Welcome to Bhartopia! - a vegan music and arts community, guest house, retreat center and organic fruit and vegetable farm in Jamaica
Bhartopia! is a brave new experiment in creating a vegan music and arts community, guest house, retreat center, retirement village and organic fruit and Vegetable farm in harmony with the environment. It is located behind the north coast of Jamaica, in the mountains overlooking the Caribbean Sea and the night lights of Boscobel, Orocabessa and Port Maria - 1.75 acres of tropical paradise, half of it a well-established fruit orchard set in a natural amphitheatre - perfect for concerts and theatre performances - with banana, plantain, lychee, coconut, orange, sweet potato, ackee, ganja and neeseberry (Jamaican chikkhu), avocado, mango, breadfruit, guava, papaya, coffee and many varieties of vegetables. The other half is mostly cleared, mostly level land with many potential building sites and an ocean view, 25 minutes from the sea at Port Maria, 30 minutes from the new Ian Fleming International Airport at Boscobel, 40 minutes from the tourist hotspot of Ocho Rios and 2 hours from Montego Bay and Kingston. It is a silent place - apart from the occasional passing car, there are just the sounds of birds, crickets and cool ocean breezes rustling the leaves in the trees - my idea of heaven!
There is currently very little infrastructure on the land. Accommodation will initially be in stylish tents - if camping is not your thing, there are a number of cool, comfortable and affordable rooms available in a funky half-built hotel across the road. Housing will be built from found materials on the land - earth, rock, wood and palm fronds, plus recycled materials and bamboo. Adjacent to the property are several surprisingly affordable quarter-acre blocks on their own title, available for sale to friends who share an interest in this project. Anyone who would like to join me on this adventure for a day, a week or a lifetime is most welcome - you don’t need to be a vegan to visit and participate, just having an interest in living a compassionate, caring and celebratory lifestyle is enough - but I do ask that all visitors respect the intent of the community by not consuming animal products on the land - enjoy!
'Why Jamaica?' I hear you ask. It is a small island with great natural beauty, a rich and vibrant culture and fantastic weather (if you like hot with cool breezes), the people are mostly very laid-back and friendly, there are a surprising number of micro-climates, the ocean temperature is perfect, food grows quickly and abundantly, there are NO poisonous snakes or spiders, and in February this year cannabis was decriminalised and the groundwork laid for Jamaica to become the world’s leading medical marijuana tourism destination. There is a downside - Jamaica is very reminiscent of India, particularly Goa, in many ways - apart from the natural beauty there is massive wealth and poverty, with an incredible disparity between rich and poor, bribery and corruption, theft, violence - much like anywhere else in the world really! It is one of the most homophobic countries in the world, but the current Prime Minster is attempting to give LGBT people marriage rights. Christianity is deeply embedded in the Jamaican consciousness - the up side of that is that they all sing like angels!
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