One of the few Caribbean islands remaining on our "must see" list was Jamaica, so we skipped out of a Canadian January for a week to experience the island, it's food and especially it's sunshine!  Now that we have a toddler, we no longer feel the need (nor have the energy!) to rent a car and explore every nook and cranny of the new places we go.  Little Magnus doesn't take kindly to spending a whole day lashed into a car seat, so our trip consisted of many walks on the beach and many hours spent in hammocks looking and listening to the ocean, while the young fellow kept himself busy exploring the grounds, chasing stray dogs around, and just enjoying the newness of everything.  Along with our friends Deb and Darren, we rented a beautiful beach house in the town of Duncans, which is midway between Montego Bay and Ocho Rios on the north coast.  The house came complete with two lovely Jamaican ladies who took care of all the cooking, cleaning and shopping for us, making it a very low maintenance holiday.

The People

Spending time in small, out of the way places instead of popular tourist areas will almost always give you the chance to meet genuine, kind locals.  The people we met in Duncans were without exception very friendly and outgoing.  The owners of the house left us with an information sheet introducing many of the "local characters" we may run into.  And Jamaicans do have interesting names and nicknames, such as Sifton, Ringo, and Dougy Fresh.  The only place we encountered some less than friendly people were at the airport and the airport shops.  It just confirms our belief that by and large,  excessive tourist traffic tend to spoil whatever it tramples on... which makes us more than a little hypocritical, considering we've put tracks all over the world.

Things to Know 

We got nothing but conflicting stories when we researched the money situation before we left.  "Take US dollars", "Credit cards don't work", "Nobody pays in Jamaican dollars", "Don't change money at the airport", etc.  Here's what we found.  The local currency is Jamaican dollars, as of January 2005, the rate was 55 Jamaican dollars to one Canadian dollar.  We took Canadian dollars with us and changed it at the airport in Montego Bay where we got the rate of 50, not too bad.  We also took American cash along, which worked out well.  During our time there, we found that the local craftsman, fisherman, taxis and dive shops all accepted either Jamaican or American dollars.  The grocery stores took Jamaican only.  We didn't end up needing any more cash while we were there so didn't have to find a bank machine.  We also didn't use credit cards for anything, besides the dive shop, but it seemed that the tourist places accepted them while local shops probably didn't.

We were a little surprised at the lack of development on the island.  Since it's such a popular tourist destination we assumed it would be as developed as some of the other Caribbean countries, though this appears to not be the case.  Considering the main road traversing the north coast was completely beaten up, I can imagine how bad the inner island roads are.

Where to Stay

We stayed at a house called "Island Breeze", which can be found on www.javillas.com.  It's owned by an American couple and is very well kept up.  Have a look at the pictures on the right to get a sense of the gorgeous surroundings...

Where to Eat

We didn't go out for a single meal while we were there so not much to report here as far as restaurants go.  But we can tell you that the food cooked by our housekeeper was absolutely fantastic!  We had peas and rice, crab, lobster, jerk pork and chicken, ackee, breadfruit, and those yummy fried plantains with every meal.

Things to See and Do

Once again, we weren't exactly ambitious when it came to getting out and seeing the sights.  The Island Breeze was right next to a small fishing village so we made friends with some of the fishermen and I was able to go out with them fishing two mornings.  One day we did deep sea fishing (had a big one on but didn't stay on!) and the next I helped them check their traps.  We caught four big crabs so I bought those off them and we ate them for supper - that's fresh!

We also went diving at the dive shop at Pebbles resort.  The dive was quite good and we actually saw two huge nurse sharks which was quite a thrill.

Maybe next time we'll be able to see more but what can I say - it was a week of lots of relaxation and not too much scurrying around!