So I've bitten the bullet and decided to start a blog of sorts to document the things that I'm going to be getting up to while I'm travelling this year. Areas covered will include my time in Jamaica, forthcoming archaeological adventures in Reading later this year, as well as music, photographs and anything else that takes my fancy. I'm also going to attempt to jazz up the blog a bit once I figure out exactly how to do that.

So to begin, I arrived in Jamaica on the 31st of March, and following a 2-hour drive I arrived at Great Huts (the eco-resort I'm going to be staying at). The drive itself was pretty uneventful, unfortunately I arrived pretty late in the evening so I couldn't really see anything out of the windows, which was disappointing as apparently the drive over the mountains between Port Antonio and Kingston is quite picturesque. Once I arrived an checked myself in I pretty well crashed straight away, owing to the lateness and my tiring day of travel.

The next morning I had a chance to explore the resort a bit more thoroughly. I'm currently staying in a small hut (the 'Kaya Tent', which sleeps two, but at the moment I'm the only occupant. It's a wee bit dark inside, owing to the lack of windows (I suppose the closest structure I could liken it to would be a yurt), but there's some electric light in there so it's not too bad. The hut also appears to have a resident mouse that I've spotted a few times, I've named him 'Rustly Jim,' in honour of his nighttime dalliances. The whole resort is pretty awesome, it's designed to be like an African village, and everything is built out of bamboo, branches and other natural materials wherever possible. There's also a private beach as well as an assortment of parrots.

As well as myself, there are three other volunteers staying at the resort. Two of them are med students who arrived the day after I did, while the other volunteer is a German girl who has to take on volunteer work as part of her degree. She's been here for about a month now and has proven extremely helpful while I've been trying to find my feet. We all have communal meals at the resort, which are included as part of our volunteer package. It's pretty standard fare for breakfast, with assorted Jamaican cuisine in the evenings; jerk chicken, rice and peas etc.

Speaking of which, dinner is about to be served, so I'm going to wrap this post up, expect more in the next few days, I'll try and explain the work I'm doing and apparently we're going to attend a 'roadblock' party on Thursday night which I'm sure will warrant a write up :D
Eezo