Dear Editor,
The website of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) beautifully boasts of Jamaica and beckons visitors looking for a challenging hike and a memorable experience to get their hiking boots on and head for the Blue Mountain Peak; "both thrilling and scenic, there is no other trail quite like it on the entire island".
The pictures on the JTB's site are awesome and show the magnificence of the mountain range. Their target audience consists of visitors and locals looking for true adventure. It promises that there's little more memorable and beautiful than hiking the Blue Mountain and says staff would make arrangements to pick up hikers from Kingston or Mavis Bank. This leads me to the road from Mavis Bank in St Andrew towards the Blue Mountain Peak in St Thomas.
St Andrew and St Thomas share a river border between Mavis Bank and Hagley Gap. Years of decline and decay have left a broken, rusty, rotted bridge and a fording impassable when it rains heavily. For many decades, with different governments, the pleas of constituents have been falling on deaf ears. Politicians get mad when we approach them about how we feel forgotten and dissed. They get irate when we draw attention to the lack of infrastructure and are more livid when we write to the newspapers and bare our souls.
The stark contrast between the photographs on the JTB's website and the photographs of the main road, fording and rotted horse-buggy bridge at the border of these two parishes suggests one reality for tourists and one reality for the residents of our poor community -- neglect.
Eco-tourists may be drawn to the quaint, rugged and unspoilt trails for their hike. That is good news, and we should promote those areas of undisturbed, natural beauty, but the residents are people too. They need roads to transport the sick, schoolchildren, market produce, and simply to go about their business.
During bad weather, should we not be able to go to work and school, like the rest of Jamaica, or should we just accept our reality of not being able to cross it?
Sandra M Taylor Wiggan
sandra_wiggan@yahoo.co.uk
Bridge 1 and bridge 2 (inset ONE)
The result of nelgect. Without a bridge, the area is impassable when it rains. (PHOTOS: WINSTON TAYLOR)
Soon JTB will have nothing to promote
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The website of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) beautifully boasts of Jamaica and beckons visitors looking for a challenging hike and a memorable experience to get their hiking boots on and head for the Blue Mountain Peak; "both thrilling and scenic, there is no other trail quite like it on the entire island".
The pictures on the JTB's site are awesome and show the magnificence of the mountain range. Their target audience consists of visitors and locals looking for true adventure. It promises that there's little more memorable and beautiful than hiking the Blue Mountain and says staff would make arrangements to pick up hikers from Kingston or Mavis Bank. This leads me to the road from Mavis Bank in St Andrew towards the Blue Mountain Peak in St Thomas.
St Andrew and St Thomas share a river border between Mavis Bank and Hagley Gap. Years of decline and decay have left a broken, rusty, rotted bridge and a fording impassable when it rains heavily. For many decades, with different governments, the pleas of constituents have been falling on deaf ears. Politicians get mad when we approach them about how we feel forgotten and dissed. They get irate when we draw attention to the lack of infrastructure and are more livid when we write to the newspapers and bare our souls.
The stark contrast between the photographs on the JTB's website and the photographs of the main road, fording and rotted horse-buggy bridge at the border of these two parishes suggests one reality for tourists and one reality for the residents of our poor community -- neglect.
Eco-tourists may be drawn to the quaint, rugged and unspoilt trails for their hike. That is good news, and we should promote those areas of undisturbed, natural beauty, but the residents are people too. They need roads to transport the sick, schoolchildren, market produce, and simply to go about their business.
During bad weather, should we not be able to go to work and school, like the rest of Jamaica, or should we just accept our reality of not being able to cross it?
Sandra M Taylor Wiggan
sandra_wiggan@yahoo.co.uk
Bridge 1 and bridge 2 (inset ONE)
The result of nelgect. Without a bridge, the area is impassable when it rains. (PHOTOS: WINSTON TAYLOR)
Soon JTB will have nothing to promote
-->