Chris Baltazar | Blog

TRIP TO OCHIE

Mao and I left our home bound for Ocho Rios at 6am Thursday. The last time we were in Jamaica was October last year for our mini-moon at the Ritz in Montego Bay (MoBay). This time, it's business related. We're shooting a local couple who's having a destination wedding at the Riu in Ochie.

The direct flight from BWI to MBJ was a little over 3 hours with Air Jamaica. After having flown 5 hours with another airline with one stop, this is a no brainer. At MBJ, it looks like most of the construction is complete and the airport looks great. It took us about 45 min to get through customs, immigration and baggage claim. Another half an hour to wait for our bus transfer to fill up for a two hour bus ride to Ochie. The bus was old and needed to be retired.  Reggae music blasted right above the opposite overhead with a barely working AC system made it an uncomfortable 2 hour ride. The good news is that the road construction to Ochie from MBJ is done. Not that it helped our older bus since everyone seemed to pass us. I remember encountering pretty bad construction traffic last year.

We had a quick pit stop just after we passed Discovery Bay. Mao and I were enticed with some roast chicken stew being served at one of the roadside restaurants and it was delicious. Not knowing what Riu had to offer, we thought this might be our only opportunity to taste a local dish. It reminded me of the famous Filipino dish, Adobo.

We were luckily the second stop after the Grand Principe resort. We were immediately given a warm welcome by our couple, Niki & Erik, who personally welcomed their guests arriving at the lobby that afternoon. The front desk was busy and we were told our ocean front room was not ready until 3p. We decided to grab rum punches and walked around the resort. Grabbed a quick bite and when we checked for our room availability, it was ready.

We walked in our room and the location and the view of the room was worth the wait. We've stayed at excellent resorts in Jamaica and this is by far the best room we've stayed in. It was decorated well without the bright Caribbean colors and plenty of space to stretch out. It had a drop down sitting area. The bathroom had a whirlpool tub and double sinks. Once we opened the door to our huge balcony, the warm tropical breeze and the sounds of the waves immediately filled our room. We spent a half an hour cleaning up and start unwinding by drinking some Red Stripe beer from our mini-bar and just relaxing at the balcony. The Riu has an amazing in-room minibar. It has large bottled alcohol dispenser with rum, gin and vodka. The fridge was filled with sodas, tonic water, bottled water, Ting, and bottled red stripe beer which I probably finished. The mini-bar was a good touch.

We scoped out the resort grounds and joined the wedding party for the rehearsal at the wedding gazebo. Rehearsal was quick and everyone had dinner at the resort's biggest buffet restaurant, St. Anne. We had a light bite since we had a 9:30 reservation at the resort's Japanese restaurant. I was impressed with the food offered as well as the terrific service at St. Anne's. We later had a Japanese dinner which was just ok.

The following morning, we woke up early and had breakfast. You'll find all your typical American breakfast food accompanied with fresh fruits and juices. If your a bit more daring, you can try the local breakfast of akee with salted fish.

We relaxed on the beach after breakfast. I played beach volleyball then grabbed jerk chicken and ribs from the Jerk Hut. The jerk was tasty and served freshly off the charcoal grill. After lunch we got ready and walked four doors down the hall to shoot the bride, Niki, getting ready. How good is that?

Another day at the office.

The following day, we had the day all to ourselves. This was the only day we had no activities planned and we made the best of it and pretty much did nothing. The only activity we did was watch and jewelry shopping at the Island Village and Taj Majal shops. Jamaica is known for fine watches. We saw our friend Harry who typically worked at the MoBay location. After shopping, we relaxed on the beach, played volleyball and enjoyed our final night there.

The return bus transfer was quicker. It was a newer bus and a much pleasurable experience. We stopped at another rest stop where we grabbed more jerk. Air Jamaica had long lines but we were bumped up 15 minutes later. Air Jamaica was great in the sense that I didn't have to check-in my gear.

We're flying out to the Riu for another wedding held at the Coyaba Gardens late this month.

 

NIKI+ERIK | OCHO RIOS, JAMAICA | 05.09.08

This was our second destination wedding in beautiful Jamaica and our third trip in one year. Our flight was a 4 hour direct flight with Air Jamaica and another two hour transfer from MoBay to Ochie. We stayed at the Riu for 4d/3n. Mao and I were immediately greeted by Niki and Erik upon arrival at the resort lobby and we all met up a couple of hours later for the rehearsal.

The following day, we chilled on the beach, played beach volleyball, ate jerk, got ready to shoot and walked three doors down to the Niki's suite. Why can't every wedding be like this? I haven't shot a beach wedding in a while and we had an amazing time. Folks at Riu were very accommodating even though resorts typically prefer to use their in-house photographers.

The ceremony on the beach was quick. We then shot the formals and walked around the resort with Niki and Erik before the reception started. The reception was divided into two parts with dinner served at one of the ocean front restaurants and the dancing was on the beach.

I also want to give props to Elite Travel Management Group. They helped book everyone's travel arrangements including ours and we were extremely pleased with their service.

I'd love to take credit for this picture, but it's Mao who captured the moment. This is classic.

A nice intimate dinner with 30+ of their closest friends and family.

After the last dance, Erik came up to me and said "we're going in the water". What a way to end the day!

I was asked by one of my 19 readers when I'll be posting the continuation to my previous post. I'm not naming names (Fannie), so here it is. Anything to make my 19 readers happy.

We headed 4 hours west of Scottsdale to Joshua Tree National Park in nestled in the San Bernardino  area in southeast California.  It was a beautiful drive through the desert. We arrived at the park around dusk and we hurried over to our reserved campsite which happened to be on the other end of the park. We entered the park from the south entrance and took a 45 min drive to the north entrances. We saw some cayotes along the way.

This was our first glimpse of a Joshua Tree.

We found our campsite and setup camp in 20 minutes. We love our new ultralight tent, the REI Quarterdome. The problem about car camping is that you don't know who you'll get as neighbors. And luckily for us, we have not one but two groups of college aged guys on both sides. One side stayed up late and the other side picked up where the other group left off at 6am. The temperatures dipped into the 40s/50s at overnight.

Since the entrance to our campsite was located outside the park, we had to drive through town to re-enter the park in the morning. We grabbed food at the local supermarket along with several gallons of water. We learned all the car campsites are completely full. Our only camping option was to go backcountry camping which requires hiking a mile of so on the trail from the closest road and 500 ft away from the trail. The other option was to stay at a hotel, but who would want to do that when you're in this beautiful park?

Neither one of us have any experience with backcountry camping but we had all the gear necessary and plenty of water. So, we set off looking for the best area to set up camp for the day. Mao was quite skeptical of the whole situation. Even with the park ranger assuring us that it's a relatively safe area to go backcountry camping, we still asked ourselves what if we get eaten by mountain lions and attacked by coyotes? What about rattle snakes? We set-off anyway.

Water, check. Food, check. Camping stove, check. Tent, check. Lights, check. Sleeping pads, check. With our gear packed, we picked our trail and started walking. I had two gallons of water in my pack, which was by the way an overkill for one night of camping but with the desert and all, I'd rather be safe than sorry. My pack was at least 20-30 lbs. and Mao's wasn't that much lighter.

A quarter mile down the trail and with a clear visibility of the road, Mao started to hastily ask if we've gone far enough off the road. We passed another campsite a mile into the hike and told Mao, we'll just go over the ridge so we're far enough from the first group of campers. She hesitantly walked. We got over the ridge and found a nice flat area to setup camp overlooking a gorgeous valley of Joshua Trees. It took us quicker to setup camp this time, not that anyone was timing, and we're becoming pros at this.

We relaxed for a bit after setting up camp. We read our books and then took the time to familiarize ourselves with the area around our campsite. We prepared and ate dinner watching the sun set over the mountains. Then it was dark and so it started hitting us that we're all alone out here now. There's no cell coverage and if anything happens, our best bet was our neighboring campsite. Think happy thoughts. We played cards then read some more. It's been extremely windy throughout the day and that night wasn't any different. Our sleep was often disturbed by the howling winds and at times the winds blew so hard that if felt like the tent going to fly along with it. Since I tied it down good, our tent held up quite well. Boy, that morning light and sun was such a welcomed sight. We survived our first night of backcountry camping. Luckily, it was only one evening which was probably enough for now. We gave each other high fives and walked back to the car.

We hiked several other trails during the day and went to Palm Springs to get cleaned up for our flight the following day out of Phoenix.

With Mao doubting my adventurous and spontaneous plans at times, like hiking the Inca Trail for our honeymoon, the question of why can't we just relax on the beach often comes up. But at the end of the day, she enjoys the experiences.