Gotta love Niah. I had a hard time shaking him in Dec. :p
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Gotta love Niah. I had a hard time shaking him in Dec. :p
Kahuna3 - fantastic pictures , very entertaining and unfortunately, sadly eye opening read. I very much look forward to further revels and plan to search out your books before our trip. If you happen to still be at White Sands when we arrive first week of March it would be my pleasure to buy you a Red Stripe.
I'm a newb to this board, one of those TA aholic's that stumbled onto this board in anticipation of our first visit to Negril. We spent 7 days at the Holiday Inn MoBaj on our honeymoon in '92. After a trip to Mexico, several to Barbados, Jamaica came back onto the radar when we could get a good deal from WJ on flights. To each their own, but we don't do all-inclusives. We rent an apartment, a car and explore a bit. We look for a great beach with no rocks in the water and decent snorkelling close by as home base and go from there. 7 Mile Beach and Negril's amazing sunsets became the destination. Based on location, budget, TA reviews etc a 1BR @ White Sands checked all the boxes.
Being somewhat more enlightened now, certainly gonna bring one of those portable alarms you affix to the door to alert us to it being opened in the night. Sad... I honestly don't know what to think about having 2 teenagers (m16 and f14) in tow. They aren't naive but certainly aren`t partiers -yet anyway :p Yikes... We do look forward to the beach, cliffs, sunsets, scenery, meeting locals and the glorious food. 16 sleeps. Negril here we come. 3/4 steam ahead :cool:
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I also bought portable alarms...I think the noise will suffice if the door is opened..its just going to give me some peace of mind..so I can thoroughly enjoy this awesome Negril vacation!! I had bought one for my daughter once when she lived in a not so great part of town..so it occured to me why not the trip!!...Have a great trip!
Unfortunately the "pants down boys" are quite common in the US as well. Some of them have the nerve to look at me as if I'm potential prey in my own hometown. Uuumm, yeah, I look them right in the eye with a "bring it" attitude and they scurry off like the young pups they are. LOL, I don't think any of them would ever get over the shame of being taken down by a woman in front of their little friends....
We can only try to set a positive example and hope they grow to be productive people.
A Taxi Ride from Town
.. . . .. help . … . . helllp . . . . I’m stuck way down here in a deep groove.
This morning is cloudless and the sea is as flat as a pane of glass.
I didn’t even turn on my computer yesterday. So little to do – so much to do.
Three more crew have shown up, but over the next two days three will leave.
Yesterday morning I walked into town along the road to Shamrock then the rest of the way along the sidewalk. I loaded up on produce and cash and got my phone issues sorted out at Digicell. I walked over to the Cambio parking lot and spotted a route taxi with a ‘Negril-Lucea’ sign on the door. There was a woman sitting in the back. I got in the front. We took off. When we got to the roundabout instead of heading down the beach road, the guy went around it and exited on the Sav road. I said, “I thought you were going out the beach road.”
“Yah, mon,” he replied, “me jus’ ‘ave to drop dis lady dere.” He pointed vaguely ahead.
He went up to Winner’s Plaza and turned in. The lady in the back got out, two more ladies got in. We headed back towards the circle. Approaching the circle the driver’s cell, which was in the open ashtray, went off. He picked it up and started talking. We entered the traffic circle. Again, we passed the beach road, went around the circle and exited on the Sav road. The driver put his cell back in the ashtray. “Me ‘ave to pick up a lady,” he announced. This time he pulled into White Swan plaza, not so far. He jockeyed the cab around the cars, people and bikes in the parking lot and got us parked facing back towards town. We waited for the lady.
I saw two pretty, young, tall, slim Jamaican women approaching the cab from ahead. They were wearing tight clothing with cleavage revealing tops. The girls were very slim, but there was a lot of jiggle and bounce going on. (They were coming straight into my field of view, so don’t start snickering about ‘dirty old man’ – I wasn’t going to cover my eyes). The driver noticed them approaching, saw me watching them and made a comment something like, “you like de young women?” I shrugged. One of the women in the back laughed.
When the girls got to the front bumper I recognized one of them. It was Jody, the bar-girl at the Cozy Bar. Bea and I had spoken to her often when we visited the bar or passed by. She always sat out front when she didn’t have customers. She recognized me at about the same moment. She smiled, stopped at the window and bent over. “Hey, mon,” she said. She put her hand in the window and I took it. “I’ll come up and see you,” I said. “Okay,” she said, and walked on.
The two women in the back laughed and twittered. The driver laughed, put up his fist and said, “Respect, mon!”
Shortly after, the woman we’d been waiting for showed up and jumped in the back. We took off, went around the circle for the third time and headed out the beach road. The Jody encounter had given me cred with the taxi driver so he’d started a conversation and was talking about dis-an-dat.
We were approaching the traffic-light crossing that was recently erected at the Grand Pineapple. I looked ahead and saw that the light was red. The crossing guard was there with his STOP sign in his hand, raised to the oncoming traffic. The driver never slowed down at all, he just blew right on through the red light.
Bounty Killer is coming to Negril Feb 19th. I am definitely going to that concert.
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Ahhh, so nice to have you back in Negril!! Looking forward to the next installment.....:)
Kahuna...Yamon' Thanks for all the great reports. I've read "Walk Good" 5 or 6 times, now digging into "Sunset Negril" OMG! Just got thru the part where Randy freaked out at the Horny Goat! Wife and I will be in Negril next week. Hopefully run into ya?? Respect, RnRFarmer
I saw that guy on the beach today...he was walking with a purpose and even though I was wearing sunglasses, was in my tent, and had my big hat on...I felt like he was staring right through me...I said to my girlfriend that I figure he was a "stud" for hire and I guess I was right.. Saw him jogging the other day too so maybe business is slow..I am quite surprised at all the older tourist women I see with going island men...when I'm in PV you see older men with younger Spanish men but here it seems business is good for those that like to lie down while they work :p
Not sure but I think I am missing Negril already, although I have been at work all day today and Friday!
POWER STRAP!
I don’t usually talk about food, but here’s an exception. There’s a new hot dog stand on the beach in front of Sunquest Cottages. For 3 bucks you get a genuine foot-long dog in a semi-toasted bun with your choice of topping. I get mine with sauerkraut and French’s mustard. So good! I’ve had three in the last three days. They also have brats. Check em out.
Last night when we were hanging around Sunnyside we ran into a vendor who is new to the beach scene. He introduced himself as, “POWER STRAP!” He’s an older gentleman and not threatening at all. He gives off a friendly, no hassles vibe. He has a deep resonating voice which he uses to good affect when marketing his wares. He sells bracelets that he fashions out of brown coral. He claims that he offers a “Five year guarantee!” on all items.
POWER STRAP! was sipping soy milk from a bottle when he approached us. I suggested that a shot of rum would go well with the soy. I was only half joking. POWER STRAP! agreed with me and got Odeon to draw him a shot of JB which he carefully poured into the soy bottle.
He put his bag down and settled into his sales pitch. He also immediately began hitting on the girls in our crew. He was especially attracted to one of them, and had his arms around her shoulders and was putting one bracelet after another on her wrist so he could be close to her and caress her forearms. I still had the feeling that he was totally harmless, but I could see that she was getting a little uncomfortable with all the attention that he was lathering on her so I leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Power Strap, I just want to let you know that she’s my dawtah,” I said. Which would mean that I’d fathered her when I was in high school, so it was technically possible.
POWER STRAP! reacted by drawing away from her immediately. He looked at me, looked at her, nodded his head and said, “OK. But doan worry, me gonna look after her. Me a good-mon.” Then he pointed at JT, who was sitting at the other end of the bar. “Him a good-bad mon, me a bad-good mon.” Johnny looked over, nodded, smiled a wicked little smile and waved.
“Which is better?” I asked Power Strap, “a bad-good mon or a good-bad mon?”
(Such are the conversations one has after sunset and several rums on the beach in Negril.)
POWER STRAP! looked at me. “A bad-good mon is bettah!” he announced in his deep resonating voice. (Now that I think of it, his voice sounds a lot like Shaggy’s singing voice) “Because, me stawt bad an’ me finish good!” He looked over at JT. “Him stawt good an’ him finish bad, so me bettah dan him, cau me finish good!” Again, JT looked over, nodded, and smiled.
“How many kids do you have, Power Strap?” one of the girls asked.
“Me ‘ave twenty-tree!” he proclaimed proudly.
Everybody gasped.
“Yah mon, all of dem girls!” POWER STRAP! added. (Think of how Shaggy would say this). “But me would like to ‘ave a likkle bwoy.”
“What are their ages?” I asked.
“De oldest is tirty-seven, de youngest tirty.”
Most of our crew, still rendered speechless, were looking at POWER STRAP! in awe. If his claim of twenty-three children was truthful, we were in the presence of a man with biblical procreative capabilities. Twenty-three kids in a seven year span. Wow!
“How many baby-mommas?” I asked.
“Nineteen baby-momma.” It was abundantly evident that POWER STRAP! had been a busy young man, back in the day.
“Your children are very close in age,” one of the girls said.
“Yah mon. One week me ‘ave seven babies!”
With this statement I started to laugh so hard that I fell off the bar-bench.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a very strong suspicion that Negril is an elaborately staged street theater. Something like a modern-day ‘Truman Show’. How else can encounters like the one we had with POWER STRAP! be explained?
We left Sunnyside and walked along the beach under a glorious full moon. It was another perfect night in Negril, surrounded by really good friends.
I’m blessed.
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POWER STRAP!
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