and you almost feel like its a private show when the artist is so close. Ifrica took things further by coming out from back stage well before her scheduled performance where she spent time mingling on the edges of the crowd signing autographs and posing for photogrpahs before she ever sang a tune and then she spent at least an hour making sure to sign every autograph and taking every photo her fans wanted. It worked out well as she must have sold over 50 CD’s that she sat and signed and of course the fans were ecstatic to be able to get so close to her.

I never do understand how some people can go to a show and then stand a mile away from the stage and watch a giant TV screen to see the show. For me its aways best to get as close to the artist as possible so you can feel the energy and emotion they put into their music and the One Love Concert Series is the perfect place for that. The Negril Escape Resort and Spa is located on the Negril Cliffs and unlike many shows on the beach you can actually experience the natural beauty of watching a show on the waters edge without the interruption of a fence and security guards to keep out the beach people and idlers who want to catch a free show. At Negril Escape you get to watch the show under the watchful eyes of the moon and stars with nothing in the way but the cool sea breeze.

I look forward to the rest of the series with next weeks show featuring Luciano and my good friend and local artist Timmi Burrel. If you are in Negril and looking for a great reggae show then you must check out the One Love Concerts held Tuesday nights in season at Negril Escape. They have over 20 shows scheduled this year and it makes for a great reggae vacation when you book reservations based on your choice for the best show and your favorite reggae artist. With top names like Queen Ifrica, Luciano and Etana to name but a few it seems the place to be for live reggae music in Negril is the Negril Escape Resort and Spa which is putting on the best run shows with high grade talent in the perfect setting.

Check out the Negril Escape Facebook page or their website for more details and where to book your Jamaican reggae vacation.