Tuesday 26 February 2008

Def*Jet Skiing....Sore Fanny!!

Yes folks, I mean exatly what that says, I went Jet Skiing and I can personally verify it gives you a very sore fanny! Now don´t start getting all hissy thinking I´m giving away too much information, its the truth. All that bouncing around on waves is not good for you and you will feel it for days and days and days! I could have stood up, yes, maybe I should have, but I was sh*t scared of the damn thing to start with and standing was just not an option!

On the flip side it was a hell of a lot of fun! I´ve had a good time on water this trip which is saying a lot seeing as I´m not exactly the world´s most confident swimmer! I did have one bummy experience though....night fishing! Now I´m not a fisher, I can´t say I´ve ever looked at it and thought "ooh, I wouldn´t mind". Most of the time it looks boring, but when you´re staying with fishermen, you gotta try fishing, and night fishing kinda sounded more fun.

So there we were, with our radio, fishing lines and some snacks. I, being true to form, felt sea sick as soon as the boat engine started. There were about 8 of us in the boat and there was no way in hell I was going to open my mouth and say I felt sick so I tried some deep breathing, tried looking in the boat, out of the boat (none of which worked) and was about 3 minutes away from emptying my stomach contents when someone else did it first! Funny enough I didn´t feel sick after that! I did almost catch two crabs, but I don´t think fishing is for me!

So I´ve said goodbye to the comfort of my Jamaican family and I am now truly on my own in Havana baby yeah!! Funnily enough, despite being just 45 mins away from Jamaica, Cuba couldn´t feel more different. In fact it reminds me a lot of Nigeria! Old buildings with all manner of businesses, shops and homes but you just can´t tell from the outside! You walk past a doorway and get a shock everytime.

I´m in Spanish mode now as well, not gonna be using English much for the next 2 months which is a challenge I´m def looking forward to! I´m in Havana for the next 2 days and then I´m going to try and brave the 15 hour coach journey to Santiago. It´s a hell of a long way, but at least I´ll get to see the a large chunk of the island! (I think I´ll get a flight back though!).

Before I go, a couple more niggles to add to my hall of shame, first is the Maestro card. They say its accepted all over the world, except it really isn´t, at all, anywhere! In fact, if you have a Cirrus sign on your card but not Maestro, that works!!! I´ve been driven to panic a couple of times thinking something was wrong, I´ve wasted money calling Natwest who tell me nothing is wrong, but yet my card still doesn´t work and they won´t accept that Maestro is crap. So, thanks to that I know have to re-organise my funding. Poo. Air Jamaica are worth another mention, true to form on my way to Cuba they showed that they are a truly useless airline!

So, I shall hopefully update later in the week. I´ve got a whole bunch of photos from Barbados and Jamaica to load up and I shall try to do that as soon as I get a stable internet connection.

¡Hasta luego amigos!

Thursday 14 February 2008

Wha' gine on? I'm in Barbados

I'm in Barbados!! Ok, so I've been here twice already and yes there are many islands in the Caribbean but dammit I like this one and its my holiday! (Just thought I'd get that off my chest ;-)

I spent some time on my own in Negril last week trying to psyche myself up for this whole lone adventurer malarkey and it was hard! Nobody told me that travelling on your own as a woman would be so stressful! Trying to actually be on your own anywhere outside your room is damn near impossible. Walking down the street, sitting in a cafe, going on the beach (no surprises there) you name the place, a man is gonna come and try his luck. The funny thing is that they actually don't care if they've just seen one man leave, they'll still try their luck, its everyone for themselves! Maybe its the Caribbean, clearly a woman cannot possibly be travelling alone in this area, what madness!!

One interesting phenomenon I've noted is how I'm being treated before people hear my accent and after. Clearly, before they hear my accent I'm a Jamaican or Barbadian no sweat. As soon as they hear my accent, I'm a tourist and either the price of anything goes up, or I get bracketed as the latest super drug trafficker in the Caribbean and have my bags searched no less than 3 times by Jamaican, Grenadian and Barbadian immigration for one 3 hour flight! Kinda sucks huh?! Fair enough, I can imagine Jamaica to Barbados is a bit of a dodgy route for certain things, but I note (and it is important to note) that of the 10 or so white tourists that I struck up conversation with and that were on my flight from Jamaica to Barbados I was the only one who got stopped and searched.

I might start up a niggle hall of shame, Morgan's Harbour Hotel still have prime place (oh, I've since realised that I'm also missing my little leather jacket that I had worn from the UK, seeing as I didn't need it, I clearly didn't realise I left it at the hotel....funny how they didn't find that either!), but Jamaican Immigration and ALL the staff of Air Jamaica are coming close second!

So, Barbados, I'm catching up with old acquantances, making new ones and checking out the bus routes around the island while I'm here. I'll try to see as much of the island as I can but don't hate me if I spend all my time at the beach! lol!

Thursday 7 February 2008

Mosquitos are a menace

I have another niggle....mosquitos. Now I'm no stranger to them and as ever I came prepared with all kinds of insect repellant and the likes, but these bloody things are serious about munching on my blood. As we speak I am the owner of what feels like a gazzillion bites but is probably about 20-30 bites on the back of each thigh and leg....sounds awful?...well it is.

Not only had I never seen anything like it, neither had anyone around me. I'm wondering if a couple of them managed to sneak up my pyjama bottoms one evening and decide to just stay for a few meals. One mosquito bite itches....what I had is the stuff that drives people crazy! Enter my superhero Mr Bliss. A friend of the family I'm staying with and a descendant of a line of herbalists. Thanks to him, a combination of two types of herb and twice daily applications with vaseline (you know I packed loads of vaseline), they no longer itch and will probably not leave scars. Just goes to show, Boots doesn't always have the answer! (part of me actually suspects that my mosquito repellant kit may be attracting rather than repelling them).

So, on the upside, I've had a few more amazing trips. One in particular I forgot to mention last blog was a trip to Sweet River. Sweet River is a natural spring and the water there is the clearest and coolest I've ever seen. It's kind of set on a flat plain and until you get to the water you don't actually know its there. We spent a couple of hours there messing with the water, chilling and talking to a few people who came by to have a dip as people just do around there.

The only down side is that it is 'owned' by one man who occassionally likes to run people off his land with a shotgun. Go figure. I'm hoping I can get as many trips there as possible without running into him, it should be a free and public resource, especially given the fact that it has a kind of mystical pull that keeps people coming there, but this is the world we live in.

I also went out ona fishing boat and saw a dolphin!! Never thought I'd see one of those myself! It wasn't all that close but what a sight!

Friday 1 February 2008

Blessed Love

I'm in Jamaica!!!! 4 days in and I'm loving it! Ofcourse, as is par for the course, there have been some 'niggles' as we can call them, but I'm on the holiday of a lifetime I can deal with it!

Niggle number one; I left a lovely pair of shoes (my one pair of 'nice' shoes) at Morgan's Harbour Hotel, Kingston on Monday night. Clearly, housekeeping is run by a 'moral' bunch of people who are certain that there were no items left in the room. If this had happened in England, I would be outraged, consider sending a letter (or three), call them up about 1million times and go on and on and on. But this is Jamaica and "..a-so it go".

Niggle number two; I'm kindly being put up by my best friend (Aishie as some of you know) and her boyfriend's family, which I am extremely grateful for. However there is some building work going on and there is no inside toilet for the short term....cue....the Long Drop. I shall say no more, suffice to say, I haven't had any re-occurence of the funny tummy issues I suffered in Nigeria (thank God!).

So Niggles over, Jamaica is amazing!!!!! My hotel experience wasn't great, but I am staying with a fantastic family of fishermen in Savana-La-Mar about 40km from Negril. So far, I haven't had to lift a finger and I've tasted more varieties of fish in three days than I've had my whole life. And as it's all cooked over coals outside, it's the men who do the cooking. Thankfully, fish can't make you fat (please don't send me any fact sheets contradicting this).

There is also a lot to be said for staying with a normal family in a normal town when you come to somewhere as touristy as the Caribbean. I have an instant community including babies, grandparents, aunts and uncles. It's the old skool way of being a community, open doors, communal meals and somebody somewhere is always ready to stop and have a chat. Lots of young people around to talk to and hang out with and a surefire way to make sure you don't pay rip of tourist prices for anything.

Last night I had two fabulous experiences, one was watching the sun set at Negril point. All I can say is Wow! We were kindly taken to a private spot away from the very noisy Rick's Cafe and had an uninterrupted view of the sea and the sunset. It was dead easy to take amazing pictures, the scene was out of the best postcards you've ever seen. Later in the evening, we popped round the corner to a local 'Sound'. Free, outdoor party, right under the stars (which are so visible from here) and fab music going on till the early hours, two experiences that are already confirming why I decided to take this trip!

So, I'm planning my lil trips here and there now, looking into Barbados, Cuba and maybe Trinidad too...watch this space!