White River Rafting – Ocho Rios

River rafting in Jamaica pretty much seems to be a standard tourist activity and there are many rivers around the island that offer similar tours.  When I did it, I went to White River near Ocho Rios and here’s a gorgeous video recap of the ride and then you can read more about it below the video.

White River is only about a 15 minute car ride from the centre of Ocho Rios, don’t pay a charter taxi more than $800 JMD to get there or call DR BELL to get you there for that price.  The place is called Calypso Rafting and Tubing and the price for a bamboo raft ride is $50 USD for a two person raft plus a guide who has an abundance of personality. Our guide’s name was Vivienne and I totally dug his hair since he had his braids out!

Our taxi driver, Dr Bell held one of our cameras for us so he could take pictures of us leaving and then coming in at the other end of the 45 minute ride.  And I kept my camera on me to take pics during the ride. Here we are heading off down the river.

The scenery along the entire raft ride is spectacular and our guide was busy singing Bob Marley songs and navigating the river like he owns it! We asked him how he knew the water so well and he explained that training for this job is extensive and involves several trial runs without guests, but with a supervisor. The river varies between calm and quiet, with the occasional fast flowing rough patch that he gets us through perfectly!

There’s a ton of beautiful nature along the river and some interesting structures to take pictures of. We even saw a swing hanging from a tree and a pirate’s plank where people can jump off into a deep section of the river. Bring your swimsuit if you want to try it! We also passed by Reggae Park, which is a venue for musical and other events.

Midway through the ride there’s a stop-over point where the guide will pull over the raft. You can get off, jump the pirate plank, look around and even carve your name into a clump of bamboo trees. Everyone seems to carve something here, it looked so cool. We left our signatures on the trees as well.

This excursion turned out to be one of the nicest things I’ve done in Jamaica. It was relaxing, fun, exhilarating, all at once. This was my mother’s first trip to Jamaica and she labelled the White River rafting as one of her favorite things she did on her trip. I totally recommend doing it, was well worth the money and a really nice moment to share with my mom.

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