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I just love all the the old stories, memories and picture from years past as do many of you do.
I posted back on the old board my first trip title Back to memory lane 1975.
For everyone that saw Negril back in the day you know it and those that did not but wish you had you may get, a little of the feeling that I got back in the day san still have after all that has changed it is still Negril and that lives on.
http://www.negril.com/discus/message...41/214398.html
Attachment 25735
Here is the lighthouse in the proper size.
Attachment 25736
Here is a copy and paste of your original story in case someone wants to respond as the original post is closed.
Regards,
Bob
April 19, 2009
I was not ready for the real life trip in paradise.
The four of us made the 20 plus hour straight through drive to Miami after work in Jan of 75. We check in to a motel near the airport before or flight the next day. All is well made the trip so far OK did not run out of gas in the tank or head, reminber the gas embargo and speed. Well in the middle of the nigh the the motel shook like an eathquake, it was MPD busting into the rooms on each side of ours in a raid, needless to say we were like cats on a hot tin roof for the next few hours.
We made through the nigh and got our flight to MoBay and wanted to rent a car becuase our friend who had just came back said that was what they did. We go to the first rental counter a ask for a car and are told all out, so we go to the next and next and next all out. Now we don't know what to do we do not have a place to stay in Negril or know of any and now we can not even get there.
Thank to a ambitious soul named Don who followed us from counter to counter, came over and said he could get us a car for $30US we said great. For the next two of three hours he flaged or chased down every car the pulled in to the airport until he can in and siad I have you a car, a yellow English ford with large print on the dash board keep right and blow horn often, we a set but now it is late afternoon. Don said that he know of a good motel just out side of Mobay that we could get a room for the night great he drives use off the main road and up a lane in to the hills over looking the city and we see this small white stucco two story motel with about 10 or 20 rooms, very clean nice but nobody eles there. We are worn out and still have not enjoyed and of what we came for. So Don said he can take care of that so we GIVE him the car to go and get our supplies.
After about two hours and about dusk Don is still not back and we are in a panic now and out of the nowhere a large Jamaican man said's you should not let any one have your car, this is when we find out that they do not know him either, now we are scared.
Wo to the one with little faith here comes our little yellow car and Don with the supplies, the vatation begins.
The ownes invite us to have diner and we all eat and I drive Don back down the lane to was he needed to go, and on the way back up the lane in the hills I almost force a car over the side of the hill because I am on the wrong side of the road a cussing at the fool that wants me to move over, then I read the dash board and we get past each other and we get back to the motel with out any harm.
The owner ask us if we would like to see a beautiful veiw of the harbor and followed him up a path to the top of the hill and sat down and he lit up for use a rum cured and rolled in a thin corn warper a joint that made you see colors for a few hours.
The next morning we are off to Negril rested and knowing things can,t be anymore challenging then the last two days. We need to go to a bank on the way to cash traveler checks, so stop at a bank on the edge of Mobay and the way and go in and see the gaurd leaning on the counte in his uniform and gun barel stick out of the botom of his holster about 4 or 5 inches and the handle looks like it had been used more to drive nails of mash bug then shoot bullets and he was enjoying a RED STRIPE in a paper bag, I thought we must be near heaven. Cash our checks grabed the cash a away we go.
What a beautiful drive for the first time, it was breath taking, and could not beleave the people coming out of everywhere with everything Jamaican to sell.
We see White Sands Inn and the Negril Beach Motel and up Lighthouse Rd. we go by the Yacht Club where one of our freinds had stay but the others stayed in a cottage up near the lighthouse and that is where we were headed.
What a bad road broken rocks and hole and not very wide in places and not much to see but we keep going. Then we saw a board sign with the hand painted Rooms and Cottage For Let.
We stop and rented the fist place we saw. It was Georgi's cottage but Daisy and Franklin looked after it, she was her sister I think, I was small sit just off the road and across from Tensing Pin which was not in the price range.
we gave Daisy $72 US for 9 night and moved in, and with that she got us a tea can of ganga and said keep it outside to be safe.
The next morning we are sitting on the small front porch and a young guy our age named Gladstone stops by and talked and he lives on the other side of Franklin and Daisy and his family sold OJ in the mornings and he would hang out and we talk everytime we saw him and become friends I thought. Daisy had told use the same thing that the owner at the motel said be very careful, but everyone was so nice what was there to be careful of.
A few days later I wake up and go to put my shorts on the I took the night before and they were gone, I look out the window which was just an openning with a shuttler to close if it rain, and I see them in the yard, but all my money is gone, great life in paradis with no money. I see Dasiy and tell her and she gives me all of the $72 back for the cottage and lets us stay for the week, what a blessing she was for us.
Well this is all Johns friend could take, first the bed were more like a 3ft. x 6 ft.wicker coffee table then a bed with 1 sheet, no hot water no eletricty and now a robber,she uses her money and they go across the street to Tensing Pin and get a cottage, now we could shower with hot water in the afternoon after the water in pipe got hot.
The next day we go to drive to the beach and we are backing up and we can not stop the car, the clutch cable broke now the car is just a yard fixture, and we are walking and have to get to Savlamar for a new cable which John dose and now we can get it back to the airport, then we see two of the tires have large bulges on the side wall and only one spare tire, so we do not drive the car until we go to airport with the extra miles have bulges in all tires and were glade to get it back and turned in.
With all of this I loved Jamaica and not only did we bring a lot of memory back but we all had big case of the crabs to boot.
Dose any one remember the little shack at the roundabout call Mary's she use to stand and cook fish sandwhichs or fried chicken or the little old lady that has just a one burner cooker and sat under a shade tree at the roundabout below the new constuction condo on the hill and cooked just bananna friters that were to die for. I would not walked to town without having a few.
One other thing I learned was that a cold beer was one that was keep close to a block of ice and a cool beer was one keep in the shade and there was no such thing as a hot beer.
Sorry no pictures from this trip but will be back with the ones from 1980.
Thanks rjonsun, computer and I are not on the same wave link, its an expensive typewriter with more few bells and whistles I don't use much.