The fantastic 30' - 40' West End cliffs of Negril stretch out for 5 miles starting about a mile and a half west of downtown and arcing around south along the ocean-front.
All of this 6 - 7 mile area of western-most Negril is referred to by the locals as the West End or the Real Negril!
Negril's ocean front cliffs and the beautiful resorts, bars and restaurants that run all along them are only accessible via One Love Drive which was formerly known as the West End Road or the Cliffs Road.
Running up this road within the first mile and a half from downtown (before the cliffs actually rise up), there is a line of 3 small public beaches.
These 3 beaches are interspersed with a few of the West End's colorful bars and restaurants such as Mary's Bay Boathouse, Canoe and the Love Boat.
The most well known enterprise in the cliffs is Rick's Cafe which among other things provides its patrons with a wonderful view of Negril's fabulous sunsets.
Rick's Cafe is housed in a beautiful set of hurricane proof stone buildings with a bar, restaurant and swimming pool. It is a world famous club that covers the property all the way up to its cliff where people can do cliff diving.
Photo courtesy of Rocky's Taxi and Tours
Here tourists and locals mix it up nicely as they eat, drink, party and dance together to the unique sounds of live reggae and dance-hall music performed by good local bands.
Some of Rick's bolder patrons will even jump or dive from its cliffs into the gorgeous aquamarine ocean below.
There are even professional local divers here who climb another 20' or so up into a firmly anchored tree to dive 60' down from it just for tips from the patrons. So all in all it's a very unique place and well worth visiting.
However, the West End has a lot more to offer than just Rick's even though so many tourists only go there when they stay at resorts on the 7 - mile beach. For instance, there are over a dozen amazingly designed boutique cliff resorts, each one more unique and beautiful then the next.
And there are many, many, independently owned and operated restaurants, bars and entertainment centers all along One Love Drive where great local food, drinks and music, especially Jamaica's reggae music, are provided.
photo courtesy of negrilonestop.com
Enough cannot be said about the colorfulness and vibrancy of everything that can be found in this part of Negril.
photo courtesy of FG Photos & Videos
When tourists come to Negril's large, all-inclusive, westernized resorts located on its 7 mile beach, they are ferried by their resort's shuttle bus (usually only one day during their stay) to Ricks Cafe and back, just to give them a taste of Negril's supposedly real Jamaican flavor. But in stopping at just Rick's, they miss out on all of the rest of the fun and color of the West End which has kept to its Jamaican heritage and actually is the Real Negril.
So to help the tourists who are staying in any of Negril's all-inclusives or any other beach resorts, to go up and sample some of the rest of the West End's real Jamaican places, a free shuttle bus has now been made available.
This bus called the One Love Drive Free Shuttle and it makes a circuit from the beach to the cliffs and back again every 2 hours. It can also be used by Negril's cliff dwelling tourists or residents to get to and from the 7 - mile beach area.
The Jamaican government inaugurated this free shuttle service primarily to help the smaller West End Cluster of tourist enterprises. This cluster group's desire is to gain more visits from those tourists who reside in the beach resorts on the other side of town that have been drawn to Negril by the big all-inclusive beach resorts' international advertising. With this free shuttle bus it is hoped by the government that the tourists residing in all of the beach resorts will come out of them and use it to come up to the cliffs to sightsee and trade.
One major detriment to the West End that adds to its dearth of tourists is that its portion of One Love Drive has a reputation as being a very hard road for tourists to drive, cycle or even walk upon. Speed-demon route taxis (especially the unlicensed taxis known as "robots") and reckless local motorists running up and down it does not help in any way to allay this negative impression of the West End with Negril's tourists.
Unlike the 7 - mile beach's flat, straight expanse of road with wide shoulders, the West End portion of this road has many serpentine twists and turns all along its 6 or 7 mile length. When it is being frequented by reckless, speeding and even rum-drunk drivers it is very dangerous to all. There have been many fatal accidents on it, a few of which involved Negril's tourists. Many of these have been attributed to excessive alcoholic consumption on the part of drivers and / or the pedestrians who have been hit. So be very careful whenever you're walking on it, especially when you've been drinking. Here's a video to show you just what these roads are like....
Another detriment to the reputation of Negril in general but the West End in particular is that some of its native residents can be scammers and can be a little difficult with lone tourists. Here they can seem to just appear out of nowhere and then disappear away from them more easily than can those who are operating on the other end of town with its straight wide road with nowhere to hide. So it's always best stay in groups of 2 or more when walking about on the West End Road (which is good policy for all travelers everywhere anyways).
This is not to say that the West End is a particularly dangerous area because it's really not. But its poorer elements are not always well mannered towards timid or unwary single tourists as they try to get money from them and they can be difficult to deal with.
The West End is safe enough that many, many long-time repeat visitors have decided to reside on the West End when they are in Negril. They make this decision because it is very economical to stay there and after they become familiar with the locals and are accepted by them as part of the community, they will watch out for them as they traverse this area alone. Here's 2 videos of a lady traversing a part of the cliffs section of One love Drive....
In these videos you will also notice that at various points in the road there are no sidewalks on either side which makes those road sections very dangerous for pedestrians, drunk or sober!
The local scammers who accost tourists as they are sightseeing on the West End of town (and on the 7 - mile beach for that matter), are usually peddling some kind of small goods or services. Please understand that most of these folks are poor and too proud to beg so they do this to eck out a meager living from the tourists.
Unfortunately, many of them use pushy, scam artist tactics which are such a turn off to most tourists. It can be very hard to look past this huge flaw in one of them to see his or her very real need to survive but it's most often lurking there. So if you can be generous to any of them please do so. Over-paying for something or big tipping can be a form of masked charity which allows needy Jamaicans to get some survival money and still maintain their pride.
But one outrageous, often perpetrated scam to watch out for and never allow is when locals very nicely ask you to include them in one of your photos. Then, right after you have taken it, he or she will demand $20 USD! So, in that case or when enough becomes enough with one of them and you want to go on about your business, just give them a firm but polite, "No thank you!". This will usually suffice to set you free from their demands. But when pressed beyond this, a polite but firm, "Do I have to call an officer?" will send them packing.
Remember, all Jamaicans have a very big thing about "respect" so do not be impolite to them when you haggle over price or tell them "No" in order to avoid a row with them over disrespect. Bear in mind that sometimes poor people feel that all they have is their pride, so they will wear it like a badge of honor and defend it at all costs.
This photo contributed by FG Photos & Videos
The West End is the favorite area of many, many of Negril's repeat visitors because of its colorfulness, its relative inexpensiveness and its authentic Jamaican reality.
photo courtesy of negrilonestop.com
Most of the many places on the West End to eat, drink and party are owned and operated by very friendly local Jamaicans that when the tourists get to know them they will befriend them. When the tourists leave they can then stay in touch with each other on negril.com's message board or by e-mail.
Without big budgets for international TV and Radio advertising or fancy banner ad websites these small enterprises, no matter how nice and colorful they are, must rely entirely upon their happy repeat customers and their word of mouth referrals to friends and others in order to stay in business.
The major reason that I am writing this blog and that my partner and I are continuing to develop the free Negril Jamaica Vidia is to try to help these small Negril businesses to get a little bigger piece of the tourist pie without having to spend any money with us on their advertising.
Next time you're in Negril why not consider staying in one of the West End's beautiful boutique cliff resorts or at least visiting some of its bars, restaurants, clubs and shops a couple of times?
photo courtesy of Onestop Vacations
If you have not yet done this, please do so on your next trip because you will discover a whole new flavor to Negril that you are certain to really like and you will be helping some good little people who need your help!
