I was talking to a client of mine the other day about the new developments taking place in NEGRIL, the hip international resort on Jamaica’s northwest Coast. When she informed me that it only takes about 50 minutes to get to Negril via the new super highway from the international airport in Montego Bay, I couldn’t help but I feel a little bit saddened. I had fond memories of the old highway which was very scenic as it snaked along the north coast passing by many small colorful villages and towns - Hopewell, Sandy Bay, Lucea and Green Island - before it entered the Negril Resort Area. The old highway was very narrow in sections and was often subject to closures due to mudslides and floods or due to the local Rastaman having an impromptu Nyabingi session in the middle of the road. I missed the adventure of the old highway, but for most people it was an arduous 90-minute journey to Negril. The new highway is fast and efficient, shaving some 40 minutes off the transportation time.

I visited Negril for the first time in winter of 1980, staying in an inexpensive guesthouse in the area known as Redground, a hillside community overlooking the famed 7-mile beach. Discovered by the hippies and the flower children of the 1970s, Negril had the reputation where one could hang out and commune with nature, meditate, smoke weed freely while listening to Reggae music and mixing freely with the Rastaman. To me, Negril was about freedom and nature. Roots Natty Bongo I! As Negril became more popular, I saw her gradually mature into the internationally renowned resort destination that she is today. From 1980-1994, many new hotels sprouted up and I observed how the All-Inclusives become a dominant presence on the famed 7 mile beach forcing many smaller operations to abandon shop. In addition, I witnessed the deterioration of the vast wetlands wildlife reserve known as the Great Morass due to the rapid growth of the tourism industry. This growth has also led to the degradation of the coral reef and to the diminishing marine life. Negril was becoming a little too popular for me, and after my last visit in the summer of 1993, I never set foot on her soft white sands again.

With the advent of the new highway, I can imagine the hordes of new tourists flocking to this seaside resort and filling the many rooms of the various all-inclusive resorts that have sprouted up on these shores in the last 20 years or so - Grand Lido, Sandals, Pebbles, Couples, Riu Resorts and the like. Let’s not forget Hedonism 2 (formerly the Negril Beach Village), the first all-inclusive resort in the Negril area, having opened up on the northern end of the 7-mile beach sometime in the late 1970s. The new highway will definitely bring substantially more business to Negril, but it will also hasten the demise of the Negril that I knew and loved.

This is just another example of the phenomenon known as the Kathmandu Syndrome.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 10:38 am and is filed under Commentary, Jamaica, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.