Ten Things to Do at Devon House Besides Eat Ice-Cream

Devon House in St. Andrew, Jamaica makes the best ice-cream I’ve ever had in my life. International critics agree too, ranking the Devon House I-Scream parlour as serving one of the world’s top 10 best ice-creams. I recently relocated to a next corner of this beautiful island so Devon House is no longer as accessible for me, but I do crave a delicious ice-cream scoop set against the lovely antique theme of red brick and cobblestones ever so often. That being said, there’s so much more to Devon House than ice-cream and being home to Jamaica’s first coloured millionaire. Devon House has evolved into an exciting village with gourmet à la carte restaurants, a relaxing day spa, quaint souvenir shops, a first-rate bakery, clothing stores and interesting delicatessens which slip below the radar when we brand Devon House solely as a mansion and award-winning ice cream parlour. Thus, this week I decided to share 10 other ways to enjoy this beautiful property.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle15 Comments

Peter Tosh Museum, Saint Andrew

Peter Tosh is a platinum-selling Grammy award winning artiste and is one of the most talented reggae musicians to emerge from Jamaica. He got his claim to fame from the Wailers, a trio which also consisted of Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer. Peter Tosh was born in 1944 in Westmoreland, Jamaica’s most western parish and his life was brought to a brutal abrupt end in 1987 after a home break-in and robbery-turned-murder. Tosh had a rough start with an unstable family background, shuffled around from relative to relative based on circumstances but his musical talent emerged early despite the upheavals. Tosh is a self-taught guitarist and keyboardist who got his first real taste of music and performing when he moved to Trench Town as a teenager and met his fellow band-mates in the early 1960s. He taught them how to play, and they dabbled in ska and rocksteady before finding their calling in reggae, infusing their tunes with spiritual and political messages from their newfound conversion to the Rastafari faith.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle12 Comments

Jamaica Rum Festival 2020: Recap & Highlights

Time sure flies when you’re having rum, I mean, fun. 2019 was the inaugural staging of the Jamaica Rum Festival and social media would not let me live it down that I missed it! The pictures looked epic and even my friends and colleagues were speaking about it for days. Thus, I eagerly anticipated the second staging, knowing that the event would be here to stay given all the success it had in its first showcasing and I was not left disappointed. The Caribbean produces some of the world’s best rums and our history is intricately intertwined with the spirit. Rum production dates back from the 17th century on plantations where my enslaved African ancestors toiled to produce this lovely liquor from sugarcane and its by-product molasses, and rum became the region’s chief export product after muscovado sugar.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle30 Comments

The Art Exhibit in Kingston You Need to See: ‘Jamaica, Jamaica’

‘Jamaica, Jamaica!: How Jamaican Music Conquered the World‘ is the latest art exhibit being shown at the National Gallery of Jamaica. It opened on February 2 and closes on June 28, 2020. It’s one of the most exciting exhibits ever launched by this gallery and was aptly opened in February, locally observed as Reggae Month. This exhibit was previously shown at Philharmonie de Paris in 2017 and titled “The General” after the 1985 hit song by artiste Brigadier. Renamed Jamaica, Jamaica! after gracing local shores, this exhibit documents how the tiny Caribbean island of Jamaica was able to become a global musical force to be reckoned with. The capital city of Kingston and venue of the exhibition is recognized as the birthplace of six distinct musical genres which led to Kingston being designated official UNESCO creative city status in 2015.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle15 Comments

Konoko Falls, Saint Ann

Konoko Falls is a tourist attraction nestled in the hilly outskirts of popular resort town Ocho Rios. The Arawakan word for rainforest, konoko, lends its name to this 600-feet cascading waterfall and garden, formerly known as the Mahoe Falls and Coyaba Gardens; coyaba is also an Arawakan word meaning heaven. Both names are fitting, even more so given that Taino artefacts have been found here, suggesting that the area was once a settlement.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle22 Comments

Negril, Westmoreland

Negril is a resort town in the westernmost end of Jamaica, home to luxurious powdery-soft white-sand beaches and craggy picturesque cliffs. Negril’s Seven Miles Beach has been rated as one of the top ten beaches in the world by several travel magazines for years. Similar to my Dunn’s River Falls post from last April, I may potentially get my Jamaican card revoked by revealing that this was my first time visiting Negril but that’s okay. There’s a first time for everything and I thoroughly enjoyed this daytrip. Not even a flat tire on the way back after falling into one of Jamaica’s infamous potholes could ruin the mood. It was also my first time going parasailing, an experience I’m excited to share with you, my readers.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle15 Comments

St. Elizabeth: Jamaica’s South Coast Belle

Saint Elizabeth is known as the breadbasket parish of Jamaica, producing nearly a quarter of the nation’s produce despite getting less rainfall than its counterparts. The parish’s landscape includes the lush unspoilt mountains of the Cockpit Country, the majestic Santa Cruz Mountains which run south, divide the wide plain into two then plunge to a precipitous drop at Lovers’ Leap, the meandering Black River with its numerous cascading tributaries, most notably the YS Falls, and the sleepy sea-faring town of Treasure Beach with its quaint colourful off-the-radar cottages and villas.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle14 Comments

Guide to Bluefields Beach in Westmoreland, Jamaica

Ahh.. finally I got around to visiting Jamaica’s most western parish. Bluefields Beach in Bluefields, Westmoreland is an easy-to-find stop along the main road which links the St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland parishes. A decent sized beach, Bluefields is a victim of the beach erosion which seems to be plaguing many of our free public beaches. There are also no watersports available at this one either, but it’s worth a quick pick-me-upper for someone craving some waves and salty air in this side of the island,  or in transit to other south or west coast destinations.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle20 Comments

Pelican Bar: The Coolest Bar in the World

One mile off the coast of Parottee in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica lies the coolest bar in the Caribbean. The unique Pelican Bar resembles a gigantic bird nest made from driftwood, palm fronds and coconut tree trunks and is perched on a sandbar in the middle of the turquoise Caribbean Sea. The bar is named for the large flocks of pelicans which often rest there. Its owner, a local fisherman named Floyd Forbes, had a dream one night about a bar out at sea where he and his fishermen friends could sit and clean their fish or relax and have a beer.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle30 Comments

19 Times My Parish (St. Andrew) Left Me Awestruck

I hail from Jamaica’s capital city of Kingston, born unda di clock as we say– a colloquial expression which means one was born not too far from this Victorian-style 33-foot tall clocktower built in 1913! This clock marks the very centre of the parish capital, a crossroad between four major streets in Half-Way-Tree which was once the location of a large cotton tree and how the town got its name.

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Rochelle | Adventuresfromelle7 Comments