Right now it’s Monday 4 December 2000, a cool-warm tropical evening, and I’m sitting on the terrace just outside the bar-lounge of the Jamaica Inn, a uniquely charming yet isolated hotel of roughly 45 rooms and/or suites—most with verandas overlooking the lawn leading down to the water—in Ocho Rios on the north coast beach-resort side of Jamaica. Although I’ve been here less than 10 hours, I’ve already been addressed as “Mon” by men and women, young and old, black and white; I’ve smelled what men who smoke ganja (marijuana) smell like when they’re sweating; and I’ve just seen a sunset that looked more computer-enhanced, than like the good old sky-blue pink Southern California sunset I’m used to.
Although it has already been a long, hard trip—the plane from Los Angeles was three hours late, and once in Jamaica we got caught in a traffic jam, the result of some clean-up crew shoveling mud from a recent storm off a two-lane highway—now that I’m here I’ve got to say I feel like there’s already been this huge weight lifted off my shoulders. As if for the first time in a very long time, I feel relaxed and, well, not content exactly, but something close to that feeling.
Maybe it’s the result of the Jamaican rum and lemon juice and bitters that Issacs the bartender concocted for me, although I doubt it. Maybe it’s because everything in Jamaica feels sort of wet, from the clothes you put on in the morning to the furniture you sit on in the evening. Maybe it’s the tropical weather or the exotic scenery or the warm, witty people or the palms trees and sensuous beaches. But it’s not these things, either.
Mostly, I think there’s just something about this place. . . hard to pinpoint, really, but it probably has something to do with its primitiveness. . . that grabs you with a feeling that it might never let you go.
I should mention this was a sponsored trip by the Jamaica Tourist Board, via Victoria King Public Relations in Los Angeles, California. The whole point of a sponsored trip is to guarantee the travel writer (that’s me!) has a great time. This way, I will somehow feel obligated to write a glowing review of my visit, use words like uniquely charming and you, the reader, will then feel compelled to visit the country sponsoring the trip.
With that aside, though, it should be noted that whether this particular trip had been sponsored or not, I never once regretted coming to this Caribbean Sea island of diverse skin tones and facial features, of landscapes and seascapes at least as spectacular as anything you’d find in Mexico (I don’t know about Hawaii, since I’ve never been there).
Insight Guides travel book on Jamaica describes Ocho Rios as the cruise capital of the island. Less a town and more like a “village mugged by tourist development” with hotels and houses and shops “haphazardly strung out along the coastal strip.”
As good a description as any, I suspect, although this was not what I myself observed.
What I myself observed on the drive from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios were mostly depressed villages huddled between a few major tourist resorts and modern hotels dotting a beach-fringed coast. My sense was that tourism was up there as a priority for Jamaica, but that tourists appear a little, well, frightened of the natives.
Especially those tourists coming off the cruise ships.
Although I should tell you I never once felt threatened or unsafe during my stay, even though I walked alone down the dusty roads between the Jamaica Inn and a little village several miles away, where I tipped a few beers at a place called BiBiBip’s Bar & Grill; even though our group often toured the back-country of Jamaica in a van, with nary a glint of trouble; and even though I was approached on several occasions by various street urchins to buy ganja or some other illicit drug.
What I observed was less the sideshow of Jamaica, the stuff you see in movies and on television, and more the basic human decencies you can find in any foreign country, once you’ve put aside your prejudices.
The Jamaica Inn has its own beach, a cove really, with each end protected by a rocky point and an inshore reef (ideal for snorkeling). The property blends a landscape of coconut tress and palm trees and colorful bouganvillea among the distinctive baby blue walls of the inn’s buildings. Each room is furnished with Jamaican antiques and well-crafted period pieces, according to what I read in one of the brochures. And although the beach is great for privacy, any plans for a romantic walk along the shoreline tend to be less romantic when you realize your walking along a roughly 200-yard beachfront property in front of a hotel, and not some exotic locale removed from civilization.
Nonetheless, it’s definitely a much different experience from, say, the Ritz-Carlton, which seems to have raised the bar on hotels in Jamaica with its 430 guest rooms with goose-down pillows, expansive health spa, and championship White Witch golf course designed by Robert Von Hagge and Associates (according to the Ritz brochure), and set among the miles of beachfront property in the island’s historic Rose Hall plantation area of Montego Bay.
Contrast this extravagant behemoth with the equally extravagant, yet understated Jamaica Inn, however, and you’ll appreciate why co-owner Peter Morrow (and/or his family) has run the hotel for four generations. Who wouldn’t want to work-play here? The staff apparently has been around almost as long, and Morrow says he only recently has noticed a shift in the makeup of his hotel guests—from those who have been visiting for generations to those younger guests who are just coming to appreciate the good taste and gracious hospitality of the Jamaica Inn.
Travel & Leisure magazine’s recent survey of the World’s Best Hotels as selected by its readers ranked Jamaica Inn fifteenth in the Caribbean.
Rates are available by contacting the Jamaica Inn at www.jamiacainn.com. Don’t go, though, if you’re bothered by insects or little crawling things that go clickety-click in the night.
Now it’s Friday 8 December 2000, a beautiful post-stormy tropical morning, and I’m writing this sitting in a lounge chair on the patio of a private, “luxury-estate” villa literally steps from the ocean; one of I don’t know how many (maybe 70) private, luxury estate villas owned by wealthy Americans, Europeans and Canadians on the 2,200-acre Tryall Golf Resort located 12 miles west of Montego Bay. Miss Ivy, the resident housekeeper, is inside preparing a breakfast that’ll include coffee, fresh orange juice, bacon and eggs, and fresh fruit.
Golfers looking for a challenge can play Tryall’s 6,221-yard course, a former sugar plantation designed by Texas architect Ralph Plummer (according to the property’s brochure). The fairways and greens meander through lush-green hills, between coconut palms and fruit trees, around lily-padded ponds, and down to a one-and-a-half mile long shoreline. Even if I used the word breathtaking, it wouldn’t do this place justice. The green fees alone ($100-$125 for non-guests, $40-$60 for guests) are worth the view of a dazzling coastline.
Villa rates and golf packages are available by contacting the Tryall Club at www.tryallclub.com. Villas range in price from $350 per day for a one bedroom to $2,150 per day for a six-bedroom. Most come with their own private staff (cook, housekeeper, laundress, gardener, even a butler sometimes).
Here’s a list of golf courses you may want to play while visiting the north coast beach-resort side of Jamaica:
- Half Moon Golf Club (7,119 yards)—located in the 400-acre Half Moon resort, near Montego Bay. Designed by Robert Trent Jones. Green fees: $95, cart $30, caddy $14.
- Sandals Golf & Country Club (6,424 yards)—roughly two miles from Ocho Rios on hills 700-feet above sea level. Green fees: $70, cart $30, caddy $12.
- Ironshore Golf & Country Club (6,633 yards)—situated in the midst of yet another luxury villa resort nearly Montego Bay. Designed by Canadian Robert Moote. Green fees: $45, cart $25, caddy $13.
- Breezes Golf & Beach Resort (7,870 yards)—in Runaway Bay, west of Ocho Rios. Designd by British Naval Commander James D. Harris 35 years ago. Green fees: $58, cart $25, caddy $12.
- Wyndham Rose Hall (6,598 yards)—home of the Jamaica Open Championship on th Rose Hall Estates to the east of Montego Bay. Designed in the 1970s by Henry O. Smedley. Green fees: $50-$60, cart 35, caddy $12.
Here’s the thing about Jamaica: Although this Caribbean Sea island may seem an unlikely first-choice destination for American golfers, on second-glance it’s a great golf-vacation for those who want to drift along like a puff of smoke on water, the weight of everyday life magically lifted away.
For more information, contact the Jamaica Tourist Board: 3440 Wilshire Boulevard, Ste. 1207, Los Angeles, CA 90010; 801 Second Ave., 20th Floor, New York, NY 10017; 36 South Wabash Ave., Ste. 1210, Chicago, IL 60603; and 1320 South Dixie Highway, Ste. 1100, Coral Gables, Miami, FL 33146. Or call (876) 929-9200-19.
Air Jamaica has regular flights from Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington, Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, New York (JFK), Newark, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Los Angeles. For more information or reservations, call Air Jamaica at (800) 523-5585, or visit the airline’s Web site at www.airjamaica.com.
