I visited Jamaica years ago. I travelled on my own. Slovenian citizens don’t need a visa to enter Jamaica and neither do US, UK, Irish, Canadian, Australian or New Zealand citizens. I booked a connecting flight through London and a simple accommodation as the flight itself was quite expensive. Once there, I called a local taxi to take me to my accommodation in a small town of Negril.
The island is mostly visited by American tourists because it’s close to the US, relatively cheap, and a lot of people spend their holidays there. Tourists arrive mostly on large ships, stopping on the island as part of their Caribbean cruise.
Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea. It lies south of Cuba and west of the island of Hispaniola that is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
One can notice various fruit and fresh fish vendors on Jamaican beaches, and numerous musicians, jewellers and people selling clothes constantly walk by – as in other places with nice beaches.
The sun’s heat is intense in Jamaica because the country is close to the equator. The island lies in the tropics and is influenced by the northeast trade winds. During the winter months, from December to March, somewhat colder winds from North America blow over the island.
Temperatures in higher altitudes are a bit lower than usual. The average temperature in Kingston is around 31 degrees Celsius.
Rainfall is seasonal with high precipitation between October and May. Storms brings heavy downpours during the summer months, from June to September. Jamaica has been known to be hit by hurricanes in summer. Earthquakes caused serious damage only twice, in 1692 and 1907.
Jamaicans are mostly an ethnic mix of African and Anglo-Irish people influenced by the Spanish and Taíno cultures, though they’re influence diminished greatly after the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.
The problem Jamaica faces is that its inhabitants are moving to cities on a large scale when half of the population already resides within city limits. The island has a population of 2.3 million.
The island’s capital is Kingston. Since 1960, the city has been spreading rapidly and now plays host to many industries.
The majority of Jamaicans are descendants of slaves who were brought to the island by European colonialists. Jamaica gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1962 but has remained a member of the Commonwealth.
The British influence has resulted in most of Jamaicans being Protestants. Many are members of the Anglican, Baptist and Methodist Church or various African-Jamaican cults. Among the former, Rastafari is the most widespread and began in Jamaica in the 1930s. Its founder, Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), foretold in his speeches the coronation of a black king who would free the supressed African nation. When in 1930 Haile Selassie, whose family ties were said to go as far back as the biblical kings of David and Solomon, was crowned emperor of Ethiopia, the poor and neglected black people in Jamaica immediately clung to the spoken prophecy.
In that regard, I must mention Bob Marley who was a famous Rastafari and one of the most prominent members of the reggae scene. There are various musicians often walking along the beach wearing typical long hair and holding concerts of reggae music. I met one of these musicians myself and we even talked about how he could come to Slovenia with his band to hold a concert. Sadly, I’ve lost touch with him after so many years.
The locals are mostly friendly and welcoming. I went on a trip to a nearby area with one of them. He invited me to visit his friends who grow hemp right in their own gardens.
Then we also visited other places in the vicinity – I took a look at a factory that produces rum. It’s a large factory where we tasted different kinds of rum, including white rum with an alcohol content of 63%.
I was impressed with all the incredible natural wealth this land has to offer. There are wonderful lakes and waterfalls near Ocho Rios and they’re definitely worth visiting.
Jamaica has three international airports, among which are the Norman Manley Airport on the Palisadoes peninsula in Kingston and the Donald Sangster Airport in Montego Bay. They’re both named after former national leaders. The third one is the Ian Fleming International Airport near Ocho Rios and is named after the British novelist Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels. The most important ports include Kingston, Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Port Antonio where numerous large cruise ships land.
Jamaica has a well-established road and public bus network. In 1988, hurricane Gilbert severely damaged the railroad network, greatly affecting rail passenger service in 1990.
Near the town of Negril, where I was stationed, there’s Jamaica’s first marine park covering almost 15 square kilometres. It was founded in Montego Bay in 1992. There are also other marine parks in Ocho Rios and Negril. In 1993, Blue and Crow Mountains national parks were founded in an area of 780 square kilometres that was until then wilderness. Thousands of tree and special animal species can be found there, including the largest butterfly in the western hemisphere.
The island became an independent nation in 1962 and is now a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. The constitutional system, in force since 1962, follows the British constitutional tradition. The British queen, on the advice of the prime minister of Jamaica, appoints a Governor-General as her representative in Jamaica, though he or she performs merely ceremonial functions. What is interesting about the Jamaican constitutional system is that both the Parliament and the government have legislative power.
Leila Turk
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