I’d never really been outside of the country other
than visiting relatives in Canada, until I went on my first cruise to the Grand
Cayman Islands and Jamaica about a year ago. We took off from the port in
Miami, Florida and our first destination was the Grand Cayman Islands. Right
after you exit the ship you are basically bombarded by all of the locals with
different extravaganzas/tours.
My group chose to get on a private boat and cruise out
to a sand bar in the middle of the ocean to swim with stingrays. We jump in a
taxi bus and scurry on the opposite of the road over to the boat dock, jump on
the boat and as we drove out to the sand bar I had never seen anything like it,
the water was pure blue-like turquoise color. The water was clear as day and
you could see deep down into the ocean. After driving for about 15 min on the
water straight into the middle of the ocean where the water is extremely deep,
up pops a huge sand bar with hundreds of stingrays swimming around. The locals
took care of us by bringing goggles as well as food to feed to the stingrays.
Thing I loved about hanging with the locals was listening to the way that they
talk and their slang that they use. They were very personable people and wanted
us to enjoy the experience fully.
I thought getting off the boat in the Cayman Islands
was bad, the locals in Jamaica were all straight salesman, from taxi, to gift
shops to lady braiding my long hair, and boat rides. It was interesting to see
that these countries literally live off of tourists. Most of the locals there
really wouldn’t have jobs if there weren’t so many tourists coming through
purchasing anything and everything because they are in Jamaica!
