I’m killing time on Sunday morning before a yoga class while my sister scuba dives, so I thought I’d nix this day’s pre-post and write a real Jamaica post.
When my husband woke me up on Friday morning, half an hour before my sister was due to arrive, I was so exhausted that I almost didn’t care whether I went out of town or not. I’d stayed up until the wee hours finishing work, packing, etc. and got less than three hours of sleep.
Vital stuff I forgot to pack:
- My contact lens case
- Sunglasses
Once we hit the road and had some coffee, I did much better. We flew to Memphis, had a brief layover that allowed time to grab some Starbucks, and then we flew directly to Montego Bay, Jamaica. I meant to sleep during the flight, but that never happened.
When we got through customs and to our resort’s check-in desk at the airport, we quickly realized our reservations were completely goofed up. We’d originally planned to come back on Monday, and apparently when they cancelled and re-booked so that we could stay until Tuesday, the travel agency ended up booking us into the resort in Ocho Rios, not the one in Negril where we wanted to go. We sat patiently for a good 45 minutes waiting for things to get sorted out and eventually we ended up where we had meant to.
We took an hour-and-a-half cab ride to the resort and the cab driver was obsessed with plumbing our knowledge of reggae music. "Do you know this one?" he’d ask, and play yet another unfamiliar reggae song with inappropriate lyrical content. Eventually he got around to Bob Marley and, of course we’d heard those songs. After that, we got a constant stream of American and British pop songs done reggae style. By then the driver had apparently decided we weren’t any fun.
When we got to the resort, we were greeted with chilled, jasmine-scented washcloths and glasses of champagne. That was more like it! Our room was spacious and comfortable (no TV – yay!) and we had a beautiful patio. It’s not right on the beach, but it’s not far away. At night, there’s a chorus of tree frogs chirping and the stars are very visible in the sky.
On Saturday, we started the day with a continental breakfast on the patio, then a little walk on the beach. The wedding was at 1:00 p.m. and I took lots of photos with the bride’s camera. After that, we had cake and champagne, then lunched with the couple and the groom’s family before heading back to our room to prepare for a trip to Rick’s Cafe.
At Rick’s, I was hoping to name-drop my friend, Gary, to the manager, because Gary did a lot of the logo and design work for the club. I never got around to that, though, because we found something much more fun to do.
The club’s main feature is cliff-diving, both by professionals and patrons (at your own risk, of course). There were some low cliffs (I’d say around 12 feet up) and I just jumped off the edge the first time. Even though I was holding my nose, my hand came loose and I got an enormous amount of extremely salty water driven into my sinuses. One ear hurt so much that I kept tapping it to make sure I could still hear. I coughed and snorked for a good 15 minutes before I’d even consider jumping again.
While I recovered, I watched people swing over the water on a rope suspended from a crane. My sister decided to do that and I had to admit that it looked like fun, even though I was a little gun-shy from my previous dip into the water. Finally, she shamed me into going (pointing out all the little kids who had to be lifted onto the rope but still did the drop fearlessly). In fact, she said this post should be titled, "Average Jane Grows a Pair," but I think she misapprehends my hesitation.
I swung off the rope into the water a few times before it started to get dark. Then we went and drank Red Stripe beer, sitting at a table in a shallow pool. I’ll post photos of everything when I get back.
The plans for Sunday and Monday are still pretty open, but will definitely include lots of beach time. So far my sunscreen has done its job, but I’m not going to push my luck.
