Not exactly a truth serum but, if you want to get someone talking, a cup or two of freshly brewed Blue Mountain Coffee is certain to get the ball rolling. Within an hour over breakfast we all knew more about each other that any of us really wanted. Peter asked about our plans for the next six days and we said we were open to suggestions. Peter said, “Take your showers now as the water is on and meet me in the living room in about an hour, okay?” Sounded good so I nodded to my wife to go first. I really wanted to wait a little as I was a little fearful of the cold-water shower to come.
About an hour later, we walked into Peter’s living room where he had a projector white screen set up with a carousel Kodak projector. There were a couple of throw pillows on the floor and no chair or sofa, so we made ourselves comfortable and waited for the show to begin. We whispered some small talk while waiting when my wife asked about Peter and the nudity thing. “Do you think he will be wearing any clothes?” to which I said that except for when we first met, he has been wearing a pair of shorts at least all the time including breakfast this morning. “True”, as Peter entered the room clad in a new pair of shorts.
He asked us if we wanted a drink. One dollar each, of course, but we begged off saying it was too early and we rarely drank anyways. He continued. “I am going to show you some pictures of places where you can go and stay around the island. We all work together so I can set up any reservations you might want.” He asked, “Are there any places in particular you might want to visit?” I told him maybe Negril as I had read a little about it and then I told him about how we got here by the throwing of the dart and Galina Point, St. Mary. “I know just the place for you.” He began showing us the pictures.
I have to say that Peter was an exceptionally talented photographer. His shots were beautiful with one added feature. Almost every picture had a naked woman super-imposed or posed on it somewhere and this is before photoshop, so I really did not understand how he did that, but I liked the added touch. After nearly 50 slides, we narrowed down our trip to two stays: Sealawn Coral Beach, Port Maria and Secrets Cabin at Firefly in Negril. Peter explained that although Jamaica was not that large, the transportation was by country bus and they were hit and miss and sometimes did not come by at all on a particular day plus it was not good to travel on a Sunday.
We decided to stay here another night and go see something around Kingston. Stay the 14th and 15th at Sealawn Coral Beach and the 16th and 17th at Secrets Cabin and travel all day on the 18th back to Kingston to catch an afternoon plane to our last week’s stay in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Peter pulled out his pre-printed Sense Adventures invoice sheet and started writing down our choices and totaling up the associated costs of the trip. The total came to a little over $100 US for the four nights we would be staying after leaving here. He explained that we were to pay him, and he would give us a receipt to take to the two places and he would pay them next week when he was visiting them.
My wife and I exchanged a “Do we look like country bumpkins?” look. “Give us a little time to make a final decision, okay?” Peter smiled, nodded, and left the room. We talked it over and evaluated the prices and the payment method finally settling on the “I know where you live!” scenario if things went wrong.
I called him back in and counted out the money.
