2016

Jamaica is a beautiful country with the prettiest crystal blue water and sugar for sand. I feel like I say that about every Caribbean Island I visit but it’s true! It’s rich with a variety of luscious greens that cover the island and intertwine, taking over the streets of the cities.

We ported at Montego Bay, a popular dock for cruises and immediately started making our way through the town. Once we made it through customs we hopped on a bus for our first adventure.

Along the way picked up a guy walking along side the road (I guess the bus driver recognized him and had done this before because they picked up a conversion fairly quick). I started talking to the guy making friendly conversation and then we got to his stop-Margaritaville Montego Bay.

This was not on our agenda for the day but he offered my friend and I free shots if we got off, so guess what we did?! We got off!! Turns out he worked there and got us the hook up.

We decided to stay for a while as there were some competitions going on up on the stage that were pretty entertaining (currently a twerking contest when we walked in).

We ordered some delicious nachos and everything was going good when the DJ asked for contestants for the next competition. He didn’t declare what this competition was, just that we needed volunteers. So naturally the spontaneous side of me took over and I ran up on stage with my friend next to me…

Brain Freeze! It was a margarita chugging competition. At this point I had already shown my face on stage, I couldn’t back out.

We had to suck a frozen margarita through a straw with NO HANDS as fast as we could to win! At this point, I’m committed, as soon as he said “GO!” I sucked my heart out.

GUESS WHO WON?! That’s right, me! Daddy didn’t raise no quitter! Putting the 40-year-old margarita-drinking veteran next to me to shame! I’m not going to lie, I did get a brain freeze, but my mentality was I was going to get one anyway, so might as well win something for it. Am I right?

After winning that contest, we decided to venture to the tunnel waterside on the side of the building that fell into the ocean. It was so much fun, I lost count how many times I went down!

When we finally got exhausted from that, we decided it was time to walk the streets of Jamaica in search of some souvenirs.

The people of Jamaica are very generous because at every gift shop or store we went to they gave us samples of different variations of Jamaican rum shots. And let me tell ya, it did not disappoint. Jamaican me tipsy Jamaica!

Also, every corner I turned the Jamaicans would touch my hair and beg to braid it (I guess they don’t see redheads often and were fascinated with me). Wanting to get the full experience I finally let a woman give me 3 braids on the deeper side of my part. Everyone has to do that at least one time as a tourist! I think I pulled it off.

Jamaica treated me well and I’d love to go back one day! It’s full of margarita chugging, Jamaican Coconut Rum shots, massive ocean water slides , and I could listen to that accent all day… c’mon man, who wouldn’t? Till next time Montego Bay. XOXO

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