Last night, my kind hosts, Anita and Gordon - took me to see two sides of Kingston. We went to a small town called Port Royal which is on a promontory just outside Kingston Harbour, past the airport. To get there you drive along a spit of land caleed the Palisadoes with the Atlantic on one side and the Caribbean on the other.
Port Royal is very historic - it is where British troops defended the island years ago and Gordon- who is a consumate local historian - told me it had the reputation of being the 'wickedest' city in the world during the 17th century when it was a centre of shipping trade and a place for pirates. Apparently it was famous for gaudy displays of wealth and loose morals! The seas all around purportedly still hold sunken treasure. It has been hit by several earthquakes which have left the buildings all askew. The town is pretty poor now just a fishing village and a place to go to eat fish on a weekend.
We arrived to very large music emanating from a stack of speakers outside a bar in the car part (reminiscent of Africa!) It was the kind of noise that makes your ears bleed! There were people, children, dogs all around, sitting outside cafes and bars and listening to the music - a regular Friday occurance. We went to the famous Gloria's restaurant which is simply a mass of tables set out in the road outside a small kitchen and they serve the most amazing fish - if you don't mind a wait of a couple of hours. we had king fish and it was devine! I also tried a local food - bammy which is made of cassava.
When we had eaten, we scurried back to the car - so as not to be deafened - and next stop was the very lovely Morgan's Harbour Hotel and Marina - how the other half lives. A very old, colonial hotel, dark, serence, quiet with a row of beautiful yaghts parked on the quay.
There was a party going on for the young and beautiful. Truly a tale of 2 cities.
Must dash - we are off to the Blue Mountains today - more on that later
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