We did, eventually, talk with the hotel, find out that we were in the wrong room, and get our new room assigned to us. This being the first "big" trip for both of us, many of our pictures are of the hotel and the room, and the view. We also took pictures when we went on some of the excursions - although we are now completely befuddled as to what they might be. More later on this.
After settling into our proper room, we had a day or so to lounge before we made our first trip off the resort. At this point in time, I no longer remember which of the trips we made first, so I'll just cover them as I think of them.
Dunn's River Falls was certainly one of the more memorable parts of the trip, if for no other reason than the visit consists largely of climbing the falls - about 500 feet or so up. The climb itself isn't so bad, it's the fact that the water is absolutely freezing. I'm still not convinced this isn't some sort of prank the Jamaicans play on the tourists. There's steps for the less adventurous, but I'd have to say it was fun for the price, which the guidebook says was $3 for adults at the time. I'd imagine prices have gone up since then.
We also went rafting down the Martha Brae, which is where we got one of our more memorable souvenirs, although, regrettably, few pictures remain of the whole experience, and the ones that do are of random trees that our raft guide pointed out as we went down the river. To be fair, they weren't random at the time, but by the time we got home and got the pictures developed, we had no idea what sort of trees they were. The guy poling our raft down the river carved a gourd with a nice picture for us and we still have it today - one of the few souvenirs that has stood the test of time.
The "Evening on the River" left something to be desired, in my opinion. Again, this is my recollection of something from nearly 20 years ago, so things may have changed immensely since, but the evening started well enough, with another boat ride across a Jamaican river, arriving at the site of the evening's entertainment. I recall a band, a kind of contortionist act, a fire juggler, and there may have been a few other acts. There were also several tables/booths where you could buy various trinkets and doodads. There were also several people encouraging people to "party", and taking them out in the woods before bringing them back strangely blissed out with bloodshot eyes. I think the thing that was the downer was the fact that after the entertainment stopped, you were expected to just hang out there for another couple of hours either drinking rum punch, or perhaps buying more from the booths, or maybe just heading out into the woods. I'm still not entirely sure what the deal was, although we managed to find the hotel shuttle and head back.
One last set of recollections, and then I'll move on. On one of our last days, we headed to Rose Hall Plantation, which I thought was one of the more interesting excursions of the trip. We ended up walking from our resort to Rose Hall, and this time, a guy on a motorcycle saw us, stopped and asked if we were looking for weed. Answering in the negative, we made it to the plantation without any further interference. The plantation was somewhat interesting, and is made more interesting by the old stories that go with it, but was certainly insightful for the historical context.
Next time, my overall thoughts and observations on the whole trip.
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