Jamaican me Crazy - the Finale

All week I was dying to go on an excursion.  Our travel agent told me prior that we could book excursions off-site there at the resort, but she would recommend staying put.  Jay was all about staying put.  His philosophy was that we had paid to be at a 5-star resort, why would we want to leave it?  I understood what he was saying, but I really, really wanted to see something else.  Finally, I won and we booked a half-day tour to the Dunns River Falls in Ocho Rios.

We got on a large van with our group and away we went on our last full-day there.  Our tour guide, Latoya, was sweet and it was her birthday.  She gave us lots of information about the culture and the locals.  I enjoyed learning a little bit about the country.  We stopped at a gift shop along the way and bought a few souvenirs and water shoes for Jay.  You could not go on the water falls tour without water shoes.  Fortunately, they sold them everywhere...ya think?

We caught on to the fact that everything was connected.  For instance, at this gift shop another tour bus had stopped.  When we bought something, we had to tell the cashier the name of our tour guide. We weren't going to stop and eat anywhere, we had to order our food on the bus from the tour guide.  She and the bus driver went somewhere while we were at the falls to get the food.  We noticed on the way back to the resort, our tour guide had two large bottles of Rum in a bag that she had not had before.  Do you catch my drift?

Carvings are on the back.

Latoya told us not to take anything with us on the falls tour.  "You don't need money or anything, just leave it on the bus."  We did.  Upon exiting the falls, you are escorted through a market with vendors and peddlers every five feet.  You cannot escape it. (Much like Disney and their gift shop traps.)  One really nice guy in a Dunns River Falls Yellow Staff shirt stopped and talked to us.  Because he had on the staff shirt, I assumed he was okay.  He had a carving instrument in one hand and these two wooden heads in another.  Before we knew what was happening, he had carved our names into the wood, put notations on it about our 20th Anniversary and we owed him money.  We explained to him, we didn't bring money.  "No problem, mon.  I follow you to the bus."  And I kid you not, he disappeared and beat us to our bus!  We saw other similar situations with the rest of the group.  It was common practice.  I think Latoya tried to warn us without saying too much, but we were naive. We did come home with a custom-made set of tribal heads or something though...

The River Falls were gorgeous, no question.  I couldn't imagine what it was going to be like beforehand.  But it was like what you might think - you are simply climbing up a gradual water fall as the water is pounding down from above.  Sometimes the currents were quite strong.  The rocks were rounded and not sharp, which I appreciated.

Funny thing - when we began at the bottom, our guide has us hold hands, all of us, and go in a line.  It was much like taking a kindergarten class to the park.  I was cracking up, holding hands with complete strangers while trying to stay upright on these rocks.  He was trying to keep us on the same path, I know, but it was still funny and kind of hard to manage at times.  My instinct is not to grab a stranger, but to grab Jay!

Missed it - he's peeking behind the tree.

They told me repeatedly to leave my camera behind.  As we were beginning the ascent, I said, "Will I get wet head-to-toe?"  "Well, not if you don't want to."  "Okay, I'll keep my camera, thank you."  I tucked it in down my swimsuit in my chest area and it remained dry.  There was only one place it might have been problem - had I wanted to go down a small waterslide.  I did not, but Jay did...and I just missed him.  (I'm not the best photographer on the planet.)

Along with our tour guide was a photographer/videographer.  They were happy to put a small DVD together at the end for the whole group to purchase.  It was probably a nice keepsake, but we were happy with the photos we got.  And our guide was nice enough to oblige us a few times and take pictures of us so we had a couple together.

I am usually not thrilled with getting in water unless it's about bath temperature.  This water wasn't too bad.  I'm still kind of surprised I did it without hesitation.  (Or maybe I knew to keep my mouth shut because Jay was not happy about the whole thing!)

This picture to the left reminds me of a fake background because it looks too perfect, but I assure you it is real!  This is my favorite picture from our whole trip.  It is going in the picture frame I bought at the airport...even though Jay says I could probably have ordered it online from China a little cheaper.  (This from someone who didn't bring swim trunks and bought them at the resort...)

We made it all the way up!

The picture at the end of the Falls was hilarious.  We had watched this Asian family take gobs and gobs of photos with this super fancy-looking camera.  The dad would position himself just so and click away.  They were standing there when we got to the end with the big sign everyone wanted a picture in front of.  I asked, or he offered, to take our picture.  He took three.  What was so funny - he did not even have the camera pointed at us.  By the third picture, I wasn't sure we were in any of them, but what do you say?  The final picture was by far the best, even though slightly off center.  He must have found the scenery more interesting than us.

Beef & cheese patty

I mentioned lunch on the bus ride back...Our choices were jerk pork with rice or meat patties (chicken, beef or beef and cheese).  I ordered a beef and cheese patty and Jay ordered the jerk pork with rice.  I had no idea what I was getting but figured you can't go wrong with beef and cheese.  Latoya described the patty as a hot pocket, and it was similar to that.  The texture was a tad weird, but I devoured it because I was hungry.  It came with this huge piece of coconut bread (delicious). I thought that was odd because the patty was already in a pastry.  After I had eaten a little of my bread, Latoya told us that the proper way to eat the beef patty was to put it inside the huge chunk of bread - like a sandwich.  WOW.  This is when she also told us, "We don't diet in Jamaica."  Yeah, no kidding - just try to find a Diet Pepsi around there, impossible!

Jerk pork & rice - FIRE, FIRE!

Jay loved the Jerk pork and rice, although it was definitely the spiciest he had eaten.  Latoya warned us that the Jerk meat we had had at the resort was nothing compared to the "real" authentic local stuff.

We were ready to be back at the resort and in our spot near the pool.  It was a decent experience, but I understood what our agent was saying, just stay put.

Before I wrap this up, I was worried about getting good water to drink while I was down there.  We had a fridge in our room and it was stocked daily with whatever we wanted, we just had to ask.  I asked immediately upon arriving for bottled water.  They didn't disappoint.  I got water, and not just any water...I got the good stuff, pure Jamaican WATA!

When nothing but Wata will do

If you couldn't tell from my Jamaican Me Crazy posts, we absolutely loved our trip to Jamaica and our stay at the Iberostar.  I will admit that I was very nervous that it would not live up to my expectations based on what we had spent.  We'd never done anything like this before and we wanted a good one. It was quite the experience and well worth it.  We do hope to go back some day again.

Our final picture before departing the resort.

 Our return trip home was almost as frustrating as our trip to Jamaica.  Our flight was delayed slightly in Jamaica thanks to something going on in Charlotte (again).  We finally boarded only to have to sit there for 30 minutes because of some default switch that needed reset.  I do appreciate safety, so I tried to remain calm, but there was no way we would catch our connecting flight to Indy in Charlotte.  We only had an hour layover and had to claim our bags and go through customs again.  There were many of us on that flight who missed connecting flights.

We developed a plan and hit fast-forward.  We made it to the front of the line at the airline counter and got on the next flight to Indy, which was less than a two-hour wait.  In hindsight, it's probably the flight we should have been on to begin with.  (Afterwards when I was telling our travel agent all of this, she said, "That never happens both ways."  Obviously, you haven't traveled with the Wilhoit's!) We were back home only a couple hours later than expected and our kids were still awake waiting on us.  It was good to be home and see those stinkers!

We appreciated the help we had from friends and grandparents while we were away.  It made it easier knowing our kids were being taken care of.  With technology today, I was able to communicate with family and Facetime Madolyn a couple times.

Now, when can we leave again and return where there are no problems, only solutions?

Yea mon!