Jamaica was my first international trip. I got the invitation to go from my friend Lucas, whose parents kindly offered to cover the expenses if I paid for my own plane ticket. I booked the same itinerary so that we could travel together. Lucas’s brother and sister, and brother’s friend, also came along for the trip. A friend of their family was opening a resort and it wasn’t ready to open to the public, but it had enough of the basic amenities that we had a comfortable stay there. The place (pictured below) had a pool, and we spent a few days lounging around there reading, cooling off in the pool, playing dominos, and talking.
The rooms were pretty simple, but I remember being excited about there being banana trees in the yard. This was back in my senior year of high school and I had never been anywhere tropical before. I spent some time in this room reading Albert Camus’ The Stranger.
The place was perched up on the hill near the town of Whitehouse. It had a great view overlooking the Caribbean, and we caught some amazing sunsets.
We hiked down to the sea to swim and snorkel a couple times. It was shallow and sandy, with eel grass beds, and quite a few sea urchins to navigate. It was my first time swimming in saltwater and these swims were a definite highlight of the trip.
We also hiked up the road leading into the mountains. From that vantage point we got some different views of the surrounding landscape.
We ate seafood, rice, and veggie dinners at the under-construction resort, but I also remember grabbing a meal or two from road side restaurants, which were wooden shacks painted in the most vibrant colors.
After a few days and nights in Whitehouse we caught a van ride to Negril, where we spent a couple more days to close out our trip. The next four photos are just random pictures I took from the van as we drove west to Negril. We passed burned areas, sugar cane fields, the town of Savanna la Mar, and views of the forested interior mountains.
Once we got to Negril we stopped at this jerk shack for lunch.
Our hotel for the last few nights:
Is it a trip to Negril if you don’t visit Rick’s Café? This hopping spot is famous for the cliff jumping. The water is ultra clear and deep and jumping off the 35-foot cliff is a rush of adrenaline.
We also spent a day chilling on the sandy beaches of Negril. There were a lot of peddlers selling all sorts of goods, but the swimming was good because the water there wasn’t full of urchins and eel grass. We did see stingrays but you could see them from a distance.
One of the evenings in Negril we went to a bar (I was old enough to drink legally, there) and had my first adult drinks… a Smirnoff ice and a mai tai. I remember running on the barefoot on the beach in the dark on the way back to our rooms, trying to balance on the line between wet and dry in the wave swash.
At the end of the trip our driver returned us to Montego Bay to catch our flights home. Compared to my subsequent travels, I had very little control over my itinerary but still had a great time!