Jamaica Part 3 - The Blue Mountain Bicycle Tour

Mel and I had to get up a little earlier on Tuesday than we had the previous two days. On Tuesday we went on a tour away from the resort. A little after 8:00, we got on a bus headed to the Blue Mountains. We went on the Blue Mountain Bicycle Tour. We had a bus ride of about three hours to get from Ocho Rios to the Blue Mountains, the highest mountain range in the Caribbean. On the way, our bus driver pointed out several landmarks, from Ian Fleming’s estate Goldeneye, to Noel Coward’s house Firefly, and even the James Bond Beach. Our bus driver also told us about the different parishes of Jamaica that we passed through. We stopped at a restaurant for breakfast.

The drive on the main roads was scary enough, and then we hit the mountain road. The road was very narrow and carried two-way traffic! At one point, our bus driver told us that if we all did exactly what he said, he’d show us a pink rooster with purple wings and white legs. All we had to do was to look to the left and not look to the right. Naturally, we all looked to the right to see that we were at the very edge of a steep drop-off down the side of the mountain. Later we went over a very narrow bridge. It was so narrow, that our guides insisted that we walk our bikes across it. This is the bridge shown below.

After driving up the mountain for a while, we got off the bus and got our bikes and safety equipment. After being told the rules of riding down the mountain – whenever we heard a whistle it meant that there was an oncoming car, so we had to pull to the left side of the road to stop – we began our ride down the mountain. The ride was about 18 miles with 95% of it downhill. So I did get some RAGBRAI training in during our trip to Jamaica. Now I am all ready for going down hill!

We stopped occasionally for our guides to tell us about the area. We learned about how the coffee is grown, picked, and prepared on the mountain. We also learned about many of the plants that we saw going down the mountain.

Once we reached the stopping point, we went for a swim at the bottom of a waterfall. The water was pretty cold, but it was refreshing. On the way back to the resort, we stopped for lunch at the same restaurant we had at breakfast at.

It was around 5:00 by the time we got back to the resort. We didn’t do much else that evening. But, we did have dinner at the restaurant the resort has on the pier that goes around the swimming area of the beach. It was pretty good food. After that, we went back to our room. I was feeling a bit dehydrated, and the rum I had at dinner probably didn’t help, so we didn’t do much else that night.