Ironically, it's the one part I don't have any pictures of. That's because it was the one day that Nikki and I did different excursions. She took Georgie so she took the camera. Adam has some very good pictures here though.
So anyway, on our stop in Montego Bay, Jamaica, my dad and brothers and I took the Appleton Estate Rum Tour. What made it so great is that it got us out of the heavily-touristed area in Montego Bay and took us through a lot of very interesting parts of Jamaica.
We started by crossing over the mountains that separate Montego from the rest of the island, then made a beeline for the coast. We drove along the coast quite a way, seeing fishing villages, farms, breadfruit trees, and dilapadated wooden shacks that sold cellphones. We saw all kinds of houses, from very modest one-room abodes to hillside luxury retreats probably built by foreigners.
For a bathroom break, we stopped at a little fishing pier with a bar. We took the opportunity to try the legendary Guinness Foreign Extra, a strong and hoppy version of Guinness only brewed for Caribbean markets. It was great, but we were worried about having to chug such a strong beer before we got back on the bus. No problem!, said our tour guide, you can bring it with you. It was at this point that I really started to love Jamaica.
After the stop, our route took us through what seemed like a more managed agricultural area. I don't know how much water they actually need to divert for irrigation in Jamaica (my guess is very little), but the fields here seemed better controlled than in other places and there were wetlands for flood management.
Somewhere after Black River we cut back up to the interior and shortly arrived at the Appleton Estate. Visiting a place like this, essentially a sugar cane plantation, gives you great insight into the sweep of colonial history. I suppose it's like a cotton or tobacco plant in the South that is now proudly run by African-Americans, whose ancestors were once slaves on the very same land. That never happened here of course, but that's the closest analogy I can think of. I guess what I am trying to say is that you get a very different feeling about what it means to be a Western ex-slave in Jamaica because there is a sense of ownership that doesn't exist in the U.S.
But back to the tour -- normally you take the walking tour and then eat some Jamaican food after. But we had a pack of highly annoying New Yorker seniors on our bus who did nothing but complain for the entire 6-hour tour. They were hungry so we ate first, much to the chagrin of our tour guide and her sense of order.
The food was amazing. It was a plate of jerk chicken, rice and peas, salad with a tropical fruit dressing, and a pumpkin and collard green dish. For desert we had fresh rum cake -- much different than the stuff they sell in boxes at duty free. And the whole time we were staying lubricated on the free, all-you-can-drink rum punch.
After lunch, our Appleton guide took us through the various parts of the operation. This was fascinating but I don't need to explain in detail how to make rum. The most interesting fact I got from the tour is that rum is made from sugarcane, of course, but not from the sugar. The sugar is sold and only the molasses is used. Makes me think about rum in a different light.
After the tour we were able to sample about 10 of the company's products. This involved going up to unmanned, open bottles of booze and taking as much as you like. This boozefest seemed to be the only thing that calmed our East Coasters down a little.
The sampling was, as you may expect, an opportunity to buy rum from the gift shop. I got three bottles -- a fifth of the VX blend, a small bottle of 'rum cream liqueur' (the rum version of Bailey's), and a liter of Rumona, a liqueur of rum and honey. I left the Rumona at my parents' house because I didn't think I could polish it off in the month we have left in Montana.
Our journey here took a coastal route but the return trip went over the mountains. The countryside was so beautiful and lush. We were heading back just as some schools were getting out so the whole way back kids were waving at us. The East Coasters were too disgusted by everything to wave back but we did. It was nice to see the kids. Each school has a different color of uniform so we saw a lot of colors on our 2 hour drive.
We also went through Accompong, a Maroon town in the mountains that had been the scene of some fierce colonial resistance. Soon after Accompong road construction and traffic slowed us down and the complaining really started to kick in. I was embarrassed for our tour guide. At one point she started to have a little motion sickness on the mountain roads and we pulled over. Our tri-state assholes then began loudly discussing her queasiness -- "Oh my gawd, is our tour guide getting sick?" yelled across the bus, etc. I mention these people only because they succeeded in souring our otherwise wonderful time, especially the last hour or so. Adam has two funny pictures of them here and here. The woman with the dyed eyebrows was the most obnoxious of the pack.
Despite these people, this trip was the highlight of the cruise for me. Spending over 4 hours on the bus might not sound that fun (and it's why we didn't bring the baby), but there was never a moment we weren't staring out the window in awe. And this was the most authentic place of the trip. In Grand Cayman and Cozumel we saw more of a facade for tourists but I feel like I saw the real Jamaica. It was also really fun to spend time with my dad and brothers. We didn't intentionally divide the family along gender lines. (More like who-wants-to-drink-rum-all-day lines.) But it was nonetheless good to have a little male bonding time.
(pictures by Adam)
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