Our favorite port on our Western Caribbean cruise aboard Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas was Jamaica, an island that has a somewhat tarnished reputation.
When you see cruise passengers loading into tour busses to go to a "shopping district" that is surrounded by a chained link fence to be harangued by vendors hawking souvenirs, it's not hard to see why people who see a cruise as an extended shopping trip would be disappointed.
Our van dropped off some tourists there, and I couldn't understand why they would voluntarily get out when they could have continued on to Dunn's River.
The hike down the tree-lined path to the beach by the turquoise sea may not be rigorous to most people, but it deters physically challenged individuals like the elderly. Climbing the waterfall turned out to be more of a group project than challenging the elements, and toursits formed a long chain holding hands behind a guide who lead us up the slippery steps through the cascade.
Walking through the little flea market near the falls, I thought I must bear a striking resemblance to a reggae legend, because people kept calling in hoarse whispers, "Hey, Bob Marley, mon!" I'm not as naive as I look, and it didn't take me long to translate that to be asking me if I wanted to buy some weed.
When our bus arrived back in Ocho Rios, we wandered over to Margaritaville, a visit all Parrot Heads feel obligated to make when in the vicinity.
In the Margaritaville in New Orleans, my buddy Mike had introduced me to the Ultimate Margarita, but in Ocho Rios, they didn't have a clue what that might be.
Instead, they gave me something that tasted like an overly sweet grape Slurpee that I couldn't finish.
The place did have other compensations for the bad drink. Between sips, we could swim from the bar to climb steps to a waterslide that returned us to the pool and swim up bar. The other tourists getting a little crazy can also be a funny show.
We didn't get around to driving to Goldeneye, the site where Ian Flemming purportedly penned most of his Bond novels, but we did take a dip in the ocean at the beach by Margaritaville.
