Jamaica

This January, my parents decided to take my sister and I to Jamaica. We flew out of Charlotte, NC on New Years Day which was a struggle, but landed in Montego Bay, Jamaica. We landed at nighttime and drove around 100 miles South through the mountains of the island. This equated to about a 2 hour ride in the car. This wasn’t the most comfortable ride either. We were in a small compact Toyota and every person in the car including the driver had bags on their laps the whole way through. We made multiple stops to get gas and food, but arrived safely (but terrified). The whole car ride was through dark, tiny roads though the deep foliage, where every couple of miles we were stopped by military checkpoints with where soldiers inspected the car with M-16s. My dad said trip in the car took off two years of his life with all of the stress he went though. The driver was swerving in and out of potholes, barely missing oncoming traffic but to him it was an everyday occurrence and was unshaken. We spend our vacation in Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica, right off of the coast in a hut with a palm roof and all local wood. It was truly and experience. Not being in an all-inclusive was probably the best decision my parents made on the trip, as the conversations and experiences we had with locals was unmatched. We were a 5 minute walk from a bar right on the beach, and multiple small fishing boats were docked here as well. One day we decided to take a trip to the Pelican Bar. If you haven’t heard of it or seen it, please look it up. This is a tiki-style bar built on a sandbar in the middle of the ocean. It is the coolest restaurant/bar I have ever been to. After doing this we proceeded to check out Black River. I could go into detail for hours, but my favorite part about visiting Jamaica is the complete change in culture and attitude. Yes, Jamaica has a high crime rate, but you would never know from visiting the small peaceful beach town that I stayed in. It was like life had hit it’s pause button, and this was the intermission. Quite an experience if I do say so myself.