Arrival in port is always a form of culture shock, so Friday evening was a bit overwhelming. Going from a population density of just the two of you in a ten thousand square mile radius to a densely populated town is culture shock enough. Port Antonio is almost totally not a tourist destination - which makes it exactly the kind of place we like to visit. But it also means that there is no way two Americans off a sailing yacht can just drop unnoticed into the Friday night street scene - we both felt that heightened sense of not belonging here.

And that’s a good part of this sort of travel - to push yourself just a little out of your cultural comfort zone. After a day we were more comfortable with the street scene, going into shops and laughing about misunderstanding the language and customs. Saturday was a rest and catch up day for all those things that needed pretty good internet and port services. Even after that you wrap your head around the exchange ratio ($1 is about 0.65 cents) prices seem crazy here — Robin wanted to be sure we had some butter on board, so after looking at three different food shops I got to the only supermarket with butter - $263 JAM for one stick of butter was more $ JAM than I had in my pocket, and most stores don’t take credit cards, so I went back to the ATM, then got in line with my one stick of butter and a thousand dollar pint of ice cream and waited an hour on line. Eventually, I learned (too late) there was a separate faster line for just a few items, and that this market did accept credit cards. The couple ahead of me with a full basket graciously let me check out a head of them. Ice cream soup for dessert!

So, in port we are just another couple of American tourists - stop right here if you don’t want to read about “here’s the cool stuff I did on my Jamaica vacation.”

Sunday we had birthday waffles for Robin on board, then set off with Presley (the Marina sponsored tour guide) nd our taxi driver (Johnny Be Goode) for the blue mountains. We stopped at the Dennis coffee farm - a small farm catering to tourists, since apparently all the commercially grown blue mountain coffee is shipped to Japan. They roasted our beans on an open fire, and served the best most smooth least bitter most flavorful cup of coffee I have had in my life. This coffee needs no cream to sweeten it!

We wanted to see the mountain rain forest, so we drove up to the Holywell area of the John Crow national park and took a short hike around the Oakley Mountain trail. Great views of Kingston - large and sprawling city - and the sea beyond.
While we were hiking Johnny Be Goode was chatting up the barista and drinking Red Stripes at the snack kiosk. Johnny explained that Chardee, the barista, was kind enough to keep the kiosk open for him but now needed a ride home to Cascade, as her ride had left. So Chardee piled in the back with us, shared pictures of her toddler son, and told us about her life in the mountains - working a small farm (rabbits and pigs) and grocery hut weekdays while commuting up to the national park to run the snack kiosk on weekends. Sometimes she walked there - many miles up the mountain. We stopped to see the local school (highest elevation school in Jamaica) and her grocery shop, where I nad a new (to me) rum drink - Ting and rum - with our driver, who assured me that he drove much better after drinking rum.

Johnny is a fearless and skilled driver, in his road worn Toyota Wish. Twice on the trip on the one-lane mountain road, we were blocked by shiny expensive SUVs going the other way. Johnny argued fiercely with the drivers in Jamaican patois (which I can barely follow) - all I know from the gestures is that Johnny was basically saying “I will wait here all day if I have to” and both times the shiny SUVs pulled to the side to let us by.
As we headed back down to town, and after some red stripes, Johnny loosened up and would holler a whoop and shout “I love you Jesus” around the tightest hairpin curves on the mountain road. That seemed like a good idea, since it was Sunday after all.

we made it back to town with only one scary incident where a car passing in the other direction on a blind curve nearly head-on collisioned us - but Johnny’s reflexes are good, and somehow there was no collision. Did I mention that they drive on the left side of the road here? Probably better for us to have a driver and not try to rent a car ourselves.

I took Robin put to Roots 21 for her birthday dinner - Curry Goat and coconut curry fish. Three large screens in the restaurant - one had a fuzzy picture of a government minister talking , another had a sitcom featuring a very large women and mostly naked men (that is according to Robin - it was behind my back) and the one I could see featured professional home videos of spearfishing and cooking fish on campfires,

Yesterday (Monday) we took a guided raft tpur on the Rio Grande river - very relaxing - we had the river to ourselves and enjoyed swimming in the clear cool water.

Today we are catching up on boat provisioning and maintenance, looking to depart for Panama tomorrow.