Port Antonio is sleepy, friendly, and more or less free of the kind of tourist infrastructure that characterizes Jamaican resort towns like Montego Bay and Negril. Though it was the birthplace of tourism in Jamaica back in the 1930s, today it's not on the primary tourist path. There are pluses and minuses to this fact, all too complicated to address breezily.
We spent our time exploring the town a bit, visiting Coronation Bakery for a mid-morning patty and slice of cake. We ran into a political parade promoting candidate nomination day and spent some time darting in and out of shops and markets. Away from the town, we drove as far east as Long Bay, sampling jerk at the Boston Jerk Centre, which we ate with small dabs of extremely hot sauce and swallowed down with extremely sweet juices.
We also went for a fascinating hike up in the hills above Port Antonio. Coordinated through our hotel, Mocking Bird Hill, and one of the hotel's suppliers, the organic Tamarind Hill Farm, our hike took us through banana fields, up a steep road, through a torrential rainstorm of a quarter-hour's duration, intense greenery surrounding us at all times. Our hiking guide, a man named Johnson, pointed out uses of plant after plant. He told us about banana harvesting, his problems finding markets for the produce he grows on his plots, and other local lore.
After our hike, Joanna Slimforte of Tamarind Hill Farm invited us in for cups of jelly water. Joanna is a transplanted New Yorker. Her husband, Vincent Slimforte, is a Jamaican who came of age in the UK and returned to the Caribbean as an adult. We had a lovely conversation, which involved a much appreciated crash course in Jamaican politics. I was especially delighted to find out that the goat cheese I'd had for breakfast came from the goats she'd been milking minutes before we sat down for our mid-morning refreshment.
Hotel Mocking Bird Hill, where we stayed, is an undeniably special property. Located high up in the green hills a few miles east of Port Antonio, it's run with a personable grace by Barbara Walker and Shireen Aga along impeccable green principles. There are no televisions in rooms and no air conditioning, and no over-the-top resort-style excess. There is a very fine restaurant on the premises called Mille Fleurs, a swimming pool, and a friendly and able staff. The views are, perhaps obviously, extraordinary. Those mid-afternoon coffee breaks overlooking the coast from the veranda will not soon be dislodged from memory.
Though more spendthrift than shoestring at $210 for three in a double room, it's still much cheaper than most hotels of its caliber in the region. A garden-facing double in low season runs $165, and a standard double is just $125 in low season, a rate almost unbelievable for a hotel of this type in the Caribbean.
