Rafting Down The Rio Grande in Portland, Jamaica

Thursday, March 6 — Our friends on the Kadey Krogan had recommended that we do a river rafting tour down the Rio Grande, and had recommended a guide. We’d called him a few days ago and had made arrangements for him to pick us up today at 0900. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a good communicator. He said the price was $95 for a two-person raft. We were unclear on whether we were renting one raft or two rafts, and if only one raft, if there was a charge for a third person. We were also unclear on whether the cost included transportation to the river.

At 0900, we were greeted at the marina gate by two men; Michael was our driver and Louis our rafting guide. We left town via the same road that follows East Harbor that we’d taken yesterday, but instead of following the shoreline, he turned inland and took us up the mountain. The road was narrow and full of potholes, but it was scenic. Here is a view of the blue mountains.

As expected, the farther away from town we got, the less dense the homes along the road. While there were some dilapidated homes, the majority appeared to be well built and well cared for. There were quite a few large homes, as well.

On the drive up, they explained that in the plantation days, Portland primarily grew bananas. The bananas were transported down the river via bamboo rafts to Port Antonio, where they were loaded onto container ships. When Errol Flynn had visited, he’d hitched a ride on one of the banana boats and loved it. Flynn popularized the bamboo raft ride as a tourist attraction. This was the view of the river fairly close to the site that we launched from.

Michael dropped us off at the raft launch center. It was a fairly large and organized operation, with many rafts and captains.

One of the first things that caught our attention was that there were people walking rafts up the river. We were shocked that they were walked back up instead of loaded in pickup trucks and driven back up the mountain. Louis told us they were the grunts. After several years of dragging rafts up the river, they would get promoted to licensed captain.

As we were getting loaded onto the raft, we were surprised at how shallow the river was — ankle deep! Louis said that we lucked by coming at the right time of the year. When the river was high, the rapids and current were too strong to be safe.

Not long after departing, we saw a vendor selling beverages from a raft. Eric bought a Red Stripe lemon beer, which tasted like lemonade with beer in it.

It was an eight-mile ride. For the most part, the river was calm and peaceful. Louis used his pole to push us along and to prevent us from hitting anything.

But the river did have quite a few small rapids that we ran across periodically. Most of the rapids were similar to this one (we liked this video because you can see the grunt walking the raft up river, too.)

Passing a banana plantation

Looking back at the Blue Mountains behind us

At one point, he guided us through a narrow channel between a rock in the river and the shoreline. The water was deep here and he offered to stop to let us swim. The water was cold, so we declined to swim.

We stopped for lunch at an outdoor restaurant called Belinda’s. She had three main courses to choose from: goat, chicken or fish, which ranged in price from $11 – $14 USD, and they all came with several side dishes.

The food was delicious and portions huge. Keith ordered curried goat, which was a goat stew in a curry sauce. It was served with a dumpling, breadfruit, mixed veggies, and rice and beans. Breadfruit (tan slices on the left of the plate in the photo above) was something that we hadn’t had yet on this trip. This breadfruit’s texture was similar to scrambled eggs. The breadfruit itself didn’t have much flavor, but the sauce it was in was spicy and yummy.