Port Antonio, Jamaica

 

Jamaica                                                                     Tuesday, March 15                       

Wake up this morning and find one of the prettiest ports we’ve seen which was definitely a surprise.  From the boat it looked like we were at the doorstep of a small European fishing village.  Not sure what I was expecting on this one, but it wasn’t this.  It was another bubble port today meaning you had to have a ship tour or a government sanctioned tour.  We had a ship tour scheduled so off we went.

There had not been a huge number of options, but we had found something called the “Great Huts Nature Walk”.  Now, sometimes the description of the tour is excellent, and sometimes it does not convey what you will actually be doing.  This was one of the latter. 

Our bus took us out of the beautiful port, and two blocks later we saw what had been more expected: much more poverty, very crowded and busy conditions.  Our road was in miserable shape once we left the town.  Jamaica is another very green island.  Forty-five minutes of bouncing in the back of the mini-bus took us to our walk.  It turned out to be a sort of eco lodge.  It was the first visit to the property by our guides, which should have been sort of a warning.  The “Great Huts” concept was that this was sort of a mock up of a West African village. 

A Jewish doctor from the USA had created the concept and designed it.  Nature walk was an optimistic description of our walk through the property.  There were a variety of named rooms housing from one to seven persons.  There was a spectacular overlook of cliffs and the ocean.  There was a boardwalk along the cliffs but we did not get to take much of it.  There were two small swimming pools and a lodge with four rooms where you could host a conference.  The African themed decoration, pottery and furniture was interesting and furnished from the doctor’s many visits to western Africa or built by local artisans.  The non-nature walk lasted about twenty minutes and we returned to the restaurant where they decided we would get fed even though that had not been on the tour description.  We waited 45 minutes for lunch to be served, ate, returned to the bus then bounced our way back to the ship.  Hmm. 

Important to note - take a close look and see these are very long fingers on hands that are holding this chair

On the way back we saw a huge mansion that was described by our guide as belonging to Forbes’ “15^th wealthiest black man in the world.” 

The owner is Jamaican and his world ranking was a point of pride for the guide.  I’m still unpacking how I feel about the description of the owner, the need for that particular description, and how people in different places relate to concepts of wealth and race.