Caribbean Day Trip: Jamaica

ISLANDHOPPING

I DAY TRIP

ABOVE AND BEYOND

Others rode the chairlift and zip line (opposite), but Olympian Usain Bolt stuck to the speedy sled (below).

BOBSLEDDING JAMAICA

Comin’ Round the Mountain

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sain “Lightning” Bolt, the sprinting star of last summer’s Olympics, accelerates out of the first turn, already a speeding blur. With nearly 700 meters to the finish line, the triple-gold medalist grins, holds up his camera phone and calmly snaps a picture. Of course, he would! Despite the quirky renown of the national bobsled team, tracks like this are not exactly commonplace in Jamaica. Diving, winding and undulating for 3,320 feet through a lush and rugged landscape, Rainforest Bobsled Jamaica at Mystic Mountain combines amusement-park thrills with green appeal: Who wouldn’t want to take a roller-coaster ride through the woods? Five minutes west of Ocho Rios, the unique diversion — done in one-man cars resembling the sleds first immortalized by Jamaica’s team at

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Caribbean Travel + Life

RAINFOREST BOBSLED JAMAICA AT MYSTIC MOUNTAIN

Open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., offering a variety of packages, from the Sky Explorer ($42) to the Sky Explorer, bobsled and zip-line combo, which costs $125. 876-974-3990; rainforestbobsledjamaica.com

the 1988 Winter Olympics — is the centerpiece of a multimillion-dollar, 100-acre project constructed using methods that minimize its impact on the surrounding topography. The attraction also includes a web of zip lines and the Sky Explorer chairlift, which ascends 700 feet to the summit of Mystic Mountain. Soaring through and above a dense, mature forest of almond, pimento and poinciana trees festooned with bromeliads and wild orchids, the cable car offers spectacular views of the north coast, the island’s mountainous interior and, if you go early morning or late afternoon, up-closeand-personal encounters with abundant bird life, including the endemic black-billed parrot. At the summit, anchored by a pavilion built to look like a rural railway station, visitors can enjoy a swimMARCH

2009

MICHAEL MELFORD

An Olympian joy ride, no snow required

ming pool, lookout tower, gift shop and R2@ 700 Feet, a contemporary Caribbean restaurant with a menu that features plenty of spicy jerk specialties. There are also exhibits that celebrate the island’s diverse fauna and flora; national heroes such as Nanny of the Maroons (a runaway slave who led an 18th-century revolt against the British); reggae legend Bob Marley; and athletes including former heavyweight champ Lennox Lewis, Bolt and the original Jamaican bobsled team (which inspired the movie Cool Runnings). The summit is also the launchpad for the zip-line canopy tour, a circuit of five tree-totree transects that includes rides of almost 400 feet and an epic, morethan-550-foot crossing that’ll have you shrieking like a juvenile macaw. But the real star here is the bobsled. I clamber into a stylish, German-built car decked out in Jamaica’s black, gold and green livery, push a

lever to release the brakes, and let gravity work its hair-raising magic. For about the next 45 seconds I dart and dip through a tunnel of emerald vegetation, banking through hairpin turns as I plummet more than 300 feet down the mountainside before finally coming to a halt in a cool, shaded glade; then my sled and I are slowly hoisted up a series of inclines to the start. Back at the top, I race to get Bolt’s reaction to this exhilarating ride, but I’m too late: The world’s speediest human is busy sliding down the mountain. Again and again, faster and faster. — Christopher R. Cox Caribbean Travel + Life

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