The Martha Brea

Way before the wedding or honeymoon were even thoughts in my mind, I had seen this whole documentary on the bamboo river rafting that could be done in Jamaica and thought to myself how cool that would be to float down the river and really get to see the country you are visiting. When we arrived in Jamaica this was something I really wanted to do. I really wanted to be able to see what the country was like that we were visiting, not just the Americanized section we were staying in. Lucky for us, all we had to do to set up the river trip was take a little walk down to the activity center at Sandals. They set the whole thing up for us.

We were in Negril and the bamboo trip down the Martha Brea River was in Montego Bay. I guess we didn't realize at the time that we had a two hour drive to get to the river. Even though we had a long car ride, I was glad that we decided to go.

Did I mention how crazy they drive in Jamaica?

 After the two hour car ride, we arrived at the spot that the river tours started and met our river rafting guide.

We were there on a Saturday which apparently is the LEAST busy day. I would have thought it to be one of the busiest, but I'm glad that we hit it just right. Our tour guide was really cool. He talked to us and pointed things out the whole time. 

The river was not as clear as I imagined it being, it was sort of this murkey looking color and it was disappointing to not see the bottom. Our guide said it is usually clear but that the rain had made it muddy. 

It was really great to see the pretty nature part of Jamaica.

There was certainly a lot of green.

and bamboo!

There were little huts set up at various points along the river, but they were all empty. Our guide told us on the busy days the locals set up shop there and sell things to the tourists from the riverside. There was one shop open and they threw us a hand carved bamboo boat. It was very detailed and beautiful. Our guide told us that if we wanted it we kept it and would pay for it at the end of the trip (the "seller" would meet us at the end of the tour), however, if we didn't want it we needed to throw it back. As much as we would have liked to have kept it as a reminder of the adventure it was pretty expensive and we didn't have a lot of cash on us so we ended up throwing it back.

Our guide had things that he carved as well. Carving is a big lively hood in Jamaica and they do some wonderful work! Our guide actually took coconuts and carved designs into them. They were beautiful, so we sprung for one. 

At the end of the trip we get off the raft and have to walk through the gift show to get to our cab. They are trying to sell things the whole time to us. I was pretty annoyed with the persistence of the store clerks. We hadn't brought much money with us because we weren't planning on buying anything while on the river so we were highly annoyed that after saying we didn't want anything they kept pestering us. 

Overall, I was glad we did the trip, it was insightful and great to see Jamaica in that way.