Reality hits on the road
published: Friday | September 5, 2003
THE EDITOR, Sir:
GREETING FROM a fellow West Indian now residing in the United States. Oh, how I love your country and fully intend to live there, hopefully in the not too distant future. I visited the country recently with my wife, who is one of your beautiful Jamaican sisters and for two weeks we drove around the island enjoying very much most of what the island had to offer. We landed at Mobay and proceeded to Negril and I was pleasantly surprised by the new highway, a great improvement since I was there seven years ago.
After three days, we left panoramic Negril and started on our way to Treasure Beach, where disappointment seeped into an otherwise wonderful vacation, as the road signs were for the most part few and far apart, or virtually non-existent. Sometimes one could see sign posts for the side roads but nothing for the main roads and this I found out, held good throughout the island - Kingston, Treasure Beach, Ocho Rios, Mandeville, Santa Cruz, Port Antonio - it was the same, no road signs. I even braved the roads to get to the Baths in St. Thomas and the rafting on the Port Antonio River, two places in my opinion that need developing as added attractions to the tourist dollars. I took all these things in stride but was unprepared for the utter devastation wrought by the flood water of the Yallahs River.
I was told that this havoc occurred a little over six months ago. Be that as it may; it seemed to me that the little bit of cosmetic work that was done as repair was an afterthought. Come on, Mr. P.M., you and the representative for the area can treat the area residents a whole lot better.
