Sign in with Facebook
The mausoleum containing his tomb
Success!!
Beautiful Church.
Ocho Rios - JamaicaOcho Rios: the town
As I said in my intro, the town of Ocho Rios doesn’t have any obvious sights of its own to draw you here, nor would it be described as especially attractive, but it’s still worth a few hours of your time. Like many Jamaican towns, Ochi (as locals call the town) has a clock tower in the centre, and this acts as an unofficial border between the more tourist-oriented district at the western end and the more down-to-earth eastern end. In the former you’ll find several shopping complexes with duty free shops targeting the hundreds of cruise ship passengers that descend on the town almost daily, a large craft market, supermarket (an economical place to buy your hot pepper sauce and coffee souvenirs), post office and banks.
Head to the east however if you want to spend some time wandering around a typical Jamaican town. Despite what you may have heard, you shouldn’t experience too much hassle here, other than from taxi drivers who seem to find it hard to believe anyone might prefer to walk rather than get in their car – although the Rough Guide warns that James Avenue is a bit seedy (we only walked a short way along but from what I saw it’s more scruffy than scary!)
This is a good place to grab some more unusual photos. The various signs caught my eye – Jamaicans love bright colours and use them to good effect to promote their shops, bars etc. There’s also a produce market in this eastern part of town – much more authentic in atmosphere than the touristy craft market and also good for a few photos. However, when I asked the guy pressing sugar cane if I might take his picture he agreed, only to get angry when I then didn’t buy any of his juice – which hadn’t been part of the deal!
By the way, if you can check the cruise ship schedules to identify a day when there are no ships in port you’ll find the town a lot quieter. The downside though is that some of the businesses don’t even bother opening as we found on our first visit to the town, a Sunday morning. Elise at the Blue House checked the schedules for us, and I imagine receptionists at the bigger hotels would do the same. It’s also worth doing before a visit to the major attractions like Dunn’s River Falls or Dolphin Cove as it can make a marked difference to how crowded these are.
