Off the Beaten Path: Kensington, JA

Kensington, Jamaica in the Portland Parish:

Kensington is located in the region of Portland, whose capital, Port Antonio is a beautiful, thriving port and shopping center. Port Antonio is about ten miles away from Kensington, and neighboring city, and capital of Jamaica, Kingston, is twenty miles away.

Portland, the parish that houses Kensington, is known as a bountiful producer of bananas, coffee, mangoes, and local favorites ackee and breadfruit.

Several films have used Portland for its scenery and location, most notable “The Harder They Come” (title song by Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff featured here) and “Cocktail” starring Tom Cruise.

Forget all that though… what’s really dope is Ri-Ri (that’s right, Queen Rihanna) filmed “Man Down” there in 2011.

Our Home for the Weekend:

We will be staying in a typical Jamaican family home. It is fully furnished featuring four bedrooms with locally-crafted, custom-made wardrobes and queen-sized beds. The house features two full bathrooms, a full kitchen, as well as front and back verandas.

The house has rooftop access with lovely views of the mountains, the ocean, and surrounding neighborhood farmland and foliage. The yard features local fruit trees and flowers, and a local beach and nearby river are within walking distance of the home.

 

Standard Bedroom

Secure, private residence

Standard Bedroom #2

Rooftop View Mountains

Rooftop view

Nature Abounds:

Our home in Kensington will invite us to explore nature in ways that will inspire and challenge us. The beaches are locally-owned and maintained, and the coast to the river is a lesson in green, with palm fronds that stretch an arm’s length, flowering bushes, and beckoning vines. The nature hikes and walks to the beach, river, and historical above-ground cemetery invite you to commune with nature and reconnect with a spirit of simplicity, a reconvening with Mother Nature.

 

Welcome to Jam Rock?

For the first time ever, I took a trip without my computer, without a “grind list” (the gansta version of a ‘to-do list’), and without a plan. No drafts to finish, no chapters to revisit, no dialogue to tighten. I just left for Jamaica without aim or goal. The only thing on my mind was openness. My arms stretched wide to either side, my head thrown back toward the sky, my heart bursting in my chest–I opened myself up to experience and challenge, renewal and rejuvenation. And as all-embracing as that image may be, I couldn’t get the Damian Marley’s “Welcome to Jam Rock” out of my head.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t thinking I was entering some rap-video-mean-streets-guard-your-grill situation, but what I hoped, and what I readied myself for, was an experience of Jamaica that wasn’t a Sandals brochure. I wanted real Jamaica not tourist Jamaica. I wanted Jimmy Cliff not Jimmy Buffett.

My flight into Kingston from Miami was quiet, and as I watched the water change from the everyday-blue of my Florida life into the vibrant turquoise of this new adventure, I felt a weight lifting off my shoulders.  I truly felt myself leaving my daily grind behind and coasting into a fresh experience.

The mountains greeted me at the airport. The skyline alone a symbol of adventure and revelation.

Walking on Jamaican ground, in what felt like a lighter, looser body, created a new rhythm in my chest, a heartbeat that glimmered like the padded thumps on a steel drum.

From my first meal at Fish Cove to the passing landscapes of mountain and sea, the vibe was not vacation in the holiday-sense but a vacation in a more practical sense: “the action of leaving something one previously occupied.”

I realized that even my assumptions and beliefs about what I wanted this trip to be and what I hoped it would do were a kind of preoccupation with what I already knew and what I thought I wanted.

I decided, as the van bumped down the narrow, pot-holed country Jamaican roads, that I would shake those assumptions and preoccupations off, too.

I stopped humming Damian Marley.

I stopped thinking about what I would do, what I hoped to see.

I watched the landscape. I listened to breeze.

I opened myself all the way up, and I let Jamaica rock me into a groove I had never heard before.

… To be continued…

 An experience like no other. Join us in October.