Sunday, July 19, 2009

Arriving in Jamaica

We were so excited to pull into Jamaica. I have never been there before and was looking forward to it. The country was beautiful from the ship, beautiful water and lush, green mountains. If you click on the picture below, you will see a lady that must have been here before! We all had the same expression getting back on the ship. As soon as we left the boat, everyone was trying to sell us "Ganga". They would not leave us alone, begging for money and trying to sell drugs.
This was what we saw in "downtown" Jamaica. Nasty, dirty, and nothing pretty about it. We were on a bus and when they came to a spot in downtown, not one single person would get off the bus. This was one scary country. People from tours have been robbed, and some have just never been seen again.
We went to a private beach and the water was beautiful and the beach was clean. There was a "guard" that kept the natives off the beach and watched over everyone there. We did have a good time at this beach for about 2 hours.
Margaritaville, Jamaica. Not much better than the country. I think there were 2 waiters and the place was packed. This fire eater did put on a show, but I think he had a little help in numbing his mouth to do it.
We were all glad to get back on the ship and leave this country. There were about 100 people that were late getting back on the ship, their bus broke down. For entertainment there was a marching band that played for us for about 45 minutes. People threw coins from the ship and enjoyed the show. We sat on our balcony and enjoyed the show, once again glad to be safe and sound on the ship.

4 comments:

Catherine said...

That looks just a little scary!

Karen Lambert said...

We spent a week in Jamaica at the end of Sept. 01. Everyone there was freaking out because they had a couple of weeks of no American tourists. Tourism is the number one cash crop next to GANGA. So of course they don't tell you about the poverty, high crime rate, etc. They want you there. The average living wage in Jamaica is $36 a week in U.S. $$ and we arein't told that either. We are also not told that Jamaica has the 2nd highest HIV rate in the world.
It is sad that we have to find that all out by visiting.

Sherry Bueche said...

You took some wonderful photos Pam. So gald that you had a great time.

ScrapAddict said...

The private beach looks beautiful! Such a shame....we really don't realize how a lot of the rest of the world lives here in our country.