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Hello Again, Making your vacation plans?? If you have been reading the previous episodes of my "ramblings", and seen some of the photographs, of the area, you must be thinking of visiting this beautiful Island: and hopefully will include a short trip to my coffee plantation, to see it all for yourselves! Pick and process your very own coffee, and take it home with you, season allowing: best time for your coffee processing, is February to mid April, around Easter time, which is also the best of the years' weather! It really is as beautiful as the pictures indicate: the north coast, whilst it does not boast the world famous beaches of Montego Bay, and Negril, has miles and miles of almost deserted beaches, some of them a bit stony, but all lapped by the warm, blue, Caribbean sea: you are never more than a few minutes drive from a "rum shack" or small restaurant, many actually on the beach: excellent food, and very inexpensive! ( at least: by "tourist" standards!! ).
The local fishermen really DO go out fishing in "boats" like this. Made from a few bamboo canes, lashed together with rope, and you can eat their catch, in many of the little eateries, along the coast: fish comes no fresher, than this!! With the exception of skiing, and other winter sports, ( we do have an Olympic bobsleigh, team!! ) Jamaica can offer almost any other style of holiday: mountain-bike tours around the Blue Mountains, Circus "training" in one of the hotels, every conceivable beach and water, activity: combined with a world class cuisine, our excellent, locally brewed, Red Stripe beer; very smooth, vintage Rum, and the worlds best coffee! From non-stop partying; to total relaxation: from some of the best tropical beaches in the world, to the cool, relaxing atmosphere, found in the Mountains. Several friends who have visited Jamaica, as part of a Caribbean cruise holiday; have all been very disappointed: too much hassling to get you to part with your money in the duty free shops on the wharf, and not sufficient time to get to see any of the incredible beauty of the Island, much of which is hidden, away from the cruise ports. But, to be fair, they had similar comments about most of the ports they visited! The Island is not huge, and it is about a 7.5 hour ( at touring speed, or about 5.5 hours at "business" speed ) drive from one end to the other, and with a rental car, 3 or 4 pre-booked hotels, you can explore vast amounts of the Island, and see much of the beautiful land, that is this Island. You can find a whole lot of interesting holiday information, at: www.my-island-jamaica.com definitely one of the very best websites around. Timing:- Kingston, and the coastal/beach resorts, have real Tropical weather, year round: up here in the mountains, "winter" can get a bit chilly at night, occasionally dropping into the mid 50'sF. The only time to try and avoid, is the peak of the hurricane season ( mid July, to mid October ) unless, you actually want to experience a hurricane!! If our coffee, is going to be an important part of your trip: the best time is between Christmas and Easter: if you come and visit my plantation, you will be able to see, first hand, the way we pick and process the coffee. My recommendation, would be around Easter: just before the last of the coffee crop is picked, and as we are getting into the summer weather, daytime and we are into the low 80'sF, with it dropping to the mid 60'sF, overnight. One of the things that keeps coming up, when people are thinking about a Jamaican holiday: is the reputation the Island has for violence, and killings. Taken out of context, the murder rate in Jamaica, is very high: but, when you put it in the context of a Jamaican holiday, NO PROBLEM!!! It is almost unknown for any foreigners, or tourists, to be in any way involved in these problems, it appears to be confined to the big cities, the local street drug gangs, fighting each other, over "turf": and the recent police clamp-down, has nearly halved the number of instances of shootings and killings. In the 7 plus years I have been in Jamaica, I have found only one incident ( reported in the Gleaner ) of a tourist being killed: the father of the 11 year old girl he was "abusing" in his hotel room, found out, and a quick bit of "jungle justice", delivered via a very sharp machete!! Nor did the "pimp" escape unscathed!! Street crime ( muggings, pick-pockets, etc ) are no greater than in any other tourist destination, anywhere in the world: and by world standards, I would say, it is considerably lower, than in many other Countries.
Good news for all our English readers, we drive on the right side of the road ( right [ = correct, and proper ] as opposed to the "wrong" [ right-hand ] side ) but the bad news; Jamaican drivers consider that they are the ONLY road user, and have the "innate right" to constantly practise for the Olympic gold medal, in the "worst driver" competition!!! SO:- be very careful on the roads!! In my experience, they still have a long way to go, to even get in the same league, as London or New York, taxi drivers!! The local language is English, mixed with Patois: which is basically English, but almost incomprehensible to a non patios, speaker: everyone can hear and understand basic English, but many of them are unable to "speek" it. Jamaican Patois ( sometimes called "Creole" ) is unique to Jamaica: it is a fusion of the native languages of the slaves brought over from Africa, and 17th century English: virtually all native Jamaicans are bi-lingual, and can understand both languages, but the "less well educated", speek only Patois. Patois has some special "rules"; the letter H is almost non existent IN a word; but has to be added to the front of most words beginning with a vowel, and heavily emphasised [ eg. Everton, is speeked Hev'a'tun ] "th" becomes "d" ( this = dis, that = dat ) and word-sounds are "compressed ( what is going on? is speeked as wazza-gwaan? ). Plural words are most interesting: "the dog" ( di dog ); plural; "the dogs" becomes "di dog, dem", and after several years, I still have great problems understanding at least half of what they speek!! Written Patois, has no dictionary, it is just written down, as close as possible to the way it is speeked. One of the compounding problems, is that they all speek so fast, with not the trace of a gap between the words: a great advantage when using a mobile phone, squashing the words into half the "normal" time, and saving their precious phone credit!! Among the "craziest" of recent ideas; to translate the Bible, into Patois!! Crazy, because the only group of Jamaicans, who would benefit, would be those who have problems understanding English: the very group of people, who, being illiterate, would not be able to read it!! But: it does lead to some quite amusing "translations": John 11 v 35: "Jesus wept". In Patois, this becomes: "Jesus puddin' a piece o' bawlin". { my spell-cheque, is going to love this!!!! } As a holiday destination, Jamaica is not only one of the most beautiful of the Caribbean Islands, but can boast one of the very best "ranges" of alternative types of holidays: eco-tourism is rapidly becoming one of the fastest growing sectors of the range of holidays on offer.
Until next time, Robin Plough, friend of www.coffee4dummies.com For questions about JBM, mail to: Этот e-mail адрес защищен от спам-ботов, для его просмотра у Вас должен быть включен Javascript |
A Visit to Paradise
A Visit to Paradise
A fishing boat, on a beach on the North coast.
The Bob Marley Museum, in Kingston.
The full moon about to set behind the mountains, just as dawn is beginning to break.
