Expedition 206 visits JA
AFTER travelling 138 countries, the Coca-Cola Expedition 206 crew arrived in Kingston last Tuesday evening making Jamaica their 139th stop. What is described as the most ambitious travel adventure in history, began on January 1 and the adventurers will seek to visit the 206 countries where Coca-Cola is distributed; covering 150,000 miles in 365 days.
The group of three: Tony Martin (29), Kelly Ferris (23) and Antonio Santiago (24) were chosen after a worldwide vote, to tour the globe in efforts to find out what makes people happy and share their happiness and enthusiasm with the rest of the world.
On arrival at the Normal Manley International Airport, the Happiness Ambassadors posted on their Twitter page, “just arrived in Jamaica. Happiness here? Music is huge. It’s also the home of jerk chicken”.
By the time TEENage met up with the ambassadors, the three were already beaming with elation. Martin who now lives in Germany exclaimed, “there is no greater feeling than being in the same country where my idol Bob Marley was born and being beside his statue was even more amazing.”
In their very short stay, the team visited the Bob Marley Statue, had dinner at Jamaica’s jerk hot spot Scotchies, before experiencing the production of reggae and dancehall music at the legendary King Jammies studio with dancehall artiste Wayne Marshall and producer Baby G, then it was onwards to Blitz Tuesdays at Mango Ranch.
When the tour ends on December 31 2010, the ambassadors would have visited the biggest and smallest cities, as well as attended the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa, the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010 in Canada and the World Expo in Shanghai, China.
From Aruba to Zimbabwe, if these three young people follow their itinerary, then they would have set a new world record for the most countries visited in a year.
The happiness ambassadors have documented all their travel experiences so far for fans to follow and share in the Expedition 206 experience. The footage can be seen on the headquarters website www.expedition206.com, as well as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube.
— Chieftin Campbell
