Rastafari Village Tour in Jamacia

    Right now with the Coronavirus going around, most of us are staying at home and not traveling.  Many places we cannot travel to right now.  I know I have wanted to attend some local festivals that were canceled because of the Coronvirus. This has made me want to dream of the next place I want to travel to.  I believe in the near future all this will pass and we can even find toilet paper in the grocery stores and be able to travel and attend local fesivals safely.  In this blog I would like to talk about my last cruise when me and my wife went to a Rastafari Indigenous village in Jamaca.  Even though I am a Christian, I have always been interested in learning about other cultures. Rastafarianism is one of them.
    To begin this tour, we went to the Montego Bay Gardens where we rented some water sandals. To get to the Rastafari village, we had to walk across a river and we did not bring any water shoes.  Therefore, I would strongly encourage you to bring water shoes with you if you desire to go on this type of excursion. We then walked to the river and had a lesson about the plants in the area because the Rastafarians live off the land and are also vegetarian.  After walking through the river and down a path, we arrived at the Rasti village where we met some very interesting people. First they brought us in and told us about the history of the Rastiafarians and about some of their religious beliefs and customs.  Next, they took us around to some of their different shops where they showed us how they make items like jewlery, soap, and drums. All items are made from the plants and trees in the area.  The man who made the drums was a very interesting character.  He said he had been making drums since he was 8. 

Here he is with my wife showing a sign of friendship.  He also has made all of the drums at the Rasti village.
   After that we went to participate in making one of our favorate items--chocoalate!

Here the Rasti is grinding the chocolate beans after they have been roasted over an open fire.  I think right now when we are being asked to stay home, a nice cup of hot chocolate would be a great treat to enjoy like we enjoyed at the Rasti village.
    We then had a meal provided to us which was made up of seasonal fruits, nuts, and vegetables.  Also to mention in Jamica Conconut is the main ingredent for the food of the Rastifarians.

    We then went to their worship area and two of the villagers led us in playing some music on their drums.

They taught us some music too and we joined in!

All in all this was a very interesting, educational, and enjoyable day which I would recommend to everyone who is cruising  or vacationing to Montego Bay, Jamicia. 

 

Introduction and Grand Cayman Island Tour

    Photography is a very exciting hobby and profession. So why am I a photographer, especially a travel and nature photographer, and why do I want to blog? Let me share my philosphy as to why I am a travel and nature photographer. In my photography, I want to show the wonders of romance and nostaliga of the world near and far. In shooting my photographs, I believe that people should feel some emotion when viewing them.  I try to do inspire that emotion both in my Travel as well as my Nature photography.  

On our cruise with Carnival, one of our excurisions was a tour of Grand Cayman Island. On this tour, we went to three interesting places. The first was the Tortuga Rum company.  Although their rum is made at a different location, they do make their delicious rum cakes there.  My wife and I visited the gift shop where we tasted wonderful flavored Rum.  Our favorites were the mango and pineapple rums.  They are very smooth and quite enjoyable,  We purchased a bottle of each and they gave us another bottle of rum for free. We also pruchased some souveniers and a rum cake which was very tasty.

   

The next place we went to was a place called Hell.  This part of the island contains an interesting group of black limestone formations that are very jagged.  Hell also has a gift shop and a post office. You can even get your passport stamped to reflect your visit to Hell, Cayman Islands!  Now I guess I can say I have been to hell and back! 

The gift shop had many humorous items including T-shirts.

The last part of the tour was at the Cayman Turtle Center.  This was a must-see on the trip for we were able to learn all about green sea turtles and see them at the various stages of their life cycle.  These amazing animals can grow as large as 500 pounds. The Cayman Turtle Center is also a conservation center where they breed the green turtles and release them into the wild, both in Grand Cayman as well as in Mexico. 

 Before returning to the ship, there was nothing like experiencing Margaritaville in Grand Cayman and enjoying the entertainment, the food, and of course the Margaritas and Pina Coladas!