Day 2 - YS Falls

We made our preparations for the day and then hung out and talked to Wesley a while. He was from the North Coast but moved down to Black River a few years ago at the request of the owner of Idlers Rest. We joked about the bloody rooster, the lack of hot water, and the fact that they served colored water instead of coffee. “ All good mon, every time”, and he laughed. Our designated driver Crampy, was supposed to pick us up at 10:00. We had discussed our circuit the night before – YS Falls and then on to Accompong Town, down to Appleton Rum (no tour, just a drive by) and then a return to Black River – and agreed on the price. Although we had just met Crampy the night before, we felt comfortable because he was the designated favorite driver of the hotel and we shared the same first name, Ian (not a great way to pick a driver).

At 10:30, we had the owner’s son call Crampy who said he was on his way. We were happy when he showed up at 11:00 at which point I finally noticed that he did not have a red license plate and did not appear to be a licensed JUTA driver. Oh great, I thought. Beat down car, no insurance – everything everyone always warns you about. But it was too late. We got in the car and sped off through Black River. I asked Crampy to stop at the cambio to change money, $100 US. He asked me what rate I wanted. I wasn’t thinking clearly and said $84 J to the dollar. In fact, I’d only been on the ground less than 24 hours and the only inkling I had on the rate came from a post on this website. Crampy was no fool. He made a quick call and then detoured to a house in a tidy neighborhood outside Black River where a woman (probably his sister) came out with the $8,400 J. It made me wonder how badly I messed up the rate (turns out the real rate was somewhere between $85 and $86). But I had cash and we were on our way.

Crampy started bombing out of town. We tried to buckle up, but the seat belts didn’t work. I asked him to please drive slowly so we could enjoy the scenery. Outside of town he said he wanted to show us something. We pulled over behind a small building. There was a beautiful small blue pond with fresh spring water bubbling up from the limestone that eventually fed into the Black River. It was a perfectly natural, peaceful spot, enjoyed by the locals without a bunch of tourist clutter. Down the road, a similar blue pond, call “Bubbling Spring” was packaged up for the tourist trade.

We continued on the road to Middle Quarters, which was surprisingly close to Black River. I’d read about the river shrimp that you could buy along the road in Middle Quarters and we were looking forward to sampling the famous crustaceans. As we entered Middle Quarters the sides of the road came alive with shrimp shacks and women hawking shrimp alongside the road. We pulled off at a little shrimp shop that had a few old tables in the backyard. I’d always pictured the famous pepper river shrimp as small fresh water shrimp. Not true. The “river shrimp” are really crawfish and some are quite large. Crampy directed us to the medium sized “shrimp”. We bought a bagful and settled in for a mid-morning snack. We were instructed on the appropriate way to eat the crawfish – pull off the head and devour the rest including the soft, peppered “shell”. Wow…..those babies were delicious with enough heat to cause us to freshen up with first cold Red Stripe of the morning. What a great start to the morning.

One thing I love about traveling is how time slows down when you’re beginning an adventure. We hadn’t even been in Jamaica 24 hours and we felt like we’d been exploring for days. I got that blissed out feeling that comes with seeing new sights……..

St Elizabeth Parish is known by every Jamaican as the “bread basket” of Jamaica. And it is lush and beautiful. Very soon, we turned off the road to head up to YS Falls. The countryside opened up into large fields of the famous Jamaican Red Poll cattle. This was a different landscape than I’d seen anywhere in Jamaica (although somewhat similar to the pasture land in Portland Parish on the way to Port Antonio near the Flynn estate). Big open fields of pasture dotted with huge trees, shading groups of the cleanest, healthiest looking red cattle you can imagine, spread along the base of the mountains. It reminded me of the Ponderosa (yep, I’m that old that I loved Bonanza) and also the foot of the Green Mountains in the Champlain Valley where my wife and I met in college a lifetime ago. Spectacular!

We pulled into the entrance hall where we paid our $32 admission fee for two and realized the “attraction” was being managed by Chukka Tours. I was a bit skeptical. I knew that Chukka Tours had a big footprint in Jamaica but never really liked the idea of “zip lines” and “canopy tours”, considering them as unnecessary tourist traps. The only other falls I’d been to in Jamaica was Reach Falls in Portland. We’d been there a number of times. There were various levels of “tours” and “entrance fees” over the years but you could generally find your own way in and manage on your own. This was a scripted deal. But I’d paid the money and we were going to see the falls. We got on a brightly colored tourist wagon, pulled by a big blue tractor and headed down on a dirt path to the falls.

We stopped at a café and gift shop, changed into our bathing suits in a clean little changing cabin and began to explore the falls.

YS Falls is a uniquely beautiful spot with 10 falls cascading down from the hillside with crystal blue water pouring over unnaturally smooth falls that looked almost as formed as poured concrete. Despite my skepticism, Chukka Tours actually does a great job managing the entire operation. The falls are safe, clean and secure without higglers or litter, with the convenience of changing rooms, natural swimming pools, tended gardens and a bar. We enjoyed hiking to the upper falls, which we had completely to ourselves. We sat back, watched for birds with our binoculars with the soothing sounds of rushing water surrounding us. We swam in a number of the pools and took a couple of jumps off the rope swing for minor thrills. The water was clear and refreshing. A natural, relaxing beauty spot. After an hour or so, we took the tractor and wagon back to the entrance house, where the ticket attendant called Crampy (he had left her his cell phone number) to continue our trip up to Accompong Town.