What's happening in Montego Bay this week?

The cruise schedule at the Freeport pier, about 3 km west of the Hip Strip, shapes a Montego Bay week more than anything else. On a ship day, taxis and hustlers line Gloucester Avenue from about 9am, and the sand at Doctor's Cave Beach is crowded by 11am. With no ship in port, the same strip goes quiet enough that you can hear waves slap the seawall opposite Margaritaville. The Port Authority of Jamaica publishes ship calls, so check it the night before and put the beach on a morning when nothing is docked. On a ship morning, head 15 km east to the Rose Hall Great House instead.

Saturday is the loudest day downtown. From 7am the Charles Gordon Market fills with higglers selling ackee, breadfruit and Scotch bonnet peppers, and by 10am Sam Sharpe Square smells of saltfish and bus diesel. Sunday runs the other way: most downtown shops close, hymns carry out of the Most Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, and families sit down to rice and peas with oxtail or curry goat. Jerk is on every day of the week, and both the Pork Pit on Gloucester Avenue and Scotchies on the North Coast Highway at Ironshore cook over pimento wood, so you'll smell the sweet smoke before you see either sign. A quarter-pound of jerk pork with festival and a cold Red Stripe usually comes to JMD 2,000 to 2,500, which at 159.2 JMD to the US dollar works out to roughly US$13 to US$16.

Friday is the big night out. Pier One on Howard Cooke Boulevard has long held its Friday party on the waterfront, and bars along the Hip Strip stay loud until about 2am. Montego Bay scores 3.2/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), so after dark, stay on the lit stretch of Gloucester Avenue and take a licensed JUTA or JCAL taxi with red PPV plates between venues. Downtown empties after 6pm, and first-timers should not walk the streets around the market at night. Agree the fare in US dollars or JMD before the door shuts, because Montego Bay taxis do not run meters.

The wet season sets the daily rhythm in Montego Bay, with mornings arriving hot and still before a short, heavy shower builds over the hills behind the town most afternoons. Jamaica sits in the Atlantic hurricane belt, and that season runs six months of the year. The latest overnight reading was 24.3°C with 89% humidity, feeling like 28.9°C. We'd book rafting on the Martha Brae, 40 km east near Falmouth, or any snorkel trip for before 1pm. A packable rain jacket earns its space this week. The 4pm downpours rarely last more than 30 minutes, and the Hip Strip bars stay open right through them.