Trip Report - Bringing family and friends to Jamaica!

[Kiknback]

Wednesday, and more of our friends head back home. Hurting a bit from the late night the previous night. A few Advil, and things get better. Which is a good thing, since it is Wednesday, and you know what that means: Drunk Bus!!!!!!!! Yeah, definitely had to do that one again. Just a great time, meeting new people, seeing new places. The bus is getting crowded, not sure what is going to happen in high season. Completely full the first week, and several people sitting on laps the second. But absolutely worth it. The driver mentioned possibly expanding to more days, which seems like a great idea to me. A bigger bus might just overwhelm some places, but this is a Negril must-do.

Had an interesting experience the next day with a route taxi. I have definitely come to appreciate the route taxi. Great way of getting around for a little more than a buck. However, it is often a little more, um, interesting than I would like. I'm still not sure what to make of this one. Heading back to the beach from the roundabout, I get into the passenger's seat of a route taxi. The driver had apparently just bought some patties, which he was to deliver to a friend. In the backseat was a young child, about 5 years old. The child starts reaching to grab the patty's, and the driver says no. The next thing I know, this kid is leaning between the two front seats, and starts beating this poor driver! Just punching him, repeatedly, right in the face. Hard! He's only about 5 years old, but you can tell the sound of a punch connecting. This HAD to hurt! All the driver would do would say "You are a rude boy. I am going to call the police on you." Meanwhile, we're driving down the road and the driver is getting the crap beaten out of him by this child. I didn't know what the hell to do! If I was the driver, I would've throttled the kid. But if the driver won't do anything, should I? Is it my place to do anything? In the end, I just kinda sat there like an idiot as my driver got beat up. After a bit, he pulled over and dropped off his patties, presumably to the child's dad. He picked up the patties from the driver and briefly calmed the kid down. We continued on our way, and as I was being dropped off at White Sands the punches were starting again. Saw the driver later in the trip, and he says that the kid does that often. And yes, it hurt. I don't get it. But you never know what you will get with a route taxi.

Thursday night, more of the same. Stay local and head to Sun Beach. See Andrew, a crazy friend that always seems to be at the same bar seat there, and always willing to gamble for a beer. A fun competition, reminiscent of the old paper football games we played as a kid. Line up on opposite sides of the bar with a full red stripe. The goal is to slide the beer to the opposite side and leave it balancing on the edge. Winner gets the beer, loser buys. I think we ended up about even for the trip, but we had several grudge matches. I wish that every time I order a beer it could be that much fun. We saw another couple that we had met on the drunk bus, and suggest moving on to white sands to continue the party. Unfortunately, they had closed, so across the street to Best in the West for a few more. Thursday night is The Jungle, which has never interested me in the least. When Best in the West starts winding down, we decide to revive a tradition from previous trips. The late night drunken swim! Its been a while, but it is always SO nice to go for a late night swim. I was a bit more paranoid this trip, since I had seen Stingrays on the beach all week. Shuffled my feet on the way out to avoid any creatures, it was wonderful in the water. Have to remember to do this more often.

Two days left, and all of our friends have gone home. Time to start saying our goodbyes to all our Negril friends. People like Norman the Patty guy, who we had the pleasure to get to know this trip. We saw him on our Mayfield Falls trip, where on his day off he worked as a taxi driver for a young couple visiting the falls. Even though he was there for another group, he was wonderful helping out my family heading to the falls. Great to talk with him there and on his rounds every afternoon on the beach. Had to visit with Paul the Shell guy, who I had met earlier on the trip. He sets up at the very end of the beach, past Cosmos. I had stopped to rest there while walking the beach one day, and had a wonderful time just chatting with a really nice and honest guy. Lunch at Red Dragon to say goodbye to Gordo and the crew there. That evening we do our "goodbye to the beach" bar crawl, hitting a few of the places close to us on the beach. Say goodbye to our friend Tee, a local we had met several trips before. A beautiful person inside and out. We had planned to make it to Alfred's that night, but by 10:00 I simply could not keep my eyes open.

Saturday, last day in Negril. Soak up as much beach time as possible. That evening starts with a visit to Connie/Dawn at 10 square feet. We are going to Seastar later, with the buffet, but on my last night I need one more taste of my favorite Jerk chicken, Tayon's. Delicious as always. By the time we arrived at Seastar, it was after 9:00, so they gave us the option of passing on the buffet and only paying 500J cover. Perfect! And again, not sure why they don't publicize this option at all. Seastar is wonderful as always, great band, great time. For our last night, however, I am looking to go out with a bang. Earlier in the trip we saw a flyer for an event that night at "Glitter" night club, in Little London, about halfway to Sav la Mar. On our final night in Jamaica, they were having a pool party, with prizes given away. Among the prizes were 5000J for the "stiffest breast" and $100US for "Fattest Pu**y." Anyway, I was curious, at least as far as how the judging works - strictly scientific, of course. I figured the party would be getting going at right about the same time as Seastar starts to wrap up, and a great story for the end of the trip. I managed to move my wife's opinion from "absolutely not" to "maybe, if another couple is going." Unfortunately, low season, I was unable to find anyone else willing to go with us. In addition, we had not planned transportation in advance, and when I discussed the possibility of going there with a few drivers outside of Seastar, no one seemed remotely worthy of putting my trust in to get us there and back safely. Oh well. Again, thank you to my wonderful wife for being a good sport and actually considering it, but probably a good thing we didn't go. We head back close to home, stopping at the 24 hour place next to xxx for a few more drinks. It's definitely late at this point, so we pick up a quarter chicken from a roadside grill and head on home to bed.

A final morning swim, and then off to the airport and back to the real world. Another wonderful Jamaican trip. Great to see friends, new and old. The plan to invite friends and family was definitely a good one, and most likely will become a tradition. Can't wait until we make it back.


Holy Mackeral!

[BCBud]

GREAT trip report! Thx for posting.