I'm not sure how I found this place, but I was looking for a hostel in Jamaica. I had never been before, so I didn't care where. The guy who owns it was a doctor, and the price was good, so I booked it.

Getting there was a bit of a bus-ride adventure, but I made it there for about $3US and got there at night. The whole place has an african theme to it, which you notice everywhere. A lot of attention to detail. I stayed in the african tents, which are reserved for the hostelers, and are pretty decent, but I made friends with some of the people in the tree-houses and African huts and got to see what they were like. Very cool. The kind of place to bring your girlfriend as a treat.

The whole place is on a beach, half of it being cliff, and the other half being a bay. The bay is a super surf spot, and I made friends with one of the guys on the Jamaican Olympic surf team. Everyone local out there was really good. I never surfed before, but I rented a board pretty cheap and gave it a shot.

I surfed every other day, (or tried) and did day trips in between. I made friends with some other gap year kids in the hostel rooms, and we went out looking for Reach Falls, a waterfall known to the locals, and to SanSan beach for snorkeling.

Transportation is super cheap. Busses run along the coast, and you cram in for about a buck to anywhere you need to go.

There's a jerk barbecue center just outside Great Huts, so you can get jerk chicken or pork in abundance. A few other mom and pop restaurants, but the whole area was very rural.

I was very impressed. I was more impressed by the kids I hosteled with. One kid was from England and another from Holland, and both were coincidentally ending their year long vacations there after having found it, traveling all over the place and then coming back. I thought that was pretty cool.