Oh, Jamaica. How beautiful and wonderful you were! Regretfully, I left so much of you unexplored.
I wasn’t ready, Jamaica. I wasn’t ready to reach deep into your landscape, food, and culture. Jamaica, I promise I will visit again. I promise I will look at you with eyes that see. I remember seeing the poverty as I rode by, in our air conditioned taxi. Just a few miles later, I remember seeing the opulence of brand new hotels, still under construction. Shows like Departures and Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown weren’t on my radar yet. My wanderlust was still under the surface, contained by the trappings of routines and expectations that working hard and being stressed all the time was what one did; that spending the money to travel was frivolous.
Sometimes, a person needs to relax.