Turtle River Park

What a beautiful day in sunny Jamaica, I woke up to the fresh sea breeze coming off the ocean. Although I’d love to mention the time at which we began our day, I have recently come to enjoy “island time”, a term that Jamaican culture embraces. I have found that few Jamaicans wear watches and choose to arrive fashionably late as a pastime. After some time I went down to the end of the breakfast buffet. Later our group gradually meandered into the lobby where we awaited for our bus.

The group all piled into a safari sized mini-van, and embarked on our journey to our business lunch with Shawn, a representative from theFern Forest Eco- Village. Jamaican driving is more like a roller coaster of sorts, and is quite the opposite with regards to island time.

We arrived at a small mall, which surprisingly had a payless shoe store that sat across from what appeared to be a restaurant with a water tower attached. The less adventurous members of our group hit up the Pizza Hut, while the remainder ate authentic Jamaican Beef patties from “Juici Patty”. 

Our business meeting was to take place at Turtle River Park , the group dodged freeway traffic, where we walked along the palm trees and beside ponds of fish and turtles. Once the meeting was over, we parted ways and began our relaxing day on the beach playing volleyball in the water, tanning, walking into town on foot and finished the day off with a group dinner.

Robert Smaill