Mr and Mrs Sandman go to Port Antonio

[sandman66]

Day 2 started great enjoying coffee on the deck of our room at the Ridgeway guest house. After enjoying the brew we needed to feed, but there wasn't anything real close to the hotel. We wandered down to the road trying to decide where to go. There was a security guard manning the gate at a school next door, and right about the time we asked him about a place to eat, a fellow rode up on a bicycle. Apparently this guy could bring us breakfast, only take about 15 minutes. That sounded good as we were expecting our car rental guy to pick us up in the next 90 minutes or so. We gave him our order and decided to wait on a railing adjacent to the road, watching the traffic roll by. I know its hard to believe, but an hour later theres no sign of our food. Then Sonia from the hotel walks up and tells us our car is going to be here in a few minutes. So we go quickly finish packing and the car rental guy is there just as we finish. I asked Sonia if she had eaten and she replied no. So I gave her the money for our food order and told her enjoy when it finally arrived. We get in the van along with our luggage and drive about 10 minutes down the highway to the rental site. All is good till he asks me for my drivers license. No problem, just need to dig it out of my suitcase, where its in my wallet, along with my 2 debit cards and credit cards. The minutes went by as I searched and searched again, soon I was in panic mode - where the f***k is my wallet??? It absolutely was not in either of my suitcases. Did I leave it in the room? Did it even make it back to the hotel the night before? I couldn't recall putting it the safe the night before or taking it out of my pocket. I felt like I was going to puke walking into the rental office to tell the guy I can't find my wallet. All we could do is go back to the hotel and hope it was there somewhere. The drive seemed to take forever then we finally pulled into the lot. Sonia was in the yard hanging laundry. I told her I might have left my wallet in the room, she replied she had just been in the room, emptied the trash, but never saw it. My heart sank even further but she opened the room so we could have a look. First thing I do is go to the safe, the door wide open. I can see its empty but when I put my hand in and sweep the edge I come out with my wallet in hand. It was standing on edge so you couldn't see it against the side. You think I was relieved?? I gave Sonia a huge hug I was so happy. I asked her if the food had arrived yet, answer was no. I doubt he ever showed. Thankfully that was the lowlight of the day. We got back to the rental place, finished filling out forms and we were on our way. We drove approx. 1 minute to Scotchies, where we enjoyed some delicious jerk pork along with rice and peas.
The drive to Port Antonio went very good.Including stopping for fuel as well as a scotiabank atm and store for drinks, it took 3 1/2 hours from MoBay, and we never got over 90k/hr. It would have been nice to make a few scenery stops but we wanted to get there before dark. Although I had an idea where our hotel was, we didn't exactly drive right up to it. After a couple wrong guesses we approached an older couple walking towards us on the street. I said to my wife, "those people look godly, lets ask them if they know where it is". Well they knew but the directions were pretty vague. After a couple tries at directions, the old guy says they will get in the car and show us. So next thing we have a sweet old couple in the back seat. While driving my wife asks them if there will be a Christmas mass? She said yes, and asked my wife if she was catholic. "Yes, I am"....Well YOUR church is over there, up the hill. I laughed as I thought it was quite amusing (I don't go to church). Soon we were at our hotel. I wanted to give the couple a ride home but they insisted they would walk. That was our first interaction with locals at PA. We checked in, had a shower and decided to do a bit of a walk and find a beer and food.
Will continue tomorrow, time to relax.....

[sandman66]

Merry Christmas from not so sunny today Port Antonio. This morning we were up early, ate breakfast and loaded up the car heading south east, no exact destination in mind. We just wanted to see a new beach, and shortly after passing the turnoff to Frenchmans, we blew by the blue lagoon turnoff, but then saw san san beach. Wasn't sure if we could drive thru the narrow entrance but there was a guy there holding a rake waving us in. Entry fee - 500j each. First thing we noticed was the lack of people, we were the only ones there. It looked OK, but the nicest part of the sandy beach still needed to be raked, he just finished the area close to where we parked. The "caretaker" showed us where there were showers plus where you could get drinks. He also introduced us to the boat tour guy. We basically settled in a nice spot where we could lean up on a grassy ledge, but within about 10 minutes it started to rain, hard enough to chase us into the car. This ended up being a repeating problem for the next hour at least. On one of the dry spells the boat tour dude offered me the opportunity to buy him some rum, he was even willing to ride his bike to go get it lol. A few other people had showed up and left and eventually we decided to leave as well. It looked like it would rain for a while, plus the water didn't look all that inviting, lots of weedy debris. It was an OK place but I don't know if we will return there, wasn't really feeling it there, although if it was sunny and a few more people around it would have been a lot better.
So we left and continued down the road eventually driving by boston jerk centre and boston beach. The sky had cleared a bit and the beach looked inviting so we found a place to turn around and drove back to the entrance to the beach. One of the cook shop guys was first to "greet" us. I learned first there is no entrance fee, and that food and drink is very available right there. We decided to stay awhile, so we grabbed our towels, cooler and some reading material. Before we made it to the beach we were approached by a guy selling an assortment of necklaces. Although that's the last thing either of us needed my wife bought one from him for 5US and we made our way to the sand. This place was a bit busier, probably 15 people there, mostly locals. Theres a trail on one side of the cove that leads to a stairway and platform where if you have bigger balls than me you could jump into the sea. We walked to the platform and took some pics. It was a good place to watch a couple young Jamaicans surfing. Then back to the beach, laid out our towels and chilled. We ended there for a few hours and we would have stayed longer except we had put our name down for the xmas dinner being served at our hotel at 3pm. We had a few vendors come up to offer their wares. One fellow, Ja Tiger, was selling his own cd's. He was carrying a Caribbean travel magazine that had almost a full page picture of him. He had a small cd player with him and he wanted me to listen to some of his music. It was decent, even pretty good. He wanted 1000j but settled for 500, autograph included. We had a good chat with a lifeguard, Joseph. Real nice guy and if we go back (we will) I'm going to let him give me some surf lessons. The waves were pretty big further out from the beach and by time we were getting close to leaving there were quite a few guys surfing, it was a treat to watch. I went into the water for a bit myself, it was Negril 7 mile beach temp, warmer than frenchmans for sure. It actually mostly cleared up once we got to Boston, no more rain (until tonight) Oh ya, we also got some jerk pork and breadfruit from the cook stand. The pork was good but had lots of fat on it, breadfruit isn't my favorite but their tasty and spicy sauce really helped. We never stopped at the official jerk centre but will in the next while. Ja Tiger told us of a live concert right by there on Friday. We might go, hard to say for sure. When I go to such an event I like to smoke and drink a bit, and that means driving impaired, and that is something that will not happen. I don't want to risk getting hurt from something I did wrong, and besides, we have seen a lot of police check stops, although so far we have not been stopped. Today coming back there was a white guy pulled over right at the mockingbird hill entrance, looked like he was getting a sobriety test. Speaking of mockingbird, on the way back we drove up to the restaurant, we are thinking about trying it out after reading all the reviews. Their prices are pretty steep, so we are thinking about it. Don't mind paying the price for good food, but I am wary of places that have serving sizes inversely proportional to the price. Anyone here been there? How is it?
So we came back to hotel, showered. I even put on some slightly dressy PANTS for xmas supper. It was nothing special, only 3 tables with people, we had a choice of fish or goat. So we had escovitch fish with a few fixings, and free sparkling champagne woohhooo. The food at our hotel is decent, but the service has been very good.
After supper we drove to a nearby store and stocked up on rum, beer, snack, ice. Got back to hotel, rolled up, mixed a couple cocomania drinks, and made our made to our private rooftop lounge, where I "was" writing this. Around the time my wife was face timing her family on the cell it started to rain. So back down to the room. Gonna finish our rummies then make a short walk to one of the close bars and have a couple beers. You can hear the reggae clearly from our open window, I want to go find the source.