Jamaica

Food

We wanted to sample some Jamaican cuisine was part of my Armchair Travel Challenge and had heard about Jam-Welsh based at the Horseshoe Inn, Llangattock.  We had a lovely Coconut Vegan Curry served in ½ pineapple and a Jamaican Spice Jerk Chicken Breast Burger, served with chilli & mango salsa, chips & coleslaw. I later gifted chef Raymond and Sheila a clock in the shape of Jamaica I had made earlier in the week.

Drink

When walking through a park in Butetown, Cardiff following a party I noticed the bins were full of empty bottles of a Magnum Jamaican Tonic Wine (16% Alcohol) – made in Jamaica.  The nearby international supermarket had never heard of it but a tiny corner shop near the police station had some in the fridge – bottle purchased for future consumption. The bottle reminded me of cough mixture and there was something about the taste that had a similar resemblance too. We drank the Magnum with some Jamaican Jek chicken made at home.

Clock

Not a bad shaped country for making a clock but barly enough room to nail the hanging triangle in on the back. Out of hands now – must remember to get some more.

Literature

I made several attempts to read ‘A Brief History of Seven Killings’ by Jamaican author Marlon James but must admit I struggled with it and never finished it.  Ah, well, that’s how it goes sometimes.

Music

I’ve always liked a bit of reggae so how better to spend our ‘virtual’ time in Jamaica than by playing Bob Marley, the king of reggae.

I also heard some live Caribbean music when I gate crashed a Windrush event at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay. I caught some of the closing speeches, lots of thank yous followed by 20 minute fun Caribbean music sing-along. They started with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.  I desperately tried to remember the background to the controversy of the song being sung in rugby matches.

Film

Staying on the theme of Bob Marley we watched the 2004 film One Love about a young Rasta musician falls in love with the gospel-singing daughter of a Pentecostal preacher, meeting her as they both sign up for a music contest. It stars one of Bob Marley’s children Ky-Mani Marley.  I must admit I think we watched it by mistake after I had read there was a biographical film about Bob Marley called One Love.  It turns out that one has only recently been released.

Railways

Well, I wasn’t expecting to discover that.  There is a railway in Jamaica!  Only just and not many.  In fact Jamaica has a long association with railways going all the way back to when the first tracks were laid in 1845.  The railways of Jamaica were mainly for agricultural purposes and in later years more for industry, specifically transporting bauxite (aluminium) ore. There have been passenger services in the past but they died out until in the past year or two a school-train service started up and as far as I can tell is still in existence. I like the way the seats are in the same colour as the Jamaica flag.

Geocache

There are presently no Puzzle geocaches in Jamaica for me to solve.  I had a look at some of the Earth caches there but I just don’t like Earth caches – and that’s putting it mildly.  I find the answers can be so ambiguous.  In the end I took a look ay a Virtual cache Rainbow Country that is at Bob Marley’s birthplace. It encourages visitors to find the piece of rock, now painted with a rainbow design, where Marley used to sit and compose some of his songs.

Sport

Jamaica appeared in the FIFA Women’s World Cup finals in Australia in August 2023. They made it through the group stage with a 0-0 draw against Brazil and into the last 16.  If they had managed to beat Columbia they would have played England in the Quarter Final but unfortunately they lost 1-0.

The other sporting event that took place whilst we were ‘virtually’ in Jamaica was the World Athletics Championships held in Budapest.  Needles to say Jamaica did well in both the men’s and women’s events. In the 200m race Shericka Jackson became the second fastest woman ever with a time of 21.41 seconds.

I also kept an eye on how Jamaica were doing at the World Lacrosse Championships in San Diego, California as I was also following how the Welsh team were getting on there.

Highest Point

The highest point in Jamaica is Blue Mountain Peak in the south east of the island.  It is 2,256 metres (7,402 ft) and home of Blue Mountain coffee. By a stange coincidence I came across Blue Mountain when I was putting together a talk this month on the Mackintosh family. Alexander Mackintosh, the 24th chief of the Mackintosh Clan became a merchant in Jamaica, built a house there called Moy Hall (the same name as the family base in Inverness shaire, Scotland).

The Blue Mountains are popular for hiking and camping. The traditional Blue Mountain trek is a 7-mile (11 km) hike to the peak and consists of a 3,000-foot (910 m) increase in elevation. Jamaicans prefer to reach the peak at sunrise, thus the 3- to 4-hour hike is usually undertaken in darkness. Since the sky is usually very clear in the mornings, Cuba can be seen in the distance.  Judging by the YouTube videos I watched however the summit of often shrouded in fog).

Stamps

I purchased a set of 1971 stamps celebrating the 300th anniversary of the post office in Jamaica. One of the stamps is upside down presumably a replica of an actual printing error in the past.

Current Affairs

I read around a bit about the news from Jamaica.  There was quite a bit about the proposed move to cut links with the British monarchy and form a republic, a view that appears to be gaining traction since the death of the Queen last year. There was also continued discussion concerning reparations for slavery in the past.

Touring Jamaica

We were able to fly to Montego Bay, Jamacia direct from Birmingham with TUI. Where did we go? Well, naturally we didn’t stay in the same place all the time. We took some inspiration from some suggestions I found online such as the Ultimate five day tour of Montego Bay and the Jamacia Travel Guide blog by Oliver.