The Famous Boston Bay

Whether Boston Bay really does have mind bogglingly extraordinary jerk chicken and pork, or whether it is a self fulfilling prophecy set in motion by its random selection by the lazy author of a Lonely Planet Jamaica book looking for an entry, our trip to the North Coast was a good time. All in all, our main objectives were accomplished: get the hell out of Kingston for a while, cruise around and talk a lot, see some new places and nice scenes, and eat awesome jerk chicken and killer pepper sauce.
For me, the highlight of the little Jerk restaurant off the road in the tiny village of Boston Bay, which amounts to about 3 huts and a small guesthouse, was the homemade scotch bonnet pepper sauce (which they have entrepreneurially bottled and are selling at an extravagant price - I bought a bottle anyway). Each place has its own pepper sauce recipe, all enough to make the eyes water and innards contract, and all are wonderful. This one was especially so.

Jamaica's Southern Coast in Fish and Taverns

It may be a long trip for a 125cc Honda moped, but the drive from Kingston to Morant Bay, about two hours to the East on Highway A4, which hugs along the Southern coast of Jamaica, was as rewarding and enjoyable as it was sunburn inducing. 

 The culinary highlight of the adventure, besides the always wonderful local bananas and oranges from the road side stalls, was the fresh steamed fish, cooked on the spot in this little fish stall at Lysson's Beach, a small public beach just outside the city of Morant Bay.
The bami, however, patties of deep friend casava, are not my idea of a delicacy... The help soak up some of the excess oil, perhaps? I'm sure they serve some purpose.

It is a rumored that Jamaica has both the highest number churches and bars per capita in the world. Judging simply by this trip and the frequency with which they pop up, sometimes dominating the central square of small towns and sometimes unexpectedly in a small clearing in the palm trees, the suspicion might have some merit. Any time of day will find a few people with a bottle of Wray and Nephew rum lazying away the heat, the slow moving bartender chopping chunks of ice from the large block of it she occasionally hauls out of an ice chest behind the bar.